Several salient facts emerged. First, the Department of Fisheries and 

 the Department of Game had submitted flow recommendations that varied only 

 marginally. Second, the Department of Water Resources recommendation was less 

 specific but generally paralleled those of the other State departments. 

 Third, the City of Seattle recommended a substantially lower flow regime. The 

 city's proposals were consistently about a third lower than those of the 

 Department of Fisheries, e.g., from October 11 to May 1, Fisheries requested 

 435 cubic feet per second, while the city recommended 290 cubic feet per 

 second from November 1 to May 1. The administrative regulation subsequently 

 promulgated by the Department of Ecology followed rather closely the Department 

 of Fisheries' recommendation. 



The city later argued that 435 cubic feet per second exceeded the natural 

 flow of the Cedar River for that portion of the year. Further, the city 

 claimed that even though it was willing to provide some sort of flow, the 

 authorized flow regime exceeded optimum fish needs. The city commissioned a 

 series of studies, the results of which tended to confirm its position. In 

 addition, the city had always maintained that it had a perfected water right 

 and that the State should be required to purchase storage in the city reservoir 

 to maintain desired flows. This water right claim was based on five facts: 

 (1) in the 1890' s, the city installed and maintained a measuring weir on the 

 river above Cedar Falls; (2) in 1895, a city ordinance proposed an election to 

 authorize the city to proceed with development of the river as a water supply; 

 (3) in 1902, the first water was delivered to the city; (4) in 1914, a masonry 

 dam was constructed on the river; and (5) in 1916, over 47 percent of the 

 entire watershed above Landsburg Dam was purchased by the city. Undoubtedly, 

 the city does have a water right, but by 1959 it had not filed with the State 

 for the right, which it was required to do by State law. This left the extent 

 of the city's right in question (Beckett and Lamb 1976). 



The call for the hearing in 1970 caught the City of Seattle by surprise. 

 The city first heard about the hearing and the proposed flow regime through a 

 public announcement. There was no advance notification or negotiation. 

 Furthermore, the Department of Fisheries seems to have viewed this as a test 

 of the strength of the law and the willingness of the Department of Ecology to 

 carry through once the process was initiated. Two representatives of the 

 Department of Fisheries indicated that they picked the Cedar River case because 

 it posed a difficult problem. If this problem could be resolved in a manner 

 beneficial to their objectives, it seemed to them that other such scenarios 

 would eventually follow. 



The flow regulation ultimately recommended by the Department of Fisheries 

 was promulgated as Washington Administrative Code Chapter 17330. According to 

 several respondents, the standards of the regulation have not been met 

 consistently. The Department of Ecology has been unwilling to strictly enforce 

 the ruling. Since establishment of the flow regime, only one critically short 

 water year has occurred. During that period, representatives of the concerned 

 agencies met regularly to review the data provided by the City of Seattle and 

 to negotiate the actual flow level to be maintained. Subsequently, such a 

 renegotiation process became the standard practice, even in normal water 

 years, since the interested parties got together during each summer to negoti- 

 ate their di fferences. At these "low flow" meetings, information on historical 



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