Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
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OLYMPIA (March 8) --The fate of the state’s fish farming industry is in jeopardy following the Legislature’s passage of a bill that would prohibit new, renewed or extended leases on marine net pen farms that raise “nonnative” fish. The legislation passed the Senate on March 2 and is headed to Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk, where it awaits his signature before becoming law. Inslee has said on multiple occasions that he is in support of banning marine net pen facilities that use Atlantic salmon. House Bill 2957, sponsored by Rep. Kristine Lytton, D...
Along its 150-mile course the Skagit River crosses boundaries political and natural, as its journey carries water from British Columbia to Washington state, cutting through the high, dry air of the Cascade Mountains before settling in the low wetness of Puget Sound. The Skagit Basin is the third-largest watershed on the West Coast, and the largest river that flows into Puget Sound. Yet many of Skagit’s resident landowners are unable to acquire water for their homes, which are not served by public water systems. Nestled between the banks of t...
OLYMPIA (Jan. 31) -- For the first time in more than 30 years, emergency planning in Washington state could include preparations for potential nuclear attacks, with bipartisan support in bills entering both the House and Senate. The Legislature voted in 1983 to ban including nuclear war preparations in emergency planning procedures. The prohibition specifically applies to planning for evacuation and relocation of citizens. The move was made in the context of increasing tensions between the United States and the former Soviet Union. With former...
OLYMPIA (Jan. 25) -- A bipartisan effort in the Senate passed a bill Jan. 24 that would extend financial opportunities in higher education to some undocumented immigrant students in Washington state. Senate Bill 5074 makes a couple of existing scholarships available to undocumented students who are eligible under previously-established guidelines. In 2003 the state Legislature passed House Bill 1079, which allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at Washington colleges so long as they had received a high school diploma, lived in...
OLYMPIA (Jan. 22) -- Democrats in the state Senate are pushing back against the Federal Communications Commission through a number of bills designed to protect net neutrality in Washington. In April 2015, the FCC established new rules that reclassified broadband services as telecommunications, which made the internet something of a “common” good, similar to telephone services. This barred internet service providers from discriminating against certain forms of content, such as those that might compete with a company’s own. In December the FCC v...
The marble walls of the Washington state Capitol reverberated with the roar of drums and voices Tuesday afternoon as Native American activists poured into Olympia to sound the bell on a number of political topics. The eighth annual Native American Indian Lobby Day brought more than 100 activists to the Legislative Building, where talks and music dominated the proceedings. "We started the lobby day because there was no representation at the Capitol for us," said Elizabeth Satiacum, co-creator of...
With the 2018 Washington state legislative session kicking off, a 2016 state Supreme Court decision on water continues to make waves in the House and Senate. The so-called Hirst decision in October 2016 set a precedent that compels local governments and landowners to take into account the availability of water before issuing permits to developers. The decision came after the court determined that Whatcom County had been issuing permit exemptions that violated flow rules designed to protect stream water levels. According to the Department of...
OLYMPIA (Jan. 19) -- One of the year’s most important legislative battles in Washington state came to a surprisingly quick conclusion last Thursday evening when a water-use bill passed both chambers and went to the desk of Gov. Jay Inslee, who signed it into law the next day. In 2016, the state Supreme Court’s Hirst decision essentially halted development across the state when it determined that counties were not adequately examining impacts on stream and river flow levels. The decision weighed heavily on last year’s legislative session when...
