Introduction

The Physical Setting

The Cedar River watershed has been in use as Seattle's main water supply since 1901. The watershed, located in the eastern central portion of King County, is nearly 24 miles long, and roughly 10 miles wide. Total acreage of the watershed is approximately 91,400 acres. Mountain crests in the Cascade Range form the eastern boundary of the system, and the Cedar River flows westward through the center.

The Landsburg headworks, where water is diverted into pipelines to the Seattle supply system, is at the westernmost boundary of the watershed. From there the Cedar River continues downstream to Lake Washington, 13 miles to the northwest. Chester Morse Lake (originally Cedar Lake) is the main storage reservoir with original lake surface 1,530 feet above sea level, subsequently raised to elevation 1,560 feet by Masonry Dam.

Most of the watershed is below elevation 1,600 feet and is a deep permeable glacial deposit (moraine). Masonry Dam sits on this deposit. When reservoir storage levels are high, in a single month as much as one third of the reservoirs contents are lost to seepage. Fortunately 90 percent of the seepage eventually returns to the Cedar River above the water supply diversion point. So the moraine serves two important water supply functions. First, it filters the water. Second it acts as a delayed secondary storage reservoir for a large quantity of water that might otherwise spill past the diversion point and be lost to the sea. Over the years the City has learned how to manage this natural storage.

History of Conflict

Seattle has a long history of conflict over water supply. In the 1880's water was supplied to the wealthier citizens by private water companies that pumped supplies from Lake Washington, the nearest reliable source of fresh water. This caused some discontent undoubtedly but the masses didn't really rise until after the great Seattle fire that destroyed most of the downtown area. If an adequate water system had been available many if the fragile wooden buildings would have been spared.

"The Great Fire of June 6, 1889 devastated the city's business district and waterfront, destroying more than 100 acres engulfing over 30 blocks. Following the fire, the burn district was filled with tents, which provided temporary shelters for homes and businesses. Seattle was forced to rethink and rebuild its water supply and fire prevention systems. Restrictions were imposed on what types of building methods and materials could be used in new construction. The City took the opportunity to widen and straighten the streets, to improve the docks and wharves, and to lessen the burdensome street grades." (Source: http://www.cityofseattle.net/CityArchives/Tools/GFWeb/early.htm)

After the fire the owners of the water companies encountered some frustration in their plan to rebuild the water supply - the mayor emerged as a champion of a publicly owned water supply system. He engaged a nationally famous consulting engineer, Benezette Williams who had designed the Philadelphia water treatment system. Benezette made a survey of potential sources of water for the City and settled on the concept of importing water from the high elevations of the Cedar River. His concept was to provide a virtually limitless supply of clean potable water from a watershed that would be closed from public access, thereby avoiding the need for a n expensive water treatment plant like the one in Philadelphia, . Furthermore, by going to the high elevation source the supply could be delivered to the City under high pressure by a large diameter wood stave pipe.

The relatively pristine water would be brought to a holding reservoir formed by introducing the flow into what was then called Swan Lake, an algaeic morass that was the subject of criticism. His understanding included the concept of eutrophication and in his first report he pointed out how the waters of Swan Lake would be displaced by the cool clean waters from the Cedar River. Once the new supply was in operation there would be no further problems with water quality in Lake Youngs.

Benezette Williams's concept was accepted completely by the mayor but opposed by some of the members of City Council, who incidentally were shareholders in the defunct private water supply companies. They raised several arguments against the proposed water supply scheme;

1. Swam lake would never be a source of potable water - it was a stinking mess and would remain so.
   
2. The wood stave pipe scheme was unnecessarily expensive when they had a reliable unlimited source of water nearby in Lake Washington. Furthermore they alleged that Benezette's scheme was a self-interest project, claiming that he owned an interest in the company that manufactured the wood stave pipe.

Councilman Harry White, for example, arguing in 1890 against using the Cedar River, wrote that Lake Washington, of known high quality water fed by underground springs, was the best source for the City's water. In his statement to the City Council's Committee of the Whole he stated that Cedar River water was of unknown quality and the plan to use it would "stand out in bold relief as a gigantic financial blunder. We must have a better water supply, but it does not follow that we must go to Rock Creek or Cedar River to get it."

