The Skagit Power Debacle
Seattle's municipal power project sits millions over budget and years behind schedule, sparking a bitter blame game between city officials and contractors.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
With $11,000,000 invested and requests before the city council for $5,000,000 additional, current from the Skagit power project, now long overdue, may not reach Seattle within the present year. Gross negligence on the part of the officials in charge of Skagit construction is declared to be responsible. Blame for the delay is laid at the feet of Carl F. Uhden, chief Skagit engineer, who in turn blames the contractors. Waste of public funds is charged in the construction of the first, or Gorge, power unit. To date this unit has cost the city double the original estimate, which was $4,839,000 in a bid submitted by Grant Smith Co. in 1917 for a 59,000-horsepower plant with a 100-foot concrete dam. This bid was rejected and Uhden employed, who submitted a revised estimate of $5,500,000. He assured the plant would be completed in two years, or in 1920. In November, 1919, a report of the progress of the work was issued which showed that the cost was then estimated at $9,700,000. Figures today indicate it will cost $16,000,000 to complete.
“Gross negligence on the part of the officials in charge of Skagit construction is declared to be responsible.”
The massive cost overruns and political finger-pointing of the Skagit project echo the chronic budget blowouts of major public infrastructure projects seen in the Pacific Northwest to this day. The Gorge Dam, once the site of this 1920s controversy, remains a pivotal, if historically troubled, piece of Seattle's municipal energy identity.
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