Balancing needs, protecting species.

In September 2003, a dramatic change occurred to Seattle's drinking water. Few people noticed, but for the first time in more than 100 years salmon were able to swim upstream of a small dam where water is diverted from the city's primary water source, the Cedar River Watershed, and into pipes that carry the water to more than 1 million people.

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Two months later naturalists had found 15 gravel nests with fertilized eggs, called redds, as well as 79 chinook and 17 coho salmon in the water above the dam. The fish were able to access this new habitat because of a $90 million Habitat Conservation Plan adopted by the city of Seattle in April 2000.

"The central motivating factor of the [conservation plan] was to balance the needs of a million people with protecting seven federally listed threatened or endangered species, in particular bull trout and Chinook salmon," says Ralph Naess, education coordinator for Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), which manages the watershed.

In addition to the fish, the species include three others known to live in the watershed--northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, and bald eagle--and two--grizzly bear and gray wolf--that do not inhabit the area but have the potential to. Another 75 species must also be monitored and protected.

To maintain this balance of water and wildlife, SPU is focusing on several fronts. Because of concerns about dead, rotting fish affecting water quality, SPU will limit the number of salmon above the diversion dam to about 1,000 chinook and 4,500 coho. The utility also is working on a larger scale to provide habitat and reduce surface runoff, as well as protect snowpack, which acts as a massive reservoir of water.

In addition to removing roads and fixing culverts, SPU will end commercial timber harvesting, although it will still thin some of the 70,000-plus acres of second-growth forests to make them more closely resemble old-growth stands.

"Fish were the initial focus of the [conservation plan], but we realized we had a great opportunity to incorporate the whole ecosystem," says Naess. "It is certainly worth the extra cost to manage the watershed as an ecological resource because we knew it would help maintain water quality."