WEBVTT

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[music]

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In the Summer of 1962, my father
and I flew in his small plane

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from Iowa City Iowa across half the continent
to a place we’d never been, Seattle.

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The purpose of our epic adventure was
to visit the Seattle Worlds Fair,

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christened Century 21. In the brief six
months of its existence, this fair challenged

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its near ten million visitors to experience
a world some 40 years in the future.

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Tomorrow beckoned everywhere,
fashions, automobile, space travel,

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the Cold War, gone,
replaced by global harmony.

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Science made anything possible. The two
boldest proofs Utopia could be real,

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towered above and zoomed from the fair
to the city, like Moses witnessing

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the Promised Land, my dad and
I experienced in Seattle,

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the science inspired Eden to come. Today,

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over 40 years later, the future is now.

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The 1962 World’s Fair affected
more than the skyline of Seattle.

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The people here are waiting for the future, they’re living in.
Today, Seattle is home to some of the most innovative individuals

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and corporations in our nation
with more arriving every day.

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The natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest is also an undeniable
contributor to Seattle’s continuing population growth.

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But it is this growth that now
endangers the city itself.

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All around the Pacific Northwest we’re
witnessing a sea change so to speak,

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and at the risk of mixing my metaphors that
canary in the mine shaft is, well, a fish.

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It’s a wonder of the world the salmon is

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and we got to make sure that… that salmon is gonna
be here from now on. Born in cold freshwater streams

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and rivers, baby salmon called fry,
swim aided by the current downstream

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to the open sea where they grow and thrive.
Near the end of their life cycle,

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something triggers a migratory urge in salmon
to return to the very stream of their birth

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to spawn and die. It’s a tough
long journey for these large fish,

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fighting both gravity and the currents of water
rushing against them. Over hundreds of years,

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enough salmon completed their difficult destiny
to ensure the abundance of their species.

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As he walks along the southern shores of Elliott
Bay, Billy Frank descends from a long line

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of the Squali fisherman, whose fate
has always been linked to the salmon.

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We talk about salmon like if
they’re part of our family.

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It sustained us all of our lives. It’s part of
uh… the… the blood that flows through ourselves.

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My dad lived to be 104 and
live right here all his life

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and my mom lived to be
96 and now I’m 73 old,

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so I’ve seen a lot of…
of… of the environment

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and that I’ve seen the bad parts and I’ve seen the
good, the good. For thousands of generations,

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salmon and humans coexisted in harmony.
This spawn was shattered

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150 years ago. Interlopers committed
both physical and eco genocide.

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Fish and native peoples were massacred.

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My father when he was a little boy, he
said you’re for the European people

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that everything was pure and all of our
cedar trees were big giant cedar trees

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you can make canoes out of. All of that was here
at that time. We never had sugar, diabetes.

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We weren’t dying of diseases. To save the
expense of having to feed the survivors

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as part of the Stevens Treaty, the Federal
Government granted the Indians the right to fish

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in their traditional waters. This right
was later taken away in the mid 1940s.

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After that for over 30 years the tribes of
the North West fought through legal means

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and civil disobedience to regain their right to
fish. Billy Frank was arrested over 50 times

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and grew to become a leader in the Indian Rights
Movement. The cause attracted national attention

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and sympathy. In 1974, Judge George H.
Bold decreed in favor

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of the Indians fishing rights, but the battle was
far from over. What good were fishing rights

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if there were no salmon to catch?
Like the buffalo of the plains,

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salmon in the Northwest had been pushed to
near extinction. The cause of this crisis

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is commercial fishing, hydroelectric dams, and
destruction of habitat. The tribes of the Northwest

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have another fight on their hands, now
as protectors of the salmon. Since 1981,

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Billy Frank has chaired the Northwest
Indian Fisheries Commission,

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serving 20 northwest area tribes in natural
resource management. Forty years ago

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we didn’t have an infrastructure, bring people
together, today we have, the leadership is there,

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the Indian leadership as well as our
technical crew, our science people,

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we’ve got a public relations
department, we’ve got… we…

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we write regulations for ourselves now. We don’t depend upon the
State of Washington and we work with the State of Washington

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and we work with the Federal Government, we’re
partners to make the environment whole.

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Syria is alive and well and a lot
of that has to do with Billy

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and the struggles that he’s been through and what
he’s fought for and… and why we’re here today.

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It is the environment umm… in this area
is strong. Through tribal education,

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this stewardship is being passed on to the next generation. We came
up with some of our own curriculum that dealt with the salmon habitat

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and that’s… that’s inside
our classrooms right now.

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The education is the most important thing on, what
we’re trying to do to keep our communities together

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and healthy and strong. But Billy Frank’s
about hugs. It’s never a handshake.

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He always got it out there, but
he ends up hugging us all. Yeah.

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Yeah, it’s getting cleaner and uh… that tells
what we’re doing, we’re doing the right thing.

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It’s just a wonderful place to live.
I don’t…

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don’t decide to move here anything, but this is
a great… a great place. It takes good people

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to do good things. Despite Billy
Frank’s successes, 90% of the

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wild Pacific salmon runs are gone, while the
national appetite for this delicious food increases.

