Seattle City Light proposes $4 billion for Skagit River hydropower dams

Seattle City Light, the city’s electric utility, has agreed to commit about $4 billion to continue to operate its hydropower dams on the Skagit River over the next 50 years.

The hard-fought agreement with tribes and state and federal agencies includes provisions to pass salmon over three dams, restore fish habitat and provide some compensation for Native nations harmed by the construction and ongoing operation of the hydropower project.

The full agreement, set to be made public Monday, will need approval from the Seattle City Council before it is submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which grants licenses to operate dams. The city anticipates a license may be issued around 2030.

The agreement will commit the city to work throughout the watershed to help restore salmon, including actions advocated by Native nations for years. The work includes $979 million for trapping and hauling salmon both upstream and downstream around the dams, as well as $200 million for habitat restoration throughout the watershed. The city said it would also manage flows to be more protective of fish.

Construction began on the dams more than a century ago, as a project that could meet rising energy needs and help the city grow. The dams today provide about 20% of the city’s electricity, and Seattle residents typically benefit from cheaper electricity rates than the average U.S. household. 

The dams also play an important role in flood risk management, and some settlers saw dams as a means of taming the river to protect agriculture in the lower valley.

The dams’ construction, however, came at a significant cost to spiritual and cultural sites and salmon. The company town of Newhalem sits atop an Upper Skagit village, Daxʷálib. The construction of Gorge Dam stripped the river from a sacred gorge, and instead flowed it through a tunnel blasted in a mountain to feed a powerhouse. The project encompasses the Upper Skagit people’s creation site and other significant areas within the tribe’s ancestral home known as the “valley of the spirits.”

Negotiations on the future operations of the dams began in 2019. The current license expired in 2025. Along the way, lawsuits were filed, and Native Nations turned up the heat on the city to do more for threatened salmon and address cultural and spiritual impacts.

Bull trout, steelhead and Puget Sound Chinook salmon have been listed as threatened species since the last license for the dams was granted in 1995. Southern resident orcas, who rely on Chinook, were listed as endangered in 2005.

Upper Skagit Indian Tribe member Janelle Schuyler’s petition for the removal of Gorge Dam, the lowermost of the city’s three dams, garnered nearly 50,000 signatures. Investigative reporting revealed Seattle City Light had misrepresented the environmental impacts of its dams and failed to adequately address impacts. Meanwhile, the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe took the utility to court several times, including over its green power claims, arguing it misled the public on the dams’ impacts on salmon and the environment.

Supported by both traditional ecological expertise and Western science, the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe made the case that fish passage was critical for endangered fish recovery, even more so in the face of climate change. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community also fought in negotiations for flood plain and estuary habitat restoration outlined in early Chinook recovery plans.

“As People of the Salmon, restoring and maintaining the health of the Skagit River will always be our highest priority,” Swinomish tribal community chair Steve Edwards said in a statement. “This is a hard-won, fair, and forward-looking agreement that honors our Treaty rights, strengthens the ecology of the river, and provides a responsible path forward for hydropower generation and salmon recovery.”

Dam removal wasn’t — and isn’t — on the table, City Light says, though the city in the agreement recognized salmon and steelhead did historically migrate above the present-day location of Gorge Dam.

“For the most part, we can consider it a win,” said Sauk-Suiattle chair Nino Maltos II in an interview last month. “The fact that we were able to get something that’s going to benefit the tribes and anybody else that fishes these rivers. It’s definitely big. And we think it’s important to make sure that we take care of these rivers so that they can continue to take care of us.”

The state department of Fisheries in the 1940s wrote that the construction of the dams had “resulted in the destruction of the salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout runs,” after earlier requirements to offset the dams’ impacts on salmon went unfulfilled, according to reporting in The Margin.

“This is an important milestone, but it is not the finish line,” said Brendan Brokes, a state Department of Fish and Wildlife regional director for North Puget Sound and a state policy representative during re-licensing. “We look forward to continued collaboration with Seattle City Light, our tribal co-managers, and local partners to support implementation of this agreement, including significant investments in bringing salmon back to the upper Skagit watershed and restoring habitat for fish and wildlife.”

Water will return to the Gorge reach of the river — a 3-mile stretch between the Gorge Dam and powerhouse that’s spiritually significant to the Upper Skagit people — as part of the agreement.

Seattle also agreed to build a cultural center at Daxʷálib that would be owned by the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, and begin to compensate tribes with about $350 million over 50 years, for cumulative impacts of the dams. The city has also agreed to return parcels of land to the Upper Skagit and Sauk-Suiattle tribes.

The agreement includes provisions for flood risk management and about $1.8 billion for ongoing operation and maintenance of dams and powerhouses.

The implementation would be overseen by the Skagit License Implementation Committee, in which tribal nations, the federal and state governments will guide the city over the next 50 years.

“We know what it’s like to be without, to do without because we did without for 100 years under the dams,” said Scott Schuyler, an Upper Skagit elder and longtime policy representative who helmed negotiations with the city. “This settlement is just.”

Participants in the agreement include Seattle City Light; the Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish and Upper Skagit Indian tribes; the state departments of Ecology and Fish and Wildlife; and federal agencies including the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the National Park Service.

Seattle City Light customers might see electricity rates go up about .5% per year from 2027 to 2032.

“The settlement is an expression of Seattle’s commitment to safe, renewable energy,” Mayor Katie Wilson said in a statement. “Through it, we are also committing to putting people first by respecting Tribal sovereignty and leadership, prioritizing flood risk management for downstream communities, and enhancing education and recreation opportunities.”

Material from The Seattle Times archives was used in this report.