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-The topography here in the Cascade Mountains
and the Puget Lowlands is varied and complex.
We have mountain ridges here and river valleys
and this natural lake basin here.
I'm Amy LaBarge.
I am the watershed management division director here
at Seattle Public Utilities.
I think a lot of people are unsure of
where their water comes from.
And here in Seattle,
everybody's water comes from two source supply watersheds
up in the Cascade Mountains.
The larger source of your drinking water
is the Cedar River,
which is what we're looking at here.
And a lot of people also get their water
from the Tolt River watershed.
You are in the Cedar River Municipal Watershed
on the shores of Chester Morse Lake,
your primary drinking-water supply.
We now serve 1.6 million customers with Seattle water.
We collect snow in the winter,
and that helps feed the water supply.
We also have a lot of rain during the fall,
winter, and spring.
We are witnessing the water cycle right now
with a little bit of rain,
and the trees are releasing some of that moisture,
and the clouds are evaporating.
Our job is to capture that water,
make sure it stays clean and fresh and pure
in the source supply watersheds
and manage the water to balance objectives of water supply,
fish habitat, and flood protection.
This watershed is unique in the nation
because the city owns nearly 100% of it
and can then avoid filtering this system.
All of the land that you see, all of the forests that you see,
is helping to support the health of this system
and capture that rain and snow.
And as it melts off, it feeds into this lake
and on down the Cedar River system.
We need to keep this landscape undeveloped.
We need to continue to maintain closed watershed
and protect against unsupervised public access.
-We're standing on Masonry Dam,
and directly behind us is Masonry Pool,
and behind Masonry Pool is Chester Morse Lake.
And those two lakes form all of our Cedar River
water supply system.
We say it's approximately two-thirds
of our total water supply.
My name is Elizabeth Garcia.
I'm in the water resources section
at Seattle Public Utilities,
where I manage our planning team.
This dam helps us to capture more water.
We are currently at peak refill season.
The water level doesn't get any higher than this.
We are experiencing more low-snowpack years
than we used to.
They seem to be occurring more frequently,
so we're relying on those tools of dynamic management
more year to year in order to ensure
that we refill our reservoirs.
SPU has invested in multiple ways in monitoring
and measuring the snowpack in the mountains,
and we're able to understand
how much snow is being accumulated relative to average.
So, this last year was a below-average snow year.
And last year we had a drought in most of the state.
That meant
that we let that low flood season lake elevation
actually come up a little bit.
We were holding more water than we typically would
if we had the normal amount of snow.
We talk about climate change often.
We plan for it continuously.
The utility has actually been planning for
climate change impacts to the water supply since 2000.
And we've increased our investment
both in terms of manpower and technical expertise
in understanding climate change
so that we can better plan for it.
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I just think that we are so lucky to be able to have water
that comes off of this landscape
and that we're able to protect it
and, you know, manage the forest for ecosystem health
in order to serve such a booming metropolitan region.
You know, the disconnect between where our water comes from
and the lack of people here and how that protection,
you know, makes this such a valuable resource
for our growing city.
It just astounds me.
-This is the lifeblood of the city.
This watershed is incredibly precious.
This is a very high quality,
natural asset that the City of Seattle owns
to protect your drinking water supply.
Your water is pure from the start
here from the Cedar River Municipal Watershed
and the South Fork Tolt.
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