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The trickle down effect of this
loss of salmon is everywhere,

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almost as though the fate of salmon is
linked to the City of Seattle itself.

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The Seattle area is one of only a few
urban watersheds that still maintain

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large Pacific salmon runs.

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There’s a lot more recognition in the cities that we got to be careful
around the streams. A lot of recognition we can’t keep, throwing all that.

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All that, they are nitrogen are lawns
and ever run right into the stream

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and expect the salmon to survive.

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The local creek had been treated as basically an open sewer for generations.
And it’s only been in the last 20 years that the neighbors and the city

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have begun to look at it
as an environmental asset

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and begun to restore that natural value. To keep platoons from
washing into the streams in the bay during the winter rainy season

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and to retain it conserve
water for Seattle dry summer,

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the city began several pilot programs,
among them is the Sea Street Project.

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The water runs off the street, off the adjoining
properties into this well. All but the largest storms

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are infiltrated back into the soil,
which helps regenerate groundwater,

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which keeps stream flows going in the
summer. Where the runoff is more severe.

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Cascades are constructed to
collect urban pollutants. s

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As you can see we’ve collected a lot of…
Well, I’m just gonna call crud in here.

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And this shows just how much

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this system is working. In its pilot
phase, the Sea Street Project

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reduced storm water runoff and
associated pollutants by 98%.

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This project is a good first step to bringing salmon
back. When you start to see salmon dropping off,

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it’s important, because they’re not that much
lower than we are in the evolutionary chain.

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Seattle, together with local Federal
and State Agencies has invested

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millions of dollars to protect and
enhance fish habitat and they anticipate

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investing millions more. Yet last
year salmon run was a record low,

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as the coalition attempts to turn the tide on urban
pollution. It’s finding out there is no easy solution

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to the larger problem of global warming.
With that very

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unusual condition the last three
years with this global warming

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are we don’t know really what’s
going on, but we do know that the…

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the temperature of the water here close to the beaches
and now we can live warmer than it historically

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has been in our lifetime. And very seldom
this time of the year you will see

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63, 64 degree water here. I
know it today we’re at 62.5.

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I think that’s one reason salmon fishes are not that good,
they don’t like it this warm. Global warming affects

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more than just the salmon. The Cascades
snow pack has dropped an average of 50%

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since 1950. Because we
did not have that snow

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melting in the Cascades, it became clear that
global warming is not something far in the future,

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it’s not something far away, it’s
something that is here, it’s now

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and we have a responsibility to take action. Seattle’s Mayor
Greg Nickels challenged other mayors across the country

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to join him in the fight against global warming,
by agreeing to the pollution cutting goals

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of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement our
Federal Government refused to sign.

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To meet the Kyoto target dates, Seattle must
seriously commit to non-polluting transportation

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and sustainable building practices.
As we build new facilities

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for the city, as we authorize and permit
new buildings for the private sector,

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and really as we act in uh… neighborhoods,

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we are trying to look at, how do we
do that in the sustainable fashion.

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Sustainable building itself is a concept
that uses technologies and practices

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that minimize the impact of
building on the natural environment

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and also create better places for people to work
healthier environments and it’s also cost effective.

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So there’s, sometimes an initial investment,
but overtime that usually pays back.

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I would really like to see all of our private
developers’ embrace sustainable building

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like the city has. Winner of the 2005 Homebuilder
Ward in the built green design competition,

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builder Martha Rose is
deemed the queen of green.

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Yet Martha’s career in the male dominated field
of construction has been a long steep climb

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that began in 1972.

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I was lucky and had a woman in my life who mentored me
and she used to drive home the point. Whatever you do,

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get a job that pays a man’s wage.
And she actually helped push me out

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there on the construction
jobs to ask for work.

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And the first time I went, I didn’t get
work. But after going out on a few jobs,

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I did get hired. Umm… it was very
difficult. There was a lot of harassment.

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All the stuff you’ve heard about is true.
Basically it’s been a long hard road for me

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and I’ve learned from the bottom up and it’s been
a great journey. And if you just set your mind

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to the goal, you will get there. And so the
current goal is to really take advantage

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of green thinking. Every time you have
an electrical box or a plumbing pipe,

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you always have a void. This method,

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you get a much completed coverage. What it
means is lower heating costs. These boxes are

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equipment that are associated with the
solar cells that are mounted on the roof

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that produce electricity. The home
is not using all of the electricity.

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What’s left over goes back into the grid and
actually makes the electrical meter spin backwards

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and giving you a credit on your
electrical bill. This is a bamboo floor,

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it’s finished with three
coats of a water base finish

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and it’s a really good material
from the Build Green perspective

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because bamboo is a renewable resource.
This countertop here is a product

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that’s made from recycled paper with
Rosins. What’s cool about this sink,

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is it’s made from 80% granite dust
and 20% resins. And the granite dust

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would normally be an industrial waste
product. We love the floors in this house.

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This is a Marmoleum floor and it’s
made from four natural ingredients,

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wood flower, pine risen,
flax seed oil, and jute.

