Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is a

public utility A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...

agency of the city of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, which provides

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

, sewer,

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic condition ...

and garbage services for 1.3 million people in

King County, Washington King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the ...

. The agency was established in 1997, consolidating the city's Water Department with other city functions.

Water supply

SPU owns two water collection facilities: one in the Cedar River watershed, which supplies 70 percent of the drinking water used by 1.3 million people in Seattle and surrounding suburbs (primarily the city south of the Lake Washington Ship Canal) and the other in the

Tolt River The Tolt River is located in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains in north central King County in the U.S. state of Washington. The river begins at the confluence of the North Fork Tolt and South Fork Tolt rivers. It flows southwest joi ...

watershed which supplies the other 30 percent (primarily the city north of the canal). From the city's founding through the 1880s, Seattle's water was provided by several private companies. In a July 8, 1889 election,Alan J. Stein
Seattle voters authorize Cedar River Water Supply system on July 8, 1889.
HistoryLink, January 1, 2000. Accessed online 6 December 2007. barely a month after the

Great Seattle Fire The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington on June 6, 1889. The conflagration lasted for less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night, and during the same sum ...

(June 6, 1889) gave a dramatic illustration of the limitations of the city's water supply, Seattle's citizens voted 1,875 to 51 to acquire and operate their own water system. In accordance with this vote, the city Water Department acquired the Lake Union and Spring Hill plants for $400,000. This was understood from the first to be only a temporary expedient, inadequate to the expected growth of the city. Attention soon focused on the Cedar River, an idea first proposed in the 1870s; the question was how to bring that water to the city. From 1892, the responsibility for doing so fell to newly hired City Engineer Reginald H. Thomson and his assistant George F. Cotterill. Besides the technical challenges, they and a series of Seattle mayors had to keep the citizenry on board to move forward with this expensive project through the Panic of 1893. The Klondike Gold Rush put Seattle on a sound economic footing. The 1901 completion of Cedar River Supply System No. 1 (active from February 21, 1901) gave the city a steady supply of clean water with an intake 28 miles from the city itself; this was supplemented by Cedar River Supply System No. 2 in 1909. Together, these systems gave the city a supply of more than of water a day. The original Cedar River pipeline was made of reinforced wooden pipe "big enough so a small boy could stand upright in it" and carried of water a day. By 1950, three big mains carried up to of water a day. To guard against contamination at the source, the city purchased or otherwise gained control of of land and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Department of Health and Sanitation. The city also established an extensive system of

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

s within city limits. By 1919, six reservoirs had a combined capacity of . In 1950, the city owned "about two-thirds" of the watershed, the federal government "about one-fourth"; the remainder, "around eleven square miles," was owned by private lumber companies. Seattle has at times contracted to provide water for entities outside of city limits. In recent decades, the Seattle Regional Water System has significantly improved conservation. 2008 usage was roughly equal to usage in 1960, despite roughly a 35% increase in population over that period. From 1990 to 2012 total water usage declined 29%, despite a population increase of 17%.

Garbage management

SPU operates two waste sorting facilities: the North Transfer Station in Wallingford and the South Transfer Station in South Park. Both facilities were opened in the 1960s and rebuilt in the 2010s to handle greater volumes and include environmentally friendly features. Garbage from Seattle is shipped out via train to the Columbia Ridge Landfill near Arlington, Oregon.

Notes

References

* . This is a public domain source, because it was published in the U.S. before 1923. * .

External links

Seattle Public Utilities websiteSeattle Water Quality Annual Reports
{{authority control Government of Seattle Recycling industry Water companies of the United States Waste management companies of the United States Public utilities of the United States American companies established in 1997 Public utilities established in 1997 1997 establishments in Washington (state)

Water supply

Garbage management

See also

Notes

References

External links