Residents converge on Lake Tapps to mark hydroelectric plan's 100 years

Doug McCoy settled in Bonney Lake with his parents and siblings a year before the plateau city incorporated in 1949.

It was Lake Tapps that drew them.

They were living in Fife, and they came to the lake for a picnic. McCoy’s father soon bought property about a mile from the water.

McCoy grew up there swimming and boating, and he eventually raised his own children not far from the lake. “All my kids learned to water-ski on Lake Tapps,” said McCoy, 70. “That lake has been a big part of our life.” That’s why he wanted to help celebrate its centennial at a community event Saturday.

On the outskirts of Auburn along the winding East Valley Highway, some 400 people from the Lake Tapps and Bonney Lake area gathered to reminisce, to eat, to listen to the music of an old-time acoustic “speakeasy swing” band and finally to tour the Puget Sound Energy hydroelectric plant that has stood since 1911.

The power from the plant flowed from the waters of Lake Tapps, built as a reservoir derived from four smaller lakes and a canal dug from the White River.

And to that river the waters would return after a journey through tunnel and flume, and through the giant powerhouse turbines.

“I was surprised it was in that good of shape after 100 years,” said Paul Williams of Lake Tapps, who came with his daughter Lauralynn.

“We’ve driven past it forever, and we’ve never been inside,” said Ryan Windish, who came from Sumner with his wife and three children.

“I was raised here,” said Mike Laviguer, 68. He recalled daily climbing down 13 flights of stairs from a home on the hill on his way to Deiringer School.

And there at the party on Saturday he met long-ago classmate Sherry Stinson and her husband, Dave. They recalled the days when guard dogs roamed the powerhouse grounds, and when the windows of the three-story building were covered to prevent World War II attacks.

“This is why the community existed,” Laviguer said. “This was why people moved to the community. This was such a great place to grow up.”

The plant was built as part of the White River hydroelectric project, which came online in 1911 and helped supply electricity to the region.

“It’s a piece of history,” said Glenn Taylor, a lakeside resident and member of the Greater Bonney Lake Historical Society, which helped organize the centennial celebration. “Generating electricity and delivering it to Seattle and Tacoma was an important part of the area’s development,” he said. In 1999, Puget Sound Energy said it might cease operations at the site, and this fostered years of questions and debate about the upper lake’s future. The utility shuttered the plant in 2004. In late 2009 – for about $42 million and after negotiations and consultations with municipalities, counties, tribes and other groups – Cascade Water Alliance took ownership of the lake and the former generating facility. Comprising a group of King County cities and water districts, the Alliance plans to use the lake as a future regional source of drinking water. The group is committed to keeping the lake level high enough for seasonal recreation, CEO Chuck Clarke said Saturday. The powerhouse is now a “water-release facility,” he said as that water flowed beneath the building, driven by gravity at a rate of 30 cubic yards per second, down through a series of conduits and out onto its way home. At its peak, the building managed 2,000 cubic yards per second, and in a recent safety test ran briefly at 950. Lloyd Warren, chairman of the board at the Alliance, said Saturday was “a 100-year celebration. It’s the end of the culmination of our acquiring the project. We’ve had to lay aside our parochial differences, and work together.” As a ribbon was cut on a historical sign marking the importance of the project, Warren said people were seeing “the beginning of another century.” Dennis Dhaese, president of the historical society, said earlier that Lake Tapps was one of the reasons he moved to Bonney Lake with his family in 1978. “I wanted my kids to be close to some water,” the 60-year-old said, adding that it’s “a boon to the city as far as tourism and growth.” Doug McCoy said he recalls a time when the lakeshore was more open. As a teen, he would often meet up there with friends. At times, he said with a chuckle, they would “borrow” a boat at night and head out onto the water. Back then, he said, “as long as you brought the boat back, they didn’t care.” He still appreciates Lake Tapps, he said – for its beauty, its place in the community and his family, and its long history. “I think the 100-year anniversary is really something,” he said. Sara Schilling: 253-552-7058 sara.schilling@thenewstribune.com Staff writer C.R. Roberts contributed to this report.