Benezette countered by pointing out that Lake Washington was destined to eventually become eutrophic (his word) because of the rapid development around it and the lack of means for bypassing the resulting growth in sewage flows directly to the ocean. On July 8, 1889, less than one month after most of downtown Seattle was destroyed by the Great Fire of June 6, Seattle voters approve creation of a municipal water system, the Cedar River Water Supply system. Outrage over the miserable performance of the town's private water supply during the Great Fire contributed to a lopsided majority of 1,875 to 51 in favor of public ownership.

R. H. Thomson replaced Benezette Williams as City Engineer and Thompson continued to pursue Benezette's expensive goal of a mountain water supply. Two factors contributed to his success. First, an 1895 Supreme Court decision allowed greater freedom for municipal ownership of public utilities through special warrants and bonds. Then, in 1897, gold was discovered in the Klondike River region of Canada, which opened the way for Seattle as the portal for much of the money that resulted from the gold rush. Paying for the costs of a massive municipal water system was finally achievable (Mary McWilliams, Seattle Water Department History 1854-1954 (City of Seattle: Dogwood Press, 1955), 54-63).

At that time the basin area of the lake included only a few small streams that kept it in balance at levels much lower than they are now. It wasn't until 1914 when the Corps of Engineers diverted the Cedar River into Lake Washington that the lake received a large supply of from the mountains, and incidentally became suitable habitat for the sockeye salmon that were transplanted there .

Another interesting point, verging on the climate change discussion that will be presented later, was the Benezette's estimate of the firm yield to be obtained from the Cedar River. Based on his 6 years of measurements he concluded that the river had the potential to support a diversion of XXX cfs on a sustained basis, which is incidentally almost the exact number that we came up with in 1970 with an additional 72 years of data.

After an acrimonious debate the City Council approved the borrowing to construct Benezette's grand water supply scheme. But there was more to be contended with. The private water company owner and their captive alderman uncovered a City bylaw that required a referendum before a borrowing decision could be made, and a referendum required that the mayor would have to stand down and seek re-election. The question of whether the City would build a Water Works costing no more than 1 million dollars was put on the ballot of the July 1889 Municipal Election. On the other side of the issue, was a report from Board of Public Works regarding work of Benezette Williams. The report stated, "this Board is satisfied that the gravity system proposed, having its source of supply at Cedar River, is the best system for the city to ultimately adopt." The referendum passed, and the water towers of the mountains were tapped. As an aside this was the first US City to issue bonds to finance a public works project.

So now, going back to the comment about the Corps of Engineers. They were interested in providing navigation access between lake Washington and the sea. To do this they would need to construct locks, and for the locks they needed a larger water supply than the local drainage around the lake could provide. The solution was simple, considering they had recently been studying a similar scheme for the Panama canal. Divert more water into the Lake, Washington and provide a connection between Lake Washington and Lake Union, holding both lakes at the same level. To avoid the deep cut between the two lakes they would raise them both by using the flow of the Cedar River. The connection from Lake Union to the sea was mad by a series of locks. This lack system has since become the busiest locks system in the USA.

The Cedar River provides many miles of excellent spawning habitat in the gravels and this together with direct access to Lake Washington became an ideal habitat for the sockeye salmon planted by the State Department of Fisheries. As a historical note, the City of Seattle was incorporated in 1869 and Washington became a State in 1889. The water supply from the Cedar River was developed before the State of Washington was incorporated. There is therefore some legal controversy over whether this wate supply must conform to the State's requirement for fish passage around the water supply diversion structure that Benezette William developed in the 1800's. This has recently become a non-issue because the City has elected to provide passage for fish in a negotiated settlement to avoid a possible endangered species listing for some of the other animals that depend on the river.

Benezette estimated that the Cedar River could supply a very large population, perhaps the population of Seattle could be expected to grow to almost 100,000 considering its ideal situation on an excellent harbour at the entrance to Puget Sound.

He was certainly right about the potential for growth but may not have foreseen the future struggle for water between the needs of these visiting sockeye salmon and the onset of the Boeing Aircraft Company and Microsoft. The pressure for more water has gone up considerably during the past 40 years. But the Cedar river is still the primary supply for Seattle, even though a major development of the Tolt Dam and discovery of some minor groundwater supplies have added to the City's capability.