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This is the most exciting thing in the
house. Uh… this is a duel flush toilets.

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This one offers a point eight
gallon flush for liquids.

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I am following my dream of providing

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housing in a responsible manner. Martha
Rose is part of a growing commitment

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in Seattle toward sustainable building. The natural
beauty of the city, that’s why most of us live here.

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But what happens when the natural beauty
conflicts with the greater needs of the city?

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Well, you get an edifice like the Alaskan
Way Viaduct. The Alaskan Way Viaduct

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is a double-decker freeway that runs along Seattle’s Elliott
Bay Waterfront, carrying up to 110,000 vehicles per day.

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On February 28, 2001,

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the 6.8 Nisqually earthquake damaged
the Viaduct. Experts warn that

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the 1953 built structure could not stand another major
quake, nor could the adjacent 72 year old Seawall.

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All agree something must be done to
ensure the safety of the people.

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What Seattle is not in
agreement about, is what?

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Over the years there have been many plans
for replacing the Viaduct. The first option

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would be to rebuild the Viaduct, fixing the safety
issues at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion.

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This would address transportation safety,

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but still leave the shorefront noisy and
visually unpleasant. A second option

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preferred by a partnership with the City of Seattle, the State
Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration

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is a more costly but esthetically
pleasing plan. Replace the Viaduct

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with a six lane tunnel at an
estimated cost of $5.5 billion.

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It will cost more in today’s dollars. But
the value of the benefits to our city

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from converting the star of the Viaduct to
a waterfront park, a place for all people

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and opening up our city to the
glorious use of Elliott Bay,

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the Olympic Mountains is priceless. Both projects
could take anywhere from 7 to 12 years to build,

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depending on how much access is maintained
for traffic during construction.

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Tunnel advocates believe this is an opportunity
to transform the front door of Seattle

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into a spectacular public gathering place
for generations to come. But some critics

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don’t want either a rebuild or a tunnel.

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The proposal on the table puts in a serious uh… armoring seawall,
which means, it can’t do anything good for marine habitat,

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can’t do anything that connect people to the water. At best
we would be stuck with an elevated platform above the water,

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much like we have here and look how many
people are here, it’s not what people want.

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So we’re pressing for an option that
involves a whole bunch of strategies

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about getting traffic and transit through
and opening up this fish, what would be

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one of the incredible places in the country.
Under the People’s Waterfront Coalition,

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with their third alternative and by far the cheapest and
most controversial solution to this challenging issue.

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What if you just tore down the eyesore and
put funds into restoring the waterfront

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in ways that are more creature
friendly, pretty radical huh?

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This cover gone, opened up to the sky.
We have a green grass here,

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where we had people playing Frisbees,
laying out, taking a nap in the sun,

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listening to the water sounds next door.
We had people sitting in those cafes

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over here on this building, sipping a cup
of coffee like Seattle is known for.

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Planning now, what area they are gonna
kayak too on the waterfront next.

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This is a place where we’re able to actually reconnect
by putting in a beach here, just south of the aquarium

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and adding some infill development with
green strategies, rebuilding strategies,

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where we have green roofs, we’re doing good things
with storm water, it’s one of the major problems is,

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cars exhaust runoff and storm
water contaminating the bank.

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To build a new innovative sewer, they has salmon ladders
off the side, which will allow the migrating salmon

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to have a shallow, little quarter
to swim in. It let’s them

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stay safe from predators. Because right now,
majority of our salmon have to go from the drumfish,

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through all the industrial, along the entire length
of the waterfront before they get a nice safe break,

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where they can stop and eat and start to build themselves up before
they go out to sea. The city and the State Department of Transportation

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feel the coalition’s alternative
is unrealistic in its idealism.

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We looked at that. We looked at, what would
happen if we remove the viaduct, put a uh…

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four lane or a six lane surface street
on the waterfront and what that would…

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what would happen to transportation in Seattle?
We found that congestion got to 12 hours a day

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and I thought, it would have a surface
street on Alaska way that would be carrying

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over 50 or 60,000 cars a day, as well as
other downtown streets being congested.

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We didn’t think that was an
acceptable solution. We’re asking for

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a paradigm shift because we can’t accommodate
all the traffic without building a new highway.

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And we’re saying that’s okay. If you show people what
they could have instead of a convenient commute,

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in terms of a functional ecology, in terms of quality of
life, in terms of being able to touch the water in Seattle,

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which you can’t do now. We think people will choose
that. So we want to offer people that choice.

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Would you be willing to sacrifice a little bit of the
convenience of your commute for the larger public good?

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
To combat global warming and gridlock,
Seattle must rethink its dependency

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
on the automobile. One of these
alternatives is the one list car program.

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
Well, the program recruited families within
Seattle to give up their second or their only car

00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
for six weeks or nine weeks
and be part of a study.

00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
If you can live in a place where you don’t have to own a car, you can save four
to six thousand dollars a year and that, bells are going off in people’s heads

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
and they’re also realizing that they’re less stressed and they getting
to know their neighbors more, and more of a sense of community.

