The State of Washington has a duty to the treaty Indian tribes who have always inhabited this region.

That Duty is to not allow salmon habitat to be degraded to the point that salmon are no longer available for harvest by the tribes, who gave up nearly all of the land in what is now western Washington under treaties with the United States government. Through those…

This is a time of great change in the management of the salmon resource in the State of Washington. Listings of several local salmon stocks under the Endangered Species Act have required us to re-examine many of our approaches to the way we manage salmon.

Our use of hatcheries is one example. Today, the tribes, as well as state and federal agencies, are looking at salmon…

It has been a little over a year since Governor Gary Locke met with the tribes at the Sleeping Lady Resort in Leavenworth, where three November days of detailed discussion culminated with the signing of the “New Millennium Agreement.”

I remember thinking how appropriate it was for all of this to take place at this beautiful location, at the foot of the namesake mountain. Here, the…

OLYMPIA (8/23/00)–Let’s face it. The state of Washington has failed to protect the environment of our region from development and natural resource habitat destruction.

Nowhere is this more evident than on our shorelines. Damage caused by everything from jetties and bulkheads to gravel mining and dredging have been permitted to run rampant for generations. Even with the existence of a Shoreline Management Act, the state has…