Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and hills and water and growing things and a sense that nature is truly
accommodating.”
6
Seattle is defi ned fi rst and foremost by its location in the heart of a
region referred to as Cascadia, the Great Northwest, the Great Raincoast,
God's Country, the Promised Land, Ecotopia, or, most frequently, the
Pacifi c Northwest. The geographic extent of the region varies depending
upon one's emphasis on climate, economics, culture, or a combination of
the three. Historian Carlos Schwantes argues that “any search for com-
monly agreed upon boundaries for the Pacifi c Northwest will prove fruit-
less. . . . The regional perimeter, except along the Pacifi c Ocean, remains as
indistinct as a fog-shrouded promontory.”
7
All regional defi nitions include
the coastal portions of Oregon and Washington as the western border, but
the other boundaries are contested. Sometimes the northern edge extends
to southern Alaska, and the southern extent can reach San Francisco and
stretch as far east as Montana. Despite a lack of consensus on the region's
geography, Schwantes notes: “In the Pacifi c Northwest, as in few other
parts of the United States, regional identity is almost wholly linked to
natural setting. The Pacifi c Northwest without its mountains, its rugged
coastline, its Puget Sound fogs, its vast interior of sagebrush, rimrock,
and big sky is as unthinkable as New England without a Puritan heritage,
the South without the Lost Cause, the Midwest without its agricultural
cornucopia, or California without its gold rush mentality.”
8
And a spe-
cifi c element of nature—water—is at the heart of this regional identity.
Historians Thomas Edwards and Carlos Schwantes write: “Beaver and
evergreen symbolize the states of Oregon and Washington respectively.
But an equally appropriate symbol for both might be a drop of water. In
the Pacifi c Northwest as in few other regions of the United States, water
is an abiding, if not always appreciated, presence; fog and rain, glacier
and waterfall, irrigation canal and tidal estuary, the Columbia River and
Pacifi c Ocean.”
9
Throughout the twentieth century, water has been understood as a
signifi cant driver of the regional economy, particularly during the storied
infrastructure development period from 1930 to 1970 when a plethora
of hydroelectric dams were constructed to harvest “white coal” as an
inexpensive electricity supply.
10
The prominence of hydroelectric dams in
the region suggests that the so-called Promised Land was an unfi nished
one requiring large engineering projects to perfect the region and make it
habitable for human settlement. Furthermore, the dam projects—largely
initiated and funded by the federal government—solidifi ed the notion
of the Pacifi c Northwest as a distinct region through the promotion of
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