The Watershed

Seattle is one of only half a dozen cities its size in North America to use a protected wilderness to supply clean and affordable water. The Cedar River Municipal Watershed, 90,500 acres of forest land just east of North Bend, supplies more than two-thirds of the water King County residents and businesses use, over one hundred million gallons a day. The lower Cedar River Watershed is habitat for Chinook, coho, and sockeye salmon, as well as steelhead trout. The Cedar empties into Lake Washington, supplying clean water to refresh the lake, keep the floating bridges floating, and operate the Ballard Chittendon Locks where water from the lake meets Puget Sound.

The Cedar River Watershed provides a biological preserve in the midst of our growing region. It protects nearly 14,000 acres of old growth forest, supplies water for the largest run of sockeye salmon in the lower 48 states, and shelters Rocky Mountain elk, common loons, spotted owls, cougar, black bear, osprey and bull trout. The Cedar River Watershed is also the source of some of the nation's foremost environmental research, and it chronicles 9,400 years of human use, the oldest verified human use at that elevation in the Cascades.