Seattle City Light (SCL) is the City-owned electric utility serving approximately 131 square miles, including all of Seattle and some portions of King County north and south of the City limits.

SCL owns and maintains approximately 656 657 miles of transmission lines which carry power from the Skagit and Cedar Falls generating facilities to 14 principal substations. Power is distributed from these principal substations via high voltage feeder lines to numerous smaller distribution substations and pole transformers which reduce voltage to required levels for customers. SCL owns and maintains 2,5002,428 circuit-miles of distribution lines within Seattle that deliver power from the 14 principal substations to 335,319341,063 customers. (See Utilities Figures A-1 and A-2).

SCL's current generation capability (owned and contracted) is adequate to serve existing customers. Because of the nature of City Light’s hydro system, the utility is not presently constrained by its ability to meet peak loads (typically referred to as capacity), but rather by its ability to carry load over the 15 heavy load hours during the winter (7 a.m. to 10 p.m.) Even though there is sufficient generation capability to serve the peak load, the utility sometimes purchases energy on the spot market to meet its heavy load hour requirements.

SCL currently uses 100 percent of its firm (or guaranteed) owned and contracted generation capability to meet its own load, with Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) making up the balance. Under its current contract with BPA, which extends until 2001, Seattle is obligated to cover its own load growth.

For the transmission and distribution components of SCL’s system, projected growth will be accommodated by planned transmission and distribution capacity additions. The addition of a transformer at the Bothell Substation in Snohomish County will serve the principal substations from the Snohomish County line to the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Within the Comprehensive Plan's 20-year timeframe a new principal substation will be necessary downtown, with an underground transmission line connection to the South substation. Capacity would also be expanded at the North, Duwamish, Shoreline, and Creston substations (Figure 7-5 A-1).

The Seattle Water Department (SWD) Public Utilities (SPU) serves retail provides water service to customers of Seattle and portions of King County. In addition, SWDPU sells wholesale water to more than two dozen suburban water districts, municipalities, and nonprofit water associations ("purveyors") which serve retail water customers in most of the urban areas in north, east, and south King County, and a small part of southwest Snohomish county. (See Utilities Figures A-4). The City Water DepartmentSPU operates under an Operator’s Certificate granted by the State Department of Health.

SWD SPU supplies drinking water from three two major water supply sources--the Cedar River Watershed, the South Fork of the Tolt River Watershed, and a small amount of water from the Highline Well Field. The Cedar River and South Fork of the Tolt River Watersheds are in the Cascade Mountains, while the Highline Well Field is located north of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Transmission pipelines carry the water to various reservoirs, standpipes, and tanks for further distribution. (See Utilities Figure A-4)

The SWD SPU service area extends beyond the City’s boundaries, making it impossible to allocate capacity figures to the supply sources and transmission lines solely for in-city service. The snowpack level and temperature in the watershed areas are important natural factors that determine when and how much runoff will fill the reservoirs. Affecting SWD's SPU's water supply is the environmental impact of the dams on the stream flows. Business, environmental, agricultural, recreational, tribal, and fisheries groups all have interests in the level of water in the streams. The City, however, under normal circumstances, expects water supply to be adequate to serve the City’s existing and forecast population for at least the next six years.

Distribution and storage facilities that serve Seattle residents are located within and beyond the city limits. These facilities have adequate capacity to serve the city; however, some areas have substandard mains or experience low water pressure.

Low pressure areas include Scenic Heights (Charlestown Standpipe), Maple Leaf (Maple Leaf Tank), Phinney Ridge (Woodland Park Standpipe), and Queen Anne Hill (Queen Anne Standpipe). These areas are all located near or above the standpipe or /tanks overflow elevation and, therefore, receive water at or below the current design standard of 30 pounds per square inch (psi). New pump station construction for Queen Anne and Phinney Ridge each of these areas is included in SWD’s SPU’s current six-year CIP.

Substandard mains in need of replacement have been identified and prioritized. The replacement schedule is included in the SWD SPU’S six-year CIP. Potential substandard fire protection is a concern in various areas throughout the City, resulting from changes in standards that increase fire demand. Deficiencies include aging pipes and inadequate pipe diameter. These improvements are also incorporated in the department’s six-year CIP.

A new water supply source is likely to come on-line be needed within the next ten to fifteen years. The City expects that population growth occurring outside the direct service area will be the primary determinant for the addition of a new source. Within the city, most of the new households that will be added will be in multifamily units, which have a much lower per capita water demand than single family households.

