The 69-Square-Mile Sultan Basin Watershed Is Considered One Of The Nation's Purest And Most Abundant Water Sources, Serving Nearly Three-Quarters Of The County's Population. The Watershed Is Adequate To Serve The County Into The Next Century, But Some Say It's Time To Consider Conservation. -- Managing A Liquid Asset

Pipeline hearings

-- Snohomish County residents are invited to a public workshop Tuesday night to help plan the route of a new pipeline needed to bring more water from Lake Chaplain to South Snohomish County by the end of the decade.

Planners also want to know what water-conservation methods residents are willing to try, such as installing low-flush toilets or using treated waste water for watering golf courses and parks.

Those who attend will be given free "toilet tummies," plastic bags that displace space in toilet tanks and hence save water with every flush.

Exhibits will include conservation ideas and maps showing existing pipeline routes as well as proposed routes for the new pipeline.

The workshop will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Cascade High School library, 801 E. Casino Road, Everett. For information, call Everett's public-works department at 259-8800.. This is the second of three workshops; the final one will be Feb. 10. --------------------------------------------------------------- The 69-square-mile Sultan Basin watershed is considered one of the nation's purest and most abundant water sources, serving nearly three-quarters of the county's population. The watershed is adequate to serve the county into the next century, but some say it's time to consider conservation.

The grass won't always be greener on this side of the Snohomish County line.

But it might stay that way through 2040, with aggressive investment, conservation and planning. Beyond that time frame, the state probably will regionalize the Puget Sound area's water systems.

When last summer's drought turned King County lawns brown, Snohomish County residents still had an abundance of water stored in Spada Lake reservoir high above Sultan. The 69-square-mile Sultan Basin watershed is considered one of the nation's purest and most abundant water sources, and already it serves 350,000 people - three-quarters of the county's population.

Three pipelines now carry Spada water from Everett's water-treatment plant at Lake Chaplain into the city. From there the water is distributed to more than 100 smaller water purveyors, the largest of which is the Alderwood Water District serving southwest Snohomish County.

A fourth major pipeline transports 32 million gallons a day of untreated water destined for the Scott Paper Co. on the Everett waterfront. In comparison, the three other pipelines carry a combined total of 42 million gallons a day.

If Snohomish County residents get serious about water conservation, then Spada Reservoir is expected to satisfy their needs for the next 30 to 50 years. But the southwest corner of the county is growing so fast that a new pipeline must be built by the end of this decade.

Three alternative paths for the new pipeline have been outlined, and Everett is holding public workshops to gauge the level of support for - or opposition to - each one.

Two would require a new reservoir near the Clearview district east of Mill Creek, in the 7100 block of 160th Street Southeast. The Alderwood Water District already owns that property, which it purchased for a future reservoir.

THE PIPELINE ROUTES

In one scenario, the pipeline would cut south through the Monroe area, then continue along Highway 522 to Clearview. Otherwise, the new line could run east parallel to an existing pipeline, then turn south at Snohomish and continue along Highway 9 to Clearview.

The third option is building the entire length of the new pipeline roughly parallel to the existing line, which enters Everett near the Lowell neighborhood and ends at a reservoir near the Everett Country Club.

Costs have not been determined for any of the three options, but the Alderwood Water District will help with construction expenses, said Don Schutt, Alderwood's general manager.

"I suspect the route to Clearview would be less expensive," he said, so Alderwood probably would prefer one of the first two alternatives.

Alderwood is one year away from beginning its next five-year planning update, so it's too soon to talk about how the district would pipe water from the new reservoir into neighborhoods, he said.

Everett's original water system, installed on the Sultan River in 1916, consisted of an earthen dam and wood-stave pipes built above-ground along the present-day Old Pipeline Road. It originally was developed to serve the city's pulp-and-paper industry, which thrived until the 1960s.

Since then, water demand has shifted from the Everett waterfront to the Paine Field industial complex and growing suburban communities to the south such as Lynnwood and Edmonds. In 1968, demand was 83 percent industrial; today industrial demand has dropped to 47 percent. The county's population tripled during that period.

PUD SHARES LICENSE

Since 1960, Everett has co-licensed Spada Lake Reservoir with the Snohomish County Public Utility Disitrict, which obtains about 10 percent of its electricity from the Henry M. Jackson Hydrolectric Project at Spada.

In 1983, the PUD spent $250 million to raise Culmback Dam, which forms the reservoir at the top of Sultan River, and installed hydropower turbines to produce electricity.

That same year, Everett finished its water-filtration facility at Lake Chaplain. That plant, which is the largest in the Northwest, soon will be retrofitted to double the amount of water it can treat daily.

Under the terms of the PUD-Everett agreement, top priority goes to preserving the drinking-water supply, second priority goes to maintaining fish habitat in the Sultan River, and third priority is given to electricity production. Other competing interests include flood control and public recreation.

A small amount of water is released from the reservoir directly into the river for fish. The rest is sent through a four-mile tunnel and a four-mile pipeline to the PUD powerhouse.

Depending on how much water is flowing - which is adjusted depending upon the reservoir's depth - the water is sent through different sets of turbines.

Water sent through the "Pelton wheel" turbines produces the most electricity and then drops directly into the Sultan, for maximum benefit to spawning fish such as pink and chum salmon and steelhead trout.

Water diverted into the "Francis wheel" turbines produces less electricity, but continues north through another pipeline to Everett's Lake Chaplain filtration plant. Another tunnel connects Lake Chaplain with a diversion dam on the Sultan, where more water can be released for the fish.

The inherent conflict among fish habitat, electricity production and drinking-water supplies was amply illustrated last week when the city of Everett became upset with a PUD decision to keep Sultan flows unsually high despite a dropping level of water in the reservoir. That decision was made because an unusually high number of chum salmon - about 1,000 - recently spawned in the river, and cutting back the amount of water flowing through the Pelton wheel turbines would leave the eggs high and dry.

Although Everett was consulted in early December about the chum-salmon decision, the city last week contacted the federal Energy Regulatory Commission to request more joint decision-making power.

By the time the salmon hatch in Febuary or March, steelhead will be arriving to spawn. Everett officials are worried that if the river level is kept high to keep those eggs wet, too, and last year's drought conditions repeat themselves, then the city will be caught with insufficient water reserves.

"Who knows we won't have a two-year drought? I wouldn't want to stake my career or my life on the weather patterns in the Sultan Basin," said Dan Lowell, operations superintendent for Everett's public-works department. "We don't want to ever be in the position Seattle was in last year, period."

The PUD, in turn, stressed that even though the reservoir is low for this time of year, it's still 45 feet higher than it was before the PUD raised the dam in 1983. In addition, recent storms have raised the snowpack in the Sultan Basin to 51 inches as of yesterday morning.

"There's not a chance of running short of water," said Chuck Shigley, the PUD's commission administrator.

Since so much snow has accumulated in the basin, it's likely that even more water will be released into the river in coming months.

"Otherwise," he said, "we'll run the risk of flooding."