On “The Impact” – Sept. 26, 2018:
U.S. negotiator and former WDFW director Phil Anderson says the latest version of the Pacific Salmon Treaty would further limit the number of endangered Chinook salmon that fishing crews are allowed to catch. Fishing quota reductions would range from 5%-15% in Washington and Oregon depending on abundance. Fisheries in Alaska would take a 7.5% reduction and Canadian fisheries would see a 12.5% reduction. Some Alaskan fishing crews have argued that they are being unfairly penalized for the failure of Washington and Oregon to maintain healthy salmon populations. They criticize both states’ track records related to dams obstructing migration routes and environmental factors like pollution.
“I understand that perspective. There have been a lot of cuts, but frankly without additional cuts we’re not going to have any fisheries in the future,” said Anderson.
The Westport resident says he’s seen the decline of commercial fishing which has paralleled the decline in abundance of Washington’s most famous fish.
“Well I’ve been here since 1968. I started as a deckhand here when I was in high school and I’ve seen the good times and the bad. I’ve seen it when we frankly had way too many boats here. We had over two-hundred charter boats here in 1978. And you look around the harbor today and there’s about twenty left and they are struggling mightily to stay in business. We’ve had extremely short seasons here with very small quotas and the guys that are in this business, both in the charter business as well as the commercial troll business are having a really tough time. The support businesses and the infrastructure around here in terms of hotels and restaurants are also feeling the pain associated with very restrictive fisheries.”
Director of State Elections Lori Augino says tighter security measures mean new restrictions on one method of sending in a ballot. Secretary of State Kim Wyman has issued an emergency order limiting the use of voting by email attachment to voters who are in the military or otherwise overseas. Computer security analysts say ballots transmitted by email can be intercepted and changed or infected with malware that could then spread to sensitive networks. Augino says there is a tremendous focus on election cyber security in light of attempted cyber intrusions into state voter databases in 2016 and speculation of additional threats leading up to the November mid-terms.
“The tabulators that we have are under lock and key and have tight security around them,” said Augino. “Inviting folks to click/send something in that potentially has a virus or some other malware that could infect that election system that was something we couldn’t ignore.”
Washington’s election system safeguards have also been bolstered by new federal resources, partnerships involving U.S. intelligence agencies and in-state military cyber power.
“We have this amazing cyber resource right here within the Washington National Guard and they’ve been activated to help us shore up our system and really help detect and prevent any bad actors from attacking us,” said Augino.
Click here to watch “The Impact” – Sept. 26, 2018