The utility systems of water supply, wastewater collection and treatment, and electric power are widely considered as essential infrastructure to support urban development, and will be treated accordingly in this plan. There are some general goals, objectives, policies, and implementation measures that apply to all three utility systems, and these are presented in this section and the next. Utility-specific issues and corresponding goals, objectives, and policies are discussed in sections to follow.

Snohomish County is not a provider of public water, wastewater or electric power infrastructure, however, as a major land use regulator, it is well suited to play a leadership role in overall coordination of the provider agencies. The county is also ultimately responsible for water service (water supply) if a water district fails or becomes financially insolvent. The GMA calls upon counties to be regional service providers and inter-jurisdictional infrastructure planning coordination is one such service. The county has assumed this role by managing the preparation of the Coordinated Water System Plan which involved over 25 water system operators in north and east Snohomish County and through its compilation of the countywide sewer and water system inventory.

The county has statutory authority to review and approve sewer and water district comprehensive system plans which providers are required to prepare before undertaking capital projects. Snohomish County will exercise this authority to assure consistency with its own comprehensive plan. County review authority does not extend to municipal systems, but Snohomish County does participate in utility system planning conducted by cities that may impact development in unincorporated areas.

Concurrency review is not currently utilized for non-county facilities, however, an adequacy test for utility infrastructure is utilized by Snohomish County in reviewing development applications. This generally involves a review of development proposals to ascertain their impact upon existing or planned utility systems.

The relative ease with which small public water systems were established in the past has resulted in numerous public and private water purveyors operating around the county. They range in size from the City of Everett, which operates a regional water supply system that wholesales water to many other systems, to two-household associations which are essentially shared wells. There are also numerous municipal, district, and private systems which may operate supply sources, treatment facilities, storage facilities, or simply the distribution network serving its customers.

The water purveyors in Snohomish County are primarily cities and water districts, which are both local governmental units with the power to raise revenues through taxes or user charges. Water associations are another (non-governmental) means for citizens to act collectively to operate and maintain a water supply system, particularly smaller systems that are not expecting to expand, and a few medium-sized associations are operating in Snohomish County. Sixteen of the county’s twenty cities provide public water supply service directly to their citizens, while the remaining four cities contract with water districts to provide the service.

There are also ten water districts, and a large number of water associations and companies that service Snohomish County citizens. Most of the water companies and associations, however, only serve ten or fewer customers and are not included in the inventory report. Most of these smaller, private associations are accounted for in the North Snohomish County Coordinated Water System Plan.

The Tulalip Tribes operates a public water system within the Tulalip Reservation. Several associations and private companies also operate water supply systems in the county. Some larger private systems are included in this element because of their size, potential for future expansion, and possible conversion to public district status.

The primary source of supply for much of the county is the Sultan River/Spada Lake/Lake Chaplain water works complex operated by the City of Everett. The North Snohomish County Coordinated Water System Plan (CWSP) provides the framework for system planning and resource management for most of the urbanizing areas of the county not served by the Everett system. This major planning effort emerged from state legislation adopted in 1977 which attempts to slow the proliferation of small systems and encourage consolidation of existing systems to improve the overall management of the state’s potable water resources and the health of its citizens.

This planning effort has resulted in improved dialogue between large and small providers to rural and small town residents in north and east Snohomish County on such topics as uniform construction standards, level of service in rural areas, and other issues.

The evolution of the water supply network through the state and Snohomish County demonstrates that public water supply systems are not exclusively urban services. This idea is further reinforced by recurring concerns over increasing levels of natural contaminants in groundwater supplies. The CWSP established the concept of a rural level of service for public water supply systems that is tied to domestic use rather than fire protection. This leads to smaller pipes, greatly reduced storage requirements, and generally less costly systems that can be economically supported in low-density rural areas.

Through legislation, court decisions, and agency rule-making, the State of Washington has directed local governments to determine adequate potable water is available prior to issuing construction permits or land use approvals for new development needing a potable water supply.

State laws and environmental regulations play a major role in the design and construction of wastewater treatment facilities which create high system costs and special economies of scale. The resulting number of public wastewater collection and treatment systems in Snohomish County is considerably smaller than the number of public water supply systems. Residential densities of at least three dwelling units per acre are generally needed to financially support the construction costs for wastewater collection systems. Similarly, average flows of at least 0.5 million gallons per day are needed to support the construction and operation of secondary treatment facilities.

Conversely, lower flows and rural densities can usually be served, given satisfactory soil and slope conditions, by decentralized disposal systems such as individual septic systems and small package plants. The thresholds noted above support the position that sanitary sewers constitute an urban service that is necessary and appropriate within urban growth areas, but is usually inappropriate outside of them. Sanitary sewers are generally treated as urban facilities.

There are twenty-six providers of wastewater collection and/or treatment service in operation in Snohomish County.

The remaining housing units, most of which are in rural areas, are served by individual septic systems. The public systems are all owned and operated by a municipality, a sewer or water district, or King County (METRO).

Sixteen of these systems operate their own treatment facilities, several of which serve portions of other jurisdictions. This results from the importance of topography rather than political boundaries to these systems and a regionalization trend encouraged by the federal government during the 1970s and 1980s through its clean water grants for treatment plant construction and upgrading projects. More centralized approaches frequently makes good financial sense because of the high costs of treatment plant construction and operation.

