Fixing the cormorant disaster on the Columbia: 'How could this have come out any worse?'

White streaks of bird waste paint the steel trusses beneath the Astoria-Megler Bridge over the Columbia River. Every flat surface and hidey-hole of this bridge is stuffed and stippled with nests. Black birds roost on the girders, evenly spaced as beads on a string, then take wing: double-crested cormorants.