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
Found that it really wasn’t a hardship. It’s just a matter of who needs
it more and who’s got the kids, that’s one of the biggest factors,

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
you know. Whoever is dropping
off a kid somewhere,

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
they usually get the car.

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
It just takes a little bit of extra planning on our part and a little
bit of flexibility and also a little bit of umm… what’s the word?

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
Communication. Communication. The effort is worth
it. We find that we spend more time together

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
as a family as a result of this. I think it’s a
good educational experience for kids to see that

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
there are alternatives to just getting
in the car and… and driving, you know,

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
especially just one person in the, in the car, just doesn’t
make any sense these days. I’m not a real recreational biker.

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
I mean, biking for me is transportation.
Another way to combat traffic

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
is to ride a bicycle.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
I’m Doug Walker. You’re at my home in Northwest Seattle. I ride
my bike every day to work. It’s nine and half miles one way.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
It’s a great way to start the day. I’ve been doing a
bike commuting for about 13 years. It works out that

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
I can get with biking around town about 100 miles
a week and a little over 4,000 miles a year.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
The car that I use at work is 10 years old

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
and has 13,000 miles on it. My
newest bike has over 30,000 miles.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
It influences a lot other people to see other
people biking. Kind of realize the possibility.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
And, you know, people are very
intimidated by riding in traffic.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
So there is a learning curve,
even if you know how to ride,

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
uh… and riding a bike in an urban setting
is a little bit of a different thing

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
and doing it safely.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
If you’re commuting from a certain area, you don’t feel safe, you don’t know how
to do it. Uh… you can actually get a bike buddy. Uh… it doesn’t cost you anything

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
and they will actually show you the road in, they will show you the safest
road, they will show you the easiest route. The city provides bike stations

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
to make cycle commuting even more
convenient. So this place is

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
essentially a parking garage for cyclists. It’s
a nonprofit shop that offers free indoor safe

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
and drive parking for cyclists or
commuters in downtown Seattle.

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
I didn’t start riding my bike until I found out
that this here. So I used to take two buses

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
and now I am free from the schedule of the
first bus. Then I saying, I especially notices

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
and into the day, you know,
certainly decompressing at work.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
You know, biking is a real stress remover. As you move
from, you know, kind of the concerns of the office

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
and back to the home, biking is a great
transition. And I had to tell you,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
sure a lot less stressful than
driving a car. For most of us,

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
the automobile remains our primary source of transportation,
but that doesn’t mean we have to be a slave

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
to high gas prices. Foreign oil and the pollution
and cancers linked to petroleum based fuels.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
When Dr. Diesel, back in the
turn of the century said

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
that we have to start thinking
about our… our resources,

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
because petroleum products won’t be with us forever.
He was a very forthright and forward thinking man.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
Dr. Rudolf Diesel used peanut oil
to fuel his innovative engine

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
in its first public demonstration
at the Paris World’s Fair in 1898.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
The Bavarian inventor championed
homebrewed biomass fuels, as the means

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
by which the common folk could afford his
efficient new engine, but his good intentions

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
did not come to fruition. Much controversy
surrounds Dr. Diesel’s death aboard,

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
an England bound ship in 1913.
Some say he jumped overboard,

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
despondent over financial problems. Others speculate, he was
murdered because he disagreed with the German war machine

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
and was on his way to sell his
engines to the British Navy.

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
Not only did his death pave the way for the
German diesel powered subs of World War I,

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
but his engine was modified to run
on the polluting petroleum fuel,

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
we now know as diesel. A fuel sadly misnamed
since the doctor had intended his invention

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
to be the foundation for society powered by

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
clean renewable locally grown fuel. People,
you know, when I told them three years ago

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
that I was gonna sell my gas cars, my brand new
Subaru Outback, that had like 5,000 miles on it,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
that, I was gonna buy an old diesel
car and run it on vegetable oil,

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
they laughed or they… they just
walked away like he’s nuts.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
Bio-diesel is as toxic as salt and
biodegrades as quickly as sugar.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
Any waste vegetable oil,
animal fats, soybean oil,

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
canola oil, cottonseed oil,
any source of provides a… a…

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
a good basis of biodiesel production.
Welcome to the world of alternative energy,

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
where garbage can literally
be turned into liquid cold.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
We’re going to the moonlight café,
it’s a Vietnamese restaurant that has

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
a great vegetarian menu. So
that’s why I started going there.

