guano – GEORGE ROTHERT

It’s Easy Being ODOT Green

“My best poem, a prayer in steel.” – David Steinman on the St. Johns Bridge

It’s easy being green… if you’re a bridge.

I was surprised the first time I saw the Golden Gate Bridge; surprised because I was expecting it to be painted gold. Some patient person explained to me that the bridge was so named because it spanned the Golden Gate between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.

It’s Not Easy Being Salmon

The acidic cormorant poop threatens to mess up a $75 million paint job that drivers across Washington and Oregon are paying for through gas taxes.

For salmon, if it’s not one thing it’s another.

In the Klamath River Basin straddling the Oregon-California border, salmon compete with onion, potato and wheat farmers for the ever-scarcer water. Dams on the river have also contributed to the decrease in the salmon population. Further north, sea lions from California(!) travel all the way up to the Columbia River to feast on the salmon returning to their spawning grounds. That’s if a few years earlier they escaped predation by cormorants as they made their way from the river to the salt water of the Pacific.

(Fun Fact: The name “cormorant” is a contraction of the Latin words corvus and marinus which taken together mean “sea raven.”)