The major impact of the growth envisioned by the Comprehensive Plan on the City’s Water facilities will be in the distribution system. Rehabilitation and improvements to the existing distribution system will be needed to support growth over the twenty year life of the Plan. Improvements to increase volumes in distribution facilities in the Urban Centers over the next six years are included in the department’s current CIP.

Seattle's Drainage and Wastewater Utility (DWU) was created in 1987 as a division of the Seattle Engineering Department (SED), adding drainage responsibilities to the existing SED sewer utility. DWU SPU is charged with managing drainage, surface runoff, and sewer systems to meet public safety, water quality, and resource protection goals. DWU's SPU's service area covers the City of Seattle. Additionally, DWU SPU provides sewer service to some areas north of the city limits, though SPU is in the process of negotiating the transfer of part of its sewer system to the Shoreline Sewer District.

Although a few small areas are still served by septic systems, almost all areas of the city are served by sanitary sewers. Three types of drainage and waste water systems are used in Seattle: combined sanitary/storm water sewer, partially separated sanitary/storm water sewer, and separate sanitary and storm water sewer systems. The DWU SPU system collects residential, commercial, and industrial waste water and delivers it to interceptor lines operated by the regional sewage treatment agency (King County). The sewage is then treated at the West Point Sewage Treatment Plant before being discharged into Puget Sound. Two other plants, Alki and Carkeek, have been are being converted to treat wet weather flows only. (See Utilities Figure A-5).

City Drainage and Wastewater System:

The capacity of the wastewater system in some areas is limited when peak stormwater flows enter the combined systems. During or following intense or prolonged periods of rainfall some of the systems cannot accommodate the combined runoff and sanitary sewage flows, resulting in combined sewer overflows (CSO’s) being discharged into area waters. CSO’s occur in both the regional and the City systems. Seattle's CSO Control Plan, adopted in 1988, addresses specific storage and separation projects to control CSO’s and describes costs and schedules in a twenty-year timeframe. DWU SPU has already completed improvements to 69 of the 83 CSO locations and by the year 2006, Seattle will have reduced CSO volumes by at least 79 percent. Funding for these improvements is included in the Department’s six-year CIP. SPU will also update its CSO plan by 2001.

The West Point Treatment Plant is presently under expansion and conversion from a primary to a secondary treatment operation. Planned, with a capacity is for the secondary treatment of 133 million gallons per day (MGD), monthly average flow. It is designed to handle a peak flow capacity of 440 MGD, with 300 MGD receiving secondary treatment and the remainder primary treatment.

The West Point Treatment Plant is projected to serves 1.3 million people including residents of Seattle, King County north of Seattle, and South Snohomish County.

City Facilities: Generally, the drainage and wastewater facilities in Seattle have been planned and sized to serve the maximum or build-out conditions under existing zoning and will be adequate to serve the level of increased growth proposed in the Plan. The capacity of the wastewater system is limited only in specific areas of the city, where there have been historic hydraulic and system backup problems. These problems are being addressed by DWU SPU programs in the Department’s CIP.

Regional Facilities: Seattle's share of the increased wastewater flows would produce approximately an 8% increase in base flows over the current projected level. The estimated base flow for the Comprehensive Plan is limited to the service basins within the City of Seattle and to the 2010 planning horizon. The regional system design, however, requires consideration of all service basins which contribute to the base flows treated at any one plant and also consideration of residential, commercial, and industrial growth for a much longer planning horizon. Thus, given the Plan's goals, a longer planning horizon and growth in all basins contributing to the treatment plants serving Seattle, it is likely that the West Point Treatment plant will need to be enlarged earlier than originally expected, and that construction of key conveyance facilities will be accelerated.Under King County’s Regional Wastewater Services Plan, a third treatment plant is planned to be added in South Snohomish or North King County by about 2010 to handle the region’s growth.

The Solid Waste Utility (SWU) was created in 1961 as a division of the Seattle Engineering Department (SED). SWU SPU contracts with private firms for the collection of residential garbage, recyclables, and yard waste within the city. Collection of commercial solid waste is currently handled by private carriers and facilities. SPU is negotiating contracts for commercial garbage collection which are expected to be finalized in 2001. ; however, SPWU provides for disposal of all garbage generated in the city through a long-term contract wit Waste Management Systems at their Arlington, Oregon landfill.