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
Umm… we love to eat there and they
also have some pretty nice oil.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
Once a week, Lyle Rudensey, by a Lyle as he refers
to himself, visit several Asian restaurants.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
The owners are happy to see Lyle, because he
saves them the cost of having their barrels

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
of used cooking oil hauled away. Okay,
I’m gonna show you how I make biodiesel.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
Since 2003, Lyle has been brewing biodiesel
in a makeshift distillery in his garage.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
It’s exciting to just be able to
uh… go to my garage to fuel up.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
It’s pretty simple, it’s not rocket
science. This tank I got for $76,

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
the crude here is about 15. So really
stick up $100 of an equipment,

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
it’s not much. This is probably the
crudest way of doing it, very simple,

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
it works great, but this kind of crude.
Umm… you can get slicker systems

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
for making it. From start to finish,
it takes about an hour and a half.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
My car, since it’s a diesel, it gets pretty good
mileage. Probably average about 40 miles per gallon,

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
by making a, about 23 gallon batch, so
that should last me a couple of weeks.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
Uh… it cost me about 65 or 70 cents
of gallon to make it myself.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
I can tell you how exciting it is to be able to make
your own fuel and not have to go to gas stations,

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
and also not to be connected to the whole petroleum
system. Let’s put some nice fresh biodiesel

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
in my car. Some folks are
still brewing their own,

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
some people are getting their fuel directly
and then there’s us with this co-op,

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
so we prepay for the fuel and just
keep a log of what we’ve used.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
This is the best part. With petroleum
diesel you would never touch it.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
The stuff is great. Which started out as
a fuel cooperative, is igniting a chain

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
of market driven biodiesel
stations like Laurelhurst Oil.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
This product right here is ASDM certified.
So it has a consistent quality to it.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
And uh… but no… no one’s laughing anymore.
Our next move,

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
cars was to… to move it into heating
oil application. Currently in Seattle,

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
there are over 3,000 drivers who
fuel their cars with biodiesel,

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
that number continues to grow. In addition to
personal cars, Seattle’s biggest users of biodiesel

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
are government fleets. As the
demand for biodiesel increases,

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
so does the need for local sources.
In early 2005,

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
Seattle biodiesel now
called Imperium Renewables

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
became the first biodiesel refinery in the
region. This was my Holy Grail in life

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
that I was seeking some sort of method
to be involved in alternative energy.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
We can change our entire infrastructure
society with biodiesel right now, today,

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
that spurred me into jumping off the cliff and started
this station. We’re a five million gallon a year facility.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
And I think as the market increases,
the demand increases. We can look at

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
increasing our production capabilities both
here locally and then perhaps regionally.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
And I really believe in the American spirit, the
American ability to innovate our way out of any problem.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
It’s in the same way that, you know, Kennedy rallied
the nation to beat the Russians to the moon.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
Umm… if we had leaders that
would rally the nation to umm…

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
reduce our dependence on foreign oil,
I mean, and put that amount of money

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
that is needed into developing domestic alternatives,
we could be there very soon. It’s not a pipe dream,

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
it’s not, it’s not hydrogen, it’s not 50 years away. It’s
not… You know, I hope that we’re gonna have this technology

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
at some point. It’s… It’s now.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
And yet despite these growing
sustainable practices,

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
gridlock continues to be a major
source of frustration in Seattle.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
What we chose to do is invest in the cars. So we invested in highways that go out
to suburban areas, where you have to have a car in order to go get a stick of gum.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
The people of Seattle realized a modern
rapid transit system might come back

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
their road rage. The problem is deciding on what
that metro transportation system will look like.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
This is something Seattle citizens have
argued about for decades. In 1996,

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
the Transit Authority,
one voter approval of

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
a multi County Regional Sound Transit System combining
light rail, commuter rail, and express buses.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
Plan that was approved by our voters in
1996, contains almost a hundred projects.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
The challenge is how to incorporate these
systems into an already developed city.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
I’ve worked on uh… the project to build
light rail in Seattle for 15 years,

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
about a third of my life. And I guess I
approach it that, each day we’re gonna

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
make a little bit of progress and ultimately either
me or maybe it’s my children or grandchildren

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
are gonna see the fruits of it,

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
I often like to joke that I hope that I’m actually still alive to see some of
these things actually happen. So it seems like it takes forever in Seattle.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
Seattle has this tradition of leaders
proposing this sort of urban renewal,

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
instead of them saying no, we actually
have a better idea and winning.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
Except for a couple of years in a Turkish prison, yeah, I’ve
been here all my life. But I was a trumped up charge really.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
Every city and community has them.
Citizen activist is the polite name.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
Troublemaking nut job is
the less kind aengitive.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
I still feel like, I look like a
dog breeding experiment on a wry.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
Dick Falkenbury is probably
a little bit of both.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
But mostly, he’s a sometimes tour
bus taxi cab driver who got fed up

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
being stuck in Seattle traffic. What Seattle was
doing with rapid transport was virtually nothing.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
And what we were doing was wrong.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
Unlike other angry motorists, Dick looked up and saw the future. Even
though it has existed for over one hundred years, monorail technology

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
is often linked to futuristic travel. That’s why
the planners of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
decided to invest $3.5 million
in a twin monorail system,

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
they intended to be much more
than 1.3 mile tourist ride

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
from the Fair to the City Center. Fair
planners intended the system to be extended

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
after the Fair, as far as the
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
Fair planners saw these sleek transports
as the future of urban transportation.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
They weren’t wrong. Monorails
have the potential of being

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
so much more than a theme park ride.
The Japanese understand this.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
Currently there are five different monorail systems in
Japan. They travel over 50 miles with plans to extend them

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
for another 50 miles. The advantages
of monorails over subway,

