75 Years of PUD Public Power
1980s – Building Toward an Environmentally Sustainable Future
During the ’80s, the PUD continued to build the utility that serves you today. In 1980, our Operations Center near the Boeing Plant was completed. It is a central hub for our crews and houses other crucial departments such as Engineering, Transportation and our Maps and Records group.
We also completed the second phase of our Sultan project, later named the Jackson Hydroelectric Project, in 1985. The 112-megawatt hydroelectric facility produces about 7% of our power needs and generates enough electricity to power more than 56,000 homes with clean, renewable energy. In addition, Spada Lake – the Jackson project reservoir – provides 75% of the drinking water supply to Snohomish County. It also offers numerous recreational opportunities like boating, hiking and picnicking, as well as incidental flood control.
Conservation and sustainability have been at the heart of the PUD since the beginning. By the time the 1980s rolled around, we had a variety of conservation programs in place to help customers save energy and money. We continued those efforts throughout the decade and, by 1989, our conservation programs had reached 1 billion kilowatt hours in savings!
PUD Pioneers – Danny Miles
Hydroelectric projects in Snohomish County all have one thing in common: Danny Miles.
As a PUD engineer for 39 years, Danny’s fingerprints are all over the PUD’s hydro projects, from working as an inspector on the Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project to lead engineer on more recent run-of-the-river hydropower projects like Hancock Creek and Calligan Creek projects.
Danny also worked as lead engineer on the construction of Youngs Creek hydro project near Sultan and Woods Creek outside of Monroe.
As an inspector during the Jackson project’s construction, Danny helped shepherd the project to completion in 1985. The project involved using a tunnel boring machine, measuring 14 feet in diameter, to bore a four-mile tunnel from Spada Lake intake to the powerhouse. During the course of the tunneling, about 3 million cubic feet of rock and sediment were removed.
Danny had an encyclopedic knowledge of the PUD’s hydro projects. While overseeing the projects, he oversaw construction on-site, hammered out contract details, traveled to foreign countries to inspect equipment, and mentored future PUD engineers and students.
Danny passed away in 2019, leaving an indelible legacy as a public servant, hydro expert and enthusiastic explorer.
The 1970s – The Original Conservation Sensations
As the PUD reached over 100,000 customers, our focus remained improving reliability and service for our customer-owners. In 1970, we completed a two-story addition to the Electric Building, our downtown Everett headquarters, located on California Street and Virginia Avenue.
Shortly after, we worked to energize Hat Island with construction of an underground distribution system on the island and the installation of almost 16,000 feet of submarine cable. (Interestingly, we are currently designing and planning a new submarine cable to replace the one currently connecting the island.)
Late in the decade, the PUD’s Energy Conservation Program was developed and established. In what has become a goal for the utility ever since, the PUD realized that one of the most effective ways to help customers save money was to help them curb their energy needs. The first program included energy audits for residential customers, public information programs and advertising, energy-efficient designs in new facilities, and upgrading existing ones with various conservation measures.
In 1979, your PUD broke ground on construction of our Operations Center in south Everett near the Boeing plant. The Operations Center, or Ops as it’s known to PUD insiders, is still the hub for our line and substation crews, engineers, transportation department and more.
The worst windstorm in 17 years – since the Columbus Day Storm – struck the area in February 1979, leaving about 50,000 of our 130,000 customers without power. Storm damage ran over half a million dollars.
PUD Pioneers – Thomas Quast
One of the first PUD commissioners, Thomas Quast was instrumental in shaping the utility. He was elected in 1948 – one year before the PUD officially purchased the electrical distribution system to serve all of Snohomish County and Camano Island – and was re-elected five times, serving as a PUD Commissioner for 27 years.
Under Quast’s leadership, the PUD transformed into a leader in public power. While he was commissioner, the PUD developed much of the grid and constructed many of the buildings still in use today. Quast helped oversee tremendous growth for the PUD and worked with the other commissioners to form a stable base to allow the utility to meet future needs.
Quast was on the board of directors of the Washington Public Power Supply System, a trustee of the Northwest Public Power Association, and an honorary life member of the American Public Power Association.
