White River Power Company.
The inadequacy of the Snoqualmie Falls power plant to meet the demand for power for municipal and industrial purposes at Tacoma, prompted its owners to undertake a much larger enterprise, which will result in the construction of still another mammoth power plant within ten miles of the city of Tacoma.
The plan which is being carried out by what is known as the White River Power Company, is to divert the White River about half a mile above the town of Buckley into a canal, beginning at this point and extending a distance of about five miles across the tableland to Lake Tapps. The canal is being excavated like an ordinary railway cut out of the solid gravel, hardpan or earth or whatever the geological formation happens to be. It will be thirty feet in width on the bottom and fifty-five feet wide at the top and eight feet deep. Dams are to be constructed at the low points on the northerly side of Lake Tapps so that the lake can be raised to a level thirty-five feet higher than the present, which will cause the lake to overflow and merge with Kirtley Lake, Crawford Lake and Kelly Lake, covering all the intervening bottom lands and valleys so that the total area thus submerged and overflowed will exceed 4,000 acres of land. This lake may be drawn down thirty feet. This reservoir will be supplied by the flood waters of White River and will be drawn out through the water wheels during the season of low water, and by thus equalizing the flow of the river will make the power plant capable of a continuous development of 100,000-horse power. The reservoir will permit the plant to run at full load for several months, even if White River were to run dry or the use of the supply canal were to be discontinued for that length of time.
- 1—Puget Sound Flouring Mills.
- 2—Pacific Brewing Company’s Plant.
- 3—Dry Dock at Quartermaster Harbor.
- 4—Power House of White River Power Company.
The water from this enlarged lake reservoir will be led through a channel into a masonry penstock whence pressure pipes will conduct it down a declivity to the site of the power house, within ten miles of Tacoma, giving a fall of 485 feet. At the foot of these pipes the power house, 105×250 feet, will be constructed, as shown on the opposite page, and the water will thence be released into the Stuck River. A short transmission line will conduct the power to the Tacoma Cataract Company building in this city, whence a large share of the present output of the Snoqualmie Falls power plant is now distributed to consumers, public and private, in Tacoma.
Nisqually River at Its Source in a Glacier.