The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, commonly known as Metro, was designed to provide regional solutions for the problems of King County's fast-growing metropolitan area. In 1958, after rejecting a proposal for an agency with authority over a range of issues, voters approved a plan authorizing Metro to deal with a single pressing problem -- wastewater treatment. Over the next decade, the agency designed and built a coordinated sewer system that ended discharges into Lake Washington, dramatically improving water quality, and began treating sewage entering Puget Sound.
In this image two men stand inside a concrete pipe to be used for the Metro Sewer Project, at the time the biggest pre-cast pipe ever constructed in the Northwest. The 2,200-foot-long pipe was built in 8-foot sections, each weighing 22 tons.
Caption information source: "Metro: Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle," by Kit Oldham, HistoryLink.org Essay 7813
Physical Description: 1 photographic print : b&w ; 8 x 10 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