Quast owned and operated Cedarcrest Golf Course in Marysville for 34 years, through the Great Depression as well as World War II. His daughter, Anne Quast, went on to become a three-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, a British Women’s Amateur Champion and a three-time U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur champion. She was also an eight-time Curtis Cup player.
Quast was married to his wife Joan for 62 years, until his death in 1997.
The 1960s – Expanding in Our Communities
If the PUD spent the 1950s building its core business in downtown Everett, it spent the next decade expanding.
Click here to see PUD trucks of the 1960s
To better engage with customers, the PUD began building offices across its service territory. It started with an office in Arlington opening in 1959, and continued into the 1960s, with offices in Stanwood (1960), Monroe (1961), Snohomish (1965) and Lynnwood (1968). Customers visited these offices to pay bills, talk with customer service representatives and have questions answered by PUD experts.
The PUD was also instrumental in helping the region grow. PUD engineers worked to ensure that significant buildings like the Boeing production plant, Weyerhaeuser Paper Mill, and Snohomish County Courthouse were built in the most energy-efficient way. The PUD also advised on reconstruction after a fire on the Everett waterfront damaged buildings in 1961.
Click here to see communities through the lens of the PUD 1965 Annual Report
Early in the decade, one of the PUD’s largest undertakings ever began with construction on our Sultan River Project. Phase 1 involved building Culmback Dam to a height of 200 feet to form Spada Lake, which was completed in 1965. Along with creating an independent way to produce electricity, the project sought to provide an ample water supply to Snohomish County. The dam remains co-owned by the PUD and City of Everett.
This decade of expansion wasn’t without rebuilding. The Columbus Day Windstorm in October 1962 wreaked havoc in the Northwest, including the PUD’s service territory. The storm caused about $250,000 in damage to PUD facilities and equipment – roughly $2.5 million in today’s dollars.
The 1950s – Building our New Home
With the PUD established and providing affordable power to Snohomish County and Camano Island, it was quickly clear that upgrades and infrastructure improvements were needed to serve a growing customer base.
Our first service shop was completed in 1955 in downtown Everett. It featured a store room, garage and transformer repair shop, and parking for line trucks.
Speaking of line trucks, when the electric properties were purchased in 1949, there were 44 cars and trucks and nine trailers in service. By the end of the decade, those vehicles were replaced and the PUD boasted a pool of 78 cars and trucks and 13 trailers – plus five cars and trucks for the Water Department. Two hydraulic lifts were also in operation and utilized primarily for tree trimming.
But we weren’t done there! Three years later, our company headquarters was completed right alongside the service shop. The inaugural Electric Building, located where it currently sits at the corner of California Street and Virginia Avenue, opened to help us serve the public. The 35,000-square foot building cost $19 per square foot to build. It was only two stories tall at the time, but was built so that it could accommodate future expansion down the road.
From the archives: view your PUD’s first-decade accomplishments
The PUD’s Origins – 1930s & 40s
In the early 1900s, a new idea was sweeping across the Pacific Northwest: public power. While electricity had long been supplied by private companies and seen as a privilege for the wealthy, many felt electricity was an essential part of daily life and a fundamental right. Agriculture workers and small towns argued they needed it to drive economic growth. But rather than become a financial opportunity, they believed electricity should be regarded as a public service, like roads, schools or parks, and that electric companies should be owned by the public and provide their product at-cost.
Following the growing public power movement across much of the state, Snohomish County Public Utility District No. 1 was created by a vote of the people on Nov. 3, 1936. However, it took a few years for the PUD to get some infrastructure set up, as well as raise enough money to purchase the region’s electrical distribution system.
The PUD began operations as a water utility in the Lake Stevens area in 1946. Three years later, on September 1, 1949, the PUD purchased the electrical distribution system for Snohomish County and Camano Island from Puget Sound Power & Light Company. The price? $16 million, which was raised through the sale of electric revenue bonds. That would be over $206 million in today’s dollars.
Public power in Snohomish County and Camano Island was born!
