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In 1902, the citizens of Seattle created City Light and said "give us affordable electricity.
By 1905 City Light had built the Cedar Falls Hydroelectric Project and began
providing power to light their streets, power their industry and and bring electricity to
their homes.
Since its early pioneering days, City Light has built a series of hydro projects including
a system of dams on the upper Skagit River and the
magnificent Pend Oreille River. These rivers power our three Skagit Dams and
the Boundary Dam in far Northeastern Washington.
Over the decades, Seattle City Light built the dams in what was then distant mountains
and built a transmission systems to bring the power to
Seattle. Later, City Light partnered with other utilities and the Bonneville Power Administration
to make sure that our citizen owners have a reliable,
environmentally friendly, low cost power, today and in the future.
"The heritage of City Light also looks to the welfare of future generations. When Cedar
Falls was built it was unprecedented for a city to build its own hydroelectric system.
That powerhouse is still in operation, today, 100
years later. When Diablo Dam was dedicated in 1930 it was the tallest concrete dam in
the world. The dam and the beautiful lake behind it still provide not only electricity,
but diverse benefits as recreation and flood control. Salmon runs below the Skagit hydroelectric
projects 3 dams are the healthiest in the lower 48 states. And City Light continues
to look out for our future generations, by being
environmentally responsible. Since 2005, our operations have cut net greenhouse gas
emissions to zero. No other utility in this country can say that.
Dams are just concrete and steel. It takes people to run
this utility. City Light's work force is a diverse group
of specialists, from the powerhouse operators, to the
City Light's work force is a diverse group of specialists, from the powerhouse operators,
to the lineworkers to the office professionals. They
maintain the equipment, place the poles, string the
lines, crawl through the equipment vaults, and answer your calls.
We operate like a business and our product is electricity.
The money we make is reinvested in new infrastructure and to keep the system running. We
make no profit so we can give you some of the cheapest electric rates of any comparable
city in the U.S.
There are challenges ahead for all of us. In 2000, the West Coast energy crisis gave
us a wakeup call. We must plan for future events because
with threat of climate change we can't always be sure we
will have as much snow in the mountains to fill our reservoirs. Right now we are identifying
sources of power that don't rely on a wet, Northwest winter. Just as City
Light pioneered the development of hydro power we are now looking to new renewable sources
like wind and solar power. Consesrvation will play an even larger role
in coming years. Coupled with stewardship of the environment
and attention to its vast infrastructure, Seattle City Light is well on its way to providing
a second century of service to the citizens of Seattle.