Only the small rural towns of Index, Gold Bar, and Darrington are not served by municipal sewer systems. The City of Mill Creek is served by the Alderwood Water and Sewer District and the Silver Lake Water and Sewer District. The remaining 16 cities maintain their own collection systems serving all or part of their corporate limits, with 11 also operating their own treatment facilities. Some of these city systems also extend service to unincorporated residents living within reach of their collection systems and within the established urban growth areas. There are, additionally, currently six sewer and/or water districts within Snohomish County providing wastewater collection to both city and county residents and businesses, four of which also operate treatment plants. The Tulalip Tribes also operates its own wastewater treatment plant.

Another important service provider is King County METRO which provides wastewater treatment for sections of south Snohomish County. There are 15 other wastewater treatment plants serving the urban areas within Snohomish County. The Everett and Edmonds plants both serve as regional facilities serving areas and jurisdictions outside of their municipal boundaries. Treatment plants operated by the Alderwood Water and Wastewater District, Lake Stevens Sewer District, and the Mukilteo Water and Wastewater District also serve areas within two or more municipal jurisdictions. The remaining treatment plants are city-operated plants serving their individual jurisdictions. The time, expense, and permitting difficulties involved in siting and constructing new wastewater treatment plants will limit the number of new plants built in Snohomish County during the next twenty years. Future increases in demand for wastewater treatment caused by growth and by conversion of existing development from individual systems to public sewers may likely be accommodated by expansion of existing plants or new wastewater treatment technologies.

All electric power in Snohomish County is provided by Snohomish County Public Utility District #1 (PUD), a special purpose public agency which is governed by an elected Board of Commissioners in accordance with state enabling legislation. Electric load forecasting and facility planning is conducted by the PUD as part of its regular planning and management operations. The peak load typically experienced on cold winter days is a primary design consideration in planning new generation, transmission, and the larger distribution facilities. Population and employment forecasts from the PSRC and the state Office of Financial Management (OFM), which provide the foundation for GMA comprehensive planning, are also utilized by PUD and other providers for electric load forecasting.

The Snohomish County PUD has a goal of meeting a portion of its projected increase in demand through aggressive conservation programs. These energy conservation investments will also create economic diversification opportunities and keep the money spent on conservation within the community.

Transmission line corridors of Puget Power and Seattle City Light occupy substantial lands within Snohomish County. Future projects outlined by Puget Power to increase capacity and reliability of the regional power grid elements in Snohomish County utilize existing corridors and rights-of-way.

Electromagnetic fields (EMF) are associated with electrical appliances and facilities in general, and high voltage transmission lines, in particular, and have been the subject of considerable, but as yet inconclusive, research by various health organizations. This EMF issue is being closely watched by the industry and by national health and environmental agencies. Snohomish County will also monitor this research for new findings that could impact the comprehensive plan.

Natural gas is an energy resource whose historic role in the Pacific Northwest has been relatively small because of the abundance and low cost of hydroelectric power. That situation has changed with the region’s growing awareness of hydroelectric power’s limitations. Natural gas could have an expanding role in the Puget Sound region as a domestic space and water heating medium.

Natural gas is delivered to customers by means of pipelines usually located with other public infrastructure within street rights-of-way. Natural gas is produced and delivered by private companies subject to federal and state regulation. Natural gas companies are not required by statute to make their product available to all potential customers like electric utilities. This results in a market driven utility which must have a firm customer base before it will extend service into an area. Older neighborhoods that were developed without natural gas infrastructure must organize and demonstrate to the gas company that sufficient demand exists for the service to justify the expense of extending new lines.

Commitments from developers and builders to provide gas connections to new homes, apartments, and businesses are generally easier to arrange, particularly as the cost of electric energy continues to rise. Most developments in southwest Snohomish County near a supply pipeline are connected to the natural gas distribution network.

The principal distributor of natural gas in Snohomish County is Puget Sound Energy (PSE). The area in which it may provide service (Certified Boundary Area) includes all of the southwest UGA and extends north to Marysville, northeast to Granite Falls, and southeast along SR-2 to Gold Bar. PSE purchases natural gas from the Williams Northwest Pipeline Company whose principal line runs north and south through Snohomish County, east of Lake Stevens, and connects major gas fields in British Columbia with major demand centers to the south. PSE takes its supply from gate stations located along the Northwest pipeline where pressures are reduced and from which the gas is transmitted to PSE’s major demand centers via intermediate pressure lines. Pressures are further reduced at several town border stations before the gas is distributed to customer service lines.

Telecommunications networks are privately owned, publicly regulated utilities that are driven by market forces more than statutory requirements. The principal system providers in Snohomish County are Verizon (telephone) and Comcast (cable TV). Major system components include switching gear and satellite receiving stations for signal processing. These may be characterized by small to medium sized buildings and receiving towers which may have some limited environmental effects on neighboring properties.

Potentially significant issues for telecommunications planning concern emerging technologies and their impact on facility networks, and the importance of the information highway in federal infrastructure planning and investment decisions. It is too early to tell exactly how these changing circumstances may affect local comprehensive planning.