Meanwhile, about 40 miles south of Seattle the Cit of Tacoma was developing and it also needed to do something about augmenting its historical groundwater sources. The groundwater in Tacoma comes from extremely porous gravels that can store large quantities of water but do not have a large surface area, and therefore are limited in their ability to recharge after a summer season of heavy pumping. In the 1930's this difficulty was recognized and Tacoma, like Seattle went to the mountains for a new source of municipal water supply. They developed the Palmer diversion from the Green River and constructed a system of pipelines and in-City storage reservoirs to. Since then the Tacoma has utilized a combined supply of groundwater and surface water from the river and this has served the well. In the 1970's Tacoma began a plan to increase the amount of water that would be diverted from the green River, this in anticipation of the City' growth and the rising need in surrounding communities to supplement their traditional groundwater supplies with a new source. Tacoma's plan envisioned a regional supply system that could extend as far north as Seattle to provide a truly integrated regional supply. The advantage of this would be firstly in securing additional sources of financing for extending the regional supply and secondly by increasing the regional supply security by integrating all of the surface and groundwater sources, with their different hydrologic characteristics. From the perspective of the State the regional idea made sense, especially if it could eventually be extended as far north as Everett, 50 miles north of Seattle, where there is a large reservoir with the capacity to supply the developing region as far south as Seattle.

There are a couple of other actors in this scenario. First there is the Corps of Engineers with their interest in navigation and flood management. In the 1940's the Corps of Engineers constructed Howard Hanson Dam on the Green River, upstream from Tacoma's water supply intake at Palmer. This reservoir is kept empty during the flood season and thereby protects a large area in the lower Green River Valley. During the normally dry summer and fall before the rainy season begins, it stores a limited amount of water for municipal supply and for instream habitat protection.

In 1917 the City of Seattle, reacting to a private developer's proposal to construct a hydroelectric plant above the water supply intake on the Cedar River, formed the Seattle City Light Department to construct a masonry dam for developing a head for hydropower. Against advice form the geology department at the UW they founded the dam on a some of hat porous gravel that makes such an excellent storage device for retaining the winter surplus of rain. In 1918, as the reservoir was filling the side of the mountain blew out, inundating the town of Snoqualmie and washing out the railroad. The fix was to cu t a notch in the dam so the level could never rise again above the safe level. Subsequently, to achieve flood storage the corps ahs constructed gates on the dam.

2. What is the conflict or issue?

The Seattle region is blessed with plentiful water in winter but does not have sufficient surface water storage to maintain a high level of water supply reliability in summer and fall. Studies have shown advantages to developing a pipeline interconnection that would serve both Seattle and Tacoma and communities in between.

The advantages of such interconnection would include:
a. Increased regional supply reliability through integrated operation of existing surface and groundwater supply systems.
b. Cost savings and environmental protection by delaying or eliminating development of new sources of water supply.

The main problems have been as follows:
a. There are fundamental policy issues similar to amalgamation of regional fire or police departments or amalgamation of adjacent towns in a metropolitan area.
b. There are efficiency issues related to technical improvements in reliability from integrating multiple groundwater and surface water sources with different hydrology and multiple water storage facilities.
c. There are pseudo technical issues, or perceptions of technical problems, related to mixing of waters of differing quality.

3. Where does the conflict take place?

The setting is metropolitan Seattle including Tacoma, several smaller cities between them, and two county governments.

4. Is this a seasonal problem or a year-round problem?

From the technical perspective of water supply reliability this is mostly a seasonal problem within the context of long range capacity expansion planning.

5. How long has this problem existed?

For approximately 35 years.

6. What is the trend - is the problem getting worse, getting better, or staying the same?

At one point a few years ago the integration of water supplies was about to go ahead when a new complexity arose from the introduction of a possible new source of water of questionable quality. The issue is now on the back burner while the stakeholders are considering other options.

7. Who are the main stakeholders in this issue - can you describe each group with a sentence or two?

The major stakeholders are cities and towns in the region and probably one of the counties. The Corps of Engineers, the State Department of Ecology, the tribes, and the state and federal fish agencies are also intimately involved.

8. What solutions have been tried?

Many public meetings and negotiating sessions held during the past 30 years.

9. In your opinion, which of the 5 conference themes does this case study relate best to, and why?

This case study relates best to the conference theme: "Who owns and who profits from it?"

10. Ask the conference participants for their ideas: what 3 focus questions would you most like input on?

a. What critical factors must be present to result in agreement on integrated management of water resources among several political entities?
b. What sequence of steps is necessary to lead to a successful integration?
c. How can the benefits and costs of water supply integration be shared?