The solid waste transfer system consists of four transfer stations. The two City-owned transfer stations receive residential solid waste, while the two privately-owned transfer stations receive both in-city commercial solid waste and solid waste from outside Seattle. Garbage is compacted into containers which are trucked to the Argo Intermodal Facility; from there, the containers are loaded onto trains for long-haul transport to a landfill owned and operated by Oregon Waste Systems in Gilliam County, Oregon. Most recyclable materials are handled by two privately-owned facilities. Household hazardous wastes can be brought to one of two facilities operated by SWU. (See Utilities Figure A-6).

SPU’sThe North and South Recycleing and Disposal Stations (RDS) were designed in the 1960’s for the transfer of garbage, not for today’s solid waste management strategy involving separation of recyclable materials. They were designed have existing design capacities to handle 1,000 tons of garbage per day (or 365,000 tons per year). In 1999, Aapproximately 267,500 tons of waste were disposed through the transfer stations in 1988. This decreased to 225,000 tons in 1990, largely as a result of increased recycling by City residents.250,000 tons of garbage were disposed of through the City’s two RDS as well as over 40,000 tons of yard waste, 2,300 tons of woodwaste, 1,000 tons of metal appliances and over 30,000 tons of other recyclables.

Commercial garbage generated in the City is delivered to the two private transfer stations. These two facilities handle garbage (as well as construction and demolition debris (CDL)) from both inside and outside Seattle. In 1988, these facilities handled approximately 198,200 tons of garbage from Seattle businesses, and another 80,000 of CDL from in-City construction activity. In 1999 the two private stations handle 225,000 tons of garbage from the City of Seattle.Despite substantial growth, commercial waste disposed in 1994 actually decreased from 1988 (196,000 tons), largely as a result of increased recycling in the commercial sector. CDL disposal has remained steady. In recent years, Waste Management has also built a new station for separated construction debris. The two private transfer facilities have the capability to handle 300,000-400,000 tons of waste per year including waste from Seattle’s businesses. One of tThese facilities areis located in the South Park area Seattle, near the City’s South Recycling and Disposal Station, the other is south of downtown on Lander.

2.) Recycling Processing Facilities:

Two private "material recovery facilities" (MRFs) serve as the processing and transfer facilities for most of the recyclable materials collected from in-City residents and businesses. These facilities, Recycle Seattle and Recycle America, process and transfer a large proportion of the 300350,000 tons of residential and commercial recyclable material that was collected through the City’s solid waste system in 1994. OneBoth of these facilities areis located in the South Park area South Seattle, near the City’s South Recycling and Disposal Station, and the other is south of downtown on Lander.

Waste is compacted at the transfer stations into containers that are trucked directly to the Argo rail yardrailhead for long-haul to the landfill in Oregon. Presently, approximately 60 containers per day (each holding 25-28 tons), five days a week, are trucked to the railhead. The train to the landfill operates 3 times per week, with about 100 containers per trip. Seattle and Washington Waste Systems (WWS) have a contract extending through March 31, 2028, and the terms of the contract are more than adequate to handle the additional waste volumes generated by projected growth.

The region's landfill capacity is large enough to last for at least the next 40-80 years. Private transfer stations have the capacity to handle projected garbage tonnages, but SPU transfer facilities will need modifications if they are to adequately handle projected contractor and self-haul trips and to effectively contribute to the City’s waste reduction and recycling goals.SWU and in-city private transfer facilities have the capacity to handle any amount of garbage that the planned population would generate. Although the overall amount of waste generated in the city will increase with projected residential and employment growth, the percentage of waste that will need to be hauled to Oregon is expected to decrease due to higher anticipated rates of recycling. Seattle has adopted the goals toof recycleing 60 percent of its overall waste by 20081998.

Residential waste is anticipated to comprise a decreasing share of the future combined waste stream. Commercial waste is projected to comprise a larger share of Seattle's waste stream in the future. Increased commercial sector waste disposal needs and an increased demand for recycling contractor services will be handled by private contractors and facilities. Representatives from both private transfer stations have indicated that the increased amount of waste can be handled within the existing facilities.

The two private materials processing facilities will handle a major share of the increase in volumes of recyclable material that will occur with projected growth. These businesses are dealing with services and markets at a regional level, so the specific impacts of increased Seattle tonnage are difficult to predict.