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
heavy and light rails are staggering. Monorails glide
above streets on an exclusive separated guy way,

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
making it impossible for them to
collide with the pedestrians, cars,

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
trucks, and buses below. That means, they also
aren’t tied to street and highway gridlock either.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
Subway riders see only a dark
tunnel where monorail riders

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
get breathtaking views. Because the beam
is only 26 inches wide, the monorail guide

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
way can be less invasive to the environment,
rather than being an eyesore with wide

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
dark street producing shuttles. Traditional
rail systems can take decades to build

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
causing much disruption during construction,
because monorails have pre-built support pylons

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
that are manufactured off site. A monorail
beam weight can be hoisted from truck beds

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
and fastened on the pylons in hours.
For whatever reason,

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
after the Fair ended, there was no push to
expand the monorail. In the late 1980s,

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
there was talk of actually tearing it down to make way
for the development of the Westlake Center shopping mall

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
but public outcry saved
the tourist attraction.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
The monorail station was redesigned and the line
shortened a few feet to accommodate them all.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
Even with these restrictions, the aging Seattle monorail
continues to carry over two million passengers a year

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
and unlike most city transit systems,

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
actually turns a profit each year. And so
tour bus driver Dick Falkenbury looked up

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
and saw an answer to Seattle’s transportation roads.
It’s a solution that had been silently gliding

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
above for over 40 years. The
monorail has a history,

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
not only here but throughout the world,
of really doing a pretty good job.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
It’s a great way to go. What separates
a nut job, excuse me citizen activist

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
from the rest of us, is that
activist operate under the delusion

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
that they can personally fix what’s wrong with universe. Dick
soon found a simpatico and poet activist Grant Cogswell,

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
who we met earlier in the
cities viaduct controversy.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
We started with nothing. We started with
card tables and signs with marker pens.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
Together, Grant and Dick came up with an initiative
that called for 40 mile X Shaped monorail system,

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
that would link the city’s four corners
with downtown. And Grant Cogswell came up

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
with a point. He said, listen, you’re trying to put these
things on card tables where people can’t see them.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
You got to get them up in the air where people
can see them. So I created something that

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
I called the automatic petitioner and
that’s basically two hollow core doors

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
onto A frames of two by fours, uh…
with sort of this map of the Seattle

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
that I’ve got here on my shirt. The only thing we paid
for really was the signs that can extend the monorail,

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
attach the petitions to them
with a string and a pin on it.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
And some of those we left out for days
without anybody monitoring these things.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
They had a piece of plastic over them for the rain and
people would sign up on the petition for the monorail

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
and they would even take care of it, like make sure
that the plastic was over the signatures afterwards

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
and it was really kind of touching. Season politicians
laughed at their methods to gain public support.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
And somebody said, hey, do you see this side
that jerk Falkenbury’s got up for the monorail?

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
And they’re laughing about it. And
say, never get it, never get it.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
And this guy named Tim Trainer says no.

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
Not only are they going to get this… He’s… Not only is he doing
it right, he’s gonna get the signatures and he’s gonna pass.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
And they get, oh, your crazy goes no. Do you
notice that, none of them are being torn down,

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
nobody’s putting graffiti on those things,
people want this thing. For a cost of $2,000

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
of volunteer time, we got an
initiative on the city ballot

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
to build a 40 mile monorail system throughout the city.
It passed. The Seattle popular monorail authority

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
was formed to oversee the project. Among the appointed
board members was University of Washington Professor

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
Christina Hill. We have a lot of people on
the board who have a lot of experience,

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
it’s very valuable for us.
We have a former head

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
of the design commission. We have the former head of the Metropolitan Transportation
Agency. So we have (inaudible) who’s been the head of our Transportation Agency

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
in the past. Umm… we have people
who are downtown developers,

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
a guy who is the CEO of the biggest
downtown landowning firm. So we have people

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
who are very important players in the
region on the board and a lot of expertise.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
In fact, most boards of transit agency are elected officials who
don’t necessarily have any technical or professional expertise.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
It was decided the first monorail
system would be a 14 mile green line

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
running from the Ballard District to West Seattle. The
cost of the Ballard line was projected $1.75 billion.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
In 2003, the Monorail
Board appointed Joel Horn

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
as executive director, who’s resume
included working for the Nature Conservancy

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
and overseeing the building of the
corporate headquarters for Amazon.com.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
Joel took us for a bird’s
eye view of the project.

