On October 30, 1969, the Seattle City Council votes to construct High Ross Dam, despite the environmental impact in the United States and Canada.
Ultimately, however, the High Ross Dam was never built. Instead, lengthy negotiations between Seattle City Light and Canada resulted in the Skagit River Treaty, in which the United States agreed not to raise the level of the water by building a dam, which would have flooded portions of British Columbia.
In exchange, Seattle City Light was given the right to purchase electricity from British Columbia hydroelectric sources in amounts equal to the power that would have been generated by a higher Ross Dam.
Sources:
Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 276; Ross Anderson, "Ross Dam Treaty signed: Seattle Gets Power, B.C. Gets Beauty," The Seattle Times, April 3, 1984, p. A-14.
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