Washington Natural Gas Company (WNG) is an investor-owned natural gas utility serving more than 400,000 customers in five Western Washington counties--Snohomish, King, Pierce, Thurston, and Lewis. WNG is the largest of five subsidiaries that comprise Washington Energy Company. WNG's distribution of natural gas involves system pressure regulation and the development and maintenance of a network of gas mains to serve the utility's customers.

WNG is supplied by Northwest Pipeline Corporation, a natural gas wholesaler with interstate pipeline facilities extending from Canada to New Mexico. Two underground transmission lines branch off from the pipeline to serve the 108,942 customers in the Seattle area via 1,345 miles of underground gas mains. (See Utilities Figure A-7).

US WEST Communications (US WEST) is the telephone company subsidiary of US WEST, Incorporated--one of the seven regional holding companies resulting from the divestiture of AT&T. US WEST is the principal provider of local telephone and related services in Seattle.

Of the 11 central switching offices (COs) serving Seattle, 10 are located within the city limits (see Utilities Figure A-8). For local exchange, the COs switch calls in and between the line exchange groupings (these groupings are addressed uniquely by an area code and the first three digits of a phone number). For long distance, the COs switch calls and mediate between the long-distance network and the local originating/terminating network. Due to advances in technology, additional capacity is easily and quickly added to the system.

Four main cable routes emanate from each CO, running north, south, east, and west. Connected to these main feeder routes are branch feeder routes which support thousands of local loops providing dial tone service to individual subscribers. The COs are connected by inter-exchange trunk lines that may be aerial or buried, and copper or fiber optic line.

Seattle is served by two cellular telephone companies: Cellular One and US WEST/New Vector. Cellular telephones are radios which send and receive signals from low-power, ultra-high frequency antennas positioned at several cellular communication ("cell") sites. The "cellular" name is derived from the manner in which coverage is provided by the cell sites. Each cell site has a signal radius, or coverage area, of only a few miles (depending upon terrain and capacity demand for service). As a cellular telephone user passes from one cell to the next, the call is transferred to an available channel at an adjacent cell site.

Cellular One currently has 22 cell sites in Seattle and US WEST/New Vector has 16 cell sites (see Utilities Figures A-9 and A-10). The cell sites are linked to a Mobile Telephone Switching Office which ties the cellular network into the conventional telephone system.

Three cable communications companies hold City franchises for serving Seattle residents--Viacom Cablevision, TCI Cablevision of Washington, Inc., and Summit Cablevision. The City has begun a franchise renewal process with Viacom and TCI involving negotiations over future capacity, number of channels, construction schedules, and other criteria. The Summit franchise expires in February 1998. (See Utilities Figure A-11).

One of the primary components of a cable system is the head-end site--an electronic control center where the information signal is processed for distribution through the cable system. This signal can be received off a hard line (cable), a satellite dish, microwave antennae, and/or a TV antenna. Viacom has three head-end sites in Seattle and 545 miles of distribution lines serving 55,374 households. TCI has one head-end site in Seattle, along with 541 miles of coaxial cable plant and 21 miles of fiber-optic cable serving 76,054 households. Summit has one receive site/head-end site in Seattle, along with 110 miles of coaxial cable and 15 miles of fiber-optic cable serving 9,200 households.

Seattle Steam is a district heating utility franchised by the City. Its service area encompasses roughly a square-mile area of the Central Business District, extending from Blanchard Street to King Street and from the waterfront to 14th Avenue, crossing over First Hill (see Utilities Figure A-12). The company provides steam to commercial, residential, and institutional customers for space and hot water heating, along with other uses.

Two steam-generating plants supply the network. The primary plant is located on Western Avenue at University Street. The secondary plant is located on Western Avenue near Yesler Way--the site of the original plant built in 1893. Total steam generation capacity is 850,000 pounds per hour, with boilers designed to burn either natural gas or residual oil. The network of insulated steel pipe encompasses a total length of over 18 miles beneath city streets and currently serves 240 customers.

Utilities Figure A-1 Seattle City Light Transmission Lines and Substations (Existing)

Figure A-5 Metro Facilities (Existing)

Figure A-6 Solid Waste Utility (Existing)

Figure A-7 Washington Natural Gas High Pressure Gas Mains (Existing)

Figure A-8 US West Telephone System (Existing)

Figure A-9 Cellular One Cell Site Map (Existing)

Figure A-11 Cable Franchise Area (Existing)

Figure A-12 Seattle Steam Steam Pipe System (Existing)