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
We actually have a great group because we’re going to all three
stadiums. So you go to our Mariners or the Seattle Sonics

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
or the (inaudible) on a… on the monorail. We
also go to right to the middle of our Downtown

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
to the famous Pike Place Market or Pioneer Square, actually
our retail code. We also take the monorail two stations

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
to the Seattle Center where 10 million
of people a year go to Seattle Center.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
So we chose an initial route, our green
line to be a very heavily used route,

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
so we’re forecasting 20 million
trips a year. And right below

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
is this current the current monorail. And what I love about
that is, you notice it’s one of the green streets in Seattle.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
Where if you look over at the viaduct carrying
on some cars, you know, that isn’t very green.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
And one of the reasons for that, is the
monorail is so thin, where you can carry

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
so many people on a three foot wide
piece of concrete. And let me tell you,

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
when you’re right in the monorail to work, it’s gonna be a joy. You’re not
gonna have any road rage. You’re gonna be actually be able to enjoy the views

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
of the frigid sound, not have your significant other
yelling at you to keep your eyes on the road.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
One of the earliest opponents to the
monorail was Attorney Henry Aronson.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
Mr. Aronson formed on track an organization
dedicated to derailing the project.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
I was against the project, there’s no
question. In the beginning I was against it

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
when the vote came up. Opponents attacked the
methods used to obtain bids to build the monorail.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
And we think that the Monorail Authority has
been very insular, unresponsive and uh…

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
frankly has not given full disclosure of
information that it could have made public,

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
many, many months before it began the construction negotiating phase.
They question whether a nontraditional grassroots organization

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
like the Monorail Authority could
oversee such a monumental project.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
Part of the problem here is that this is not a real
government, either those managing this project.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
Only two people are appointed, even
appointed by the Mayor. This is not at all

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
a rogue government. This is a government
created by the people in three separate votes.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
I think that this is a government that they believe
in, that they want to see get this job done.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
And what I’ve seen is that the government we’ve had before hasn’t gotten
the job done. This isn’t about government, this is about the people

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
wanting a city that they can enjoy a quality
of life in for the future. And I think

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
this is the right organization to do that,
nimble quick job of getting this project built

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
for the riders and the voters.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
The Monorail Authority purchased some $75 million worth right away over which
the monorail was to travel. And we’re in final negotiations with a company

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
that guaranteed it would build and run
the monorail for the first five years.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
Monorail enthusiasts celebrated when the
groundbreaking date was set for September 2005.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
Their dream was about to take wing.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:50.000
Imagine a transit system that makes
life better or making life easier.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
But monorail opponents dug into
the actual cost of the project.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
They accused the monorail of costing a third
more than first projected. They also claim

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
that the $1.75 billion of borrowed money
would take 40 to 50 years to pay off.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
And what most people didn’t know
was that the Monorail Project

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
would need even more money as early as 15
years later for upgrades and expansion.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
And our project costs are still
1.94 billion in today’s dollars

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
and that 11 billion is a number no one ever
sees. It’s a number… It’s like there’s a tip

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
of the iceberg that you see in terms of the cost of public
works, then there is the financing of that public works over a

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
20 to 50 year period. And that number
shows the financing of everything from

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
umm… people who clean the stairways,
to people who change light bulbs,

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
to new tires, everything over 50 year period and
we’ve never seen that number for other projects.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
So the only number the public has heard for the
viaduct is just straight construction costs.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
If they talk about the real cost of that project, it would
have to be in the $10 to $20 billion range. If you take

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
the total cost to society of roads and you
take the total cost society of the oil

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
uh… and then you take the future
cost of all the pollution,

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
monorail is a fraction of the cost. They attacked
Joel Horn personally, accusing him of secrecy

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
by hiding the true cost to be paid and
was failing to prepare the people

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
of Seattle for a far higher tax burden.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
The Seattle Monorail Project Executive Director Joel Horn and
Monorail Board Chair Tom Weeks abruptly resigned their post

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
after public uproar over the financing plan
for the project. Christina Hill found herself

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
thrust into becoming the acting Executive Director of
the besieged project. There’s been a lot of surprises

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
in this project and we’ve gone back to the
ballot more times than I ever imagined we would,

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
but I never thought that I would be the acting chair and
that we’d be in this kind of a situation we’re in right now.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
There are moments where I wonder, my God Maybe
I’m making a mistake and then I realized

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
I don’t think so, I think I’m still on the right track
and I’m still doing it the best way I know how with

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
hopefully a sense of humor,
hopefully a sense that… that of…

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
of a proportionality, it’s tough. Yeah, it’s tough to
maintain that. Dick Falkenbury found himself affected

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
in ways he never expected. In a
weak moment agreed to talk to a

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
bunch of second grade students. I was in a
bad mood and frankly a little depressed,

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
my life wouldn’t going all that well. And I’m
thinking these are a bunch of eight year olds,

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
they are 10 years away from even being able to vote for the stinking
thing. And I went in there and I started talking of those kids

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
and I’ll tell you, I felt
so good when I got done.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
I mean, uh… they were just so wonderful and
they were so hopeful. They were so excited

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
about the idea of a monorail. They all
really wanted to ride that thing. And uh…

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
they sent me a whole bunch of thank you
letters and I’ve still got some of them.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
In September 2005, the Monorail Movement
lost the support of an important ally.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
This is one of the most disappointing days uh… that I
have had since I became mayor nearly four years ago.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
Today, I am withdrawing the city support
for the Seattle Monorail Project.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
Put simply, the monorail does not have
enough money to pay for the project.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
The financing plan presented to
me is not prudent. In this case,

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
the people have a decision to make too.
The people created the Monorail Authority

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
and I respect the people’s right
to have the final say in its fate.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
An initiative that would make or break the monorail
was placed before the voters in November 2005.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
Christina Hill met with
us before the election.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
I think we’re gonna build it. This project
has had nine lives at least. I mean, it’s…

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
I think it has nine lives. I don’t think it’s only used more than three
or four of them. So I think it’s gonna get built. It just seems so…

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
The little train that could… It’s such an
important dream for the City of Seattle

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
and a culmination of the whole 1962 World’s Fair
when the monorail was first produces the technology.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
It seems to have a momentum that’s
gonna get it happen. Then I said,

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
\"What’s gonna be the best stay
on the monorail?\" And this…

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
and this kid raise his hand, I said,
Dan, what is it that goes snow day?

