Metronatural: Inventing and Taming Nature in Seattle - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 118

tame nature, in the second half there was an equally concerted effort to
save nature from the unintended consequences of urban growth, signal-
ing a shift from the second stage of the Promethean Project (widespread
improvement) to the third stage (crisis).
In the early 1950s, an urban reformer named Jim Ellis initiated a pro-
posal to solve Lake Washington's pollution by forming the Municipality of
Metropolitan Seattle, or Metro. 116 Metro would manage growth through
jurisdiction over water supply, sewerage, solid waste management, trans-
portation and land use planning, and park administration. 117 Inspired
by Toronto's example of regional governance, the “super utility” would
have taxation power to fuse the old faith in engineering with new public
interests in ecological protection and environmentalism. 118 Ellis noted,
“Seattle is a young city with a chance to lick its metropolitan problems
before being swallowed up by them.” 119 Thomson had created an urban
growth machine for Seattle but failed to account for the consequences of
population growth in the areas adjacent to but outside of the municipal-
ity's jurisdiction. The economic gains afforded by the rationalized land-
scape of the city had extended population growth and land development
beyond the regulatory reach of the city. Proponents of regional governance
in the 1950s were attempting to reconcile the economic and environmental
landscapes of the region through the comprehensive provision of public
services.
Not surprisingly, the proposal for a strong regional government was
resisted by many residents, particularly those in Seattle's suburbs who
feared the consolidation of political power in the city as well as the threat
of higher taxes and restrictions on property rights. 120 These residents saw
themselves as outside the network of economic growth and environmental
protection that Seattle had fostered throughout its history. The differ-
ence in perspective between Seattleites and other regional residents was
evident in the fi rst regional vote to authorize the formation of Metro in
March 1958. Seattle voters approved the ballot measure, but residents in
smaller cities and suburbs soundly rejected it. Undeterred, Ellis and his
group of regional governance proponents revised the authority's mandate,
signifi cantly limiting Metro's jurisdiction to only sewage treatment and
excluding those districts (particularly in south King County) that had
rejected the fi rst proposal. Their revised strategy was a success; Metro
received voter authorization by a majority of Seattle and suburban voters
in September 1958.
After forming, Metro moved quickly, and in 1961 proposed a ten-year
sewage system plan that would comprise 231 square miles at a cost of