Metronatural: Inventing and Taming Nature in Seattle - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 104

he famously remarked, “Looking at [the] local surroundings, I felt that
Seattle was in a pit, that to get anywhere we would be compelled to climb
out if we could.” 68 This perspective mirrored that of other Progressives
who interpreted Seattle's landscape as a hindrance to economic growth.
Thomson's proposed solution for bringing Seattle out of its pit would
involve a series of massive projects to erase the hills of downtown Seattle
and fl atten the grades of its transportation routes. The regrading projects
would correct the impediments to urban growth dictated by the original
landscape and create a level platform on which commerce could fl ourish,
a common goal for nineteenth- and twentieth-century Promethean ac-
tors. Thomson's vision for the city was also a topographic one: economic
development could occur only on a rational and abstract platform rather
than the heterogeneous, ever-changing landscape that currently existed.
The fi rst regrading project began in 1898 on Denny Hill to the north of
the downtown and used steam shovels and carts to remove soil. Progress
on removing the hill was slow, but this would change with the arrival of
Cedar River water in 1901, when manual excavation was replaced by
hydraulic sluicing techniques developed for gold mining operations on
the Pacifi c Coast. Hydraulic nozzles called giants were modifi ed with a
ball-and-socket joint to allow for horizontal and vertical movement, and
large nozzles 2.5 to 3.5 inches in diameter were used to create water pres-
sures of 75 to 100 pounds per square inch (see fi gure 5.4). The adoption of
water as the medium of excavation signifi cantly accelerated the regrading
efforts by creating an industrial process of landscape alteration. 69 Beaton
provides a vivid description of the regrading process: “Day and night
great streams of water incessantly ate their way into the yielding hills,
steam shovels chewed immense holes and spit their mouthfuls into wait-
ing wagons, houses stood dizzily on freshly created peaks, or moved out
of the way of the devouring progress to return later and lower themselves
to the new levels that were provided.” 70
Massive amounts of water were required to remove the hills and grades
in downtown Seattle, the majority coming from the Cedar River water
supply and supplemented by a pumping plant on Elliott Bay. For example,
on the Jackson Street regrade on the south side of the central business
district, the giants consumed between 9 and 12 million gallons of water
per day, almost a third of the total Cedar River water supply. The Cedar
River would also supply kinetic energy to power the giants and hydro-
electric power for electric lights so that sluicing operations could continue
24 hours a day. 71 Had it not been for the forgiving geologic conditions
of the hills—composed of sand, gravel, clay, and hardpan as opposed to