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
And I said, yes, because that’s gonna be the
greatest day on that monorail. The whole city

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
will be shrouded in white. We
get this about once a year,

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
nothing moves because of the hills and yet this
monorail just be gliding over, it will be so beautiful.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
People that have to get someplace can
be able to get someplace, but the…

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
but the fuel will just be stupendous.
The election day came.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
And there are some pretty big changes in store for just
about everyone. For starters, the Seattle monorail is dead

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
by a vote of 64%. Lost
confidence in the monorail

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
agency to actually build the
transportation project, their votes.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
The public spoke with their
votes and a dream died.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
The Seattle Monorail Board is on fast track to shut down.
They met last night to discuss the best way to dissolve

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
and to sell the nearly $70
million in property it acquired.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
Two weeks later, the Seattle monorail again made
the news. Witnesses describe the terrifying sound,

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
as the two monorails slammed into
each other. It has divided, boom.

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
Terrifying moments for holiday
shoppers in Downtown Seattle,

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
as the two monorail trains crash into each
other on a sharp curve near West Lake Center.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
Years earlier to accommodate the Westlake
Center Mall, the curve was made more narrow.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
An accident resulted when one monorail train
failed to give right of way to the other train.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
The city questioned whether the
tourist attraction was worth saving.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
After weeks of debate, the answer was yes.
I think someday

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
we’re gonna… Our grandchildren will look back
on this and I think they’ll be as shocked as,

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
when we hear about our grandparents
putting mercury in their drinking water.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
Perhaps many… many years from now, someone
will again look up and see the future.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
[music]

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
Since the defeat of the
Seattle Monorail Project,

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
Joel Horne took a job consulting
for a new biodiesel refinery.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
Christina Hill left Seattle to become Professor
and Director of Landscape Architecture

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
at the University of Virginia. Grant Cogswell, now works
as a screenwriter and has produced his first feature film

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
scheduled for release this year.
Dick Falkenbury…

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
Well, Dick continues to drive a tour bus and
complain about the Seattle traffic. Life continues.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
But we can’t let defeat make a
cynical nor can we fear failure.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
Like our friend the salmon, we must continue to
swim against the current and power over obstacles.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
The survival of our species depends on it.
Our next story

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
is also about endings and beginnings,
located in one of the highest elevated

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
areas in the city. High Point was
originally constructed during World War II

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
as temporary housing for thousands of workers that
flooded into Seattle seeking jobs in the aircraft

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
and ship building industries. Originally considered
a temporary solution to the housing shortage,

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
the population boom continued
after the war. In 1952,

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
High Point was converted into low income
housing and the community changed.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
By 2000, High Point was a diverse
predominantly poor dilapidated neighborhood

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
with an average income of less than
$11,000 a year. The city took a

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
long hard look at the worn out public housing units
and decided that redevelopment was long overdue.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
Complicating matters flowing
through the 130 acre site,

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
is Longfellow Creek.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
So what we have here is Longfellow Creek and this is where the
salmon come, uh… the couple of salmon migrate up here to pond.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
This is one of our most protective Coho
streams in the… in the city. The creek itself

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
had become ravaged by pollution and Urban
Development. The past has taught us

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
that isolating poverty only breeds despair
and crime. Upward mobility blossoms,

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
where diversity is celebrated
and lives intertwined.

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
The Seattle Housing Authority had its work cut out for itself.
They needed a holistic plan that would improve the quality of life

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
for both humans and fish. All paths

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
pointed toward a more sustainable solution. A number of
residents were reluctant to see their homes demolished.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
They fear that there would be no place for them in the
new development. Community meetings were conducted

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
to involve the populace in the planning.
Experts try to explain the advantages

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
of mixed income neighborhoods and the
need to create community through nature.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
For many, it was a giant leap of faith to
see their beloved community destroyed.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
Once demolished,

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
High Point became a clean slate. This reminds
me of the Serengeti Plain right now,

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
because there… On February 6, 2004,
Project Manager Tom Phillips

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
and Miranda Maupin from Seattle Public Utilities
meet on the vacant site to discuss the project.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
This is a very rare opportunity
for Seattle, because we’re about

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
99% fully developed.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
One of the things about Seattle is that people are open to innovation. You
know, Seattle has the reputation for that. Uh… and…and… and… this is…

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
this is showing that… that we can lead the way on a… on
a lot of things and… and it’s… it’s incredibly exciting

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
what we’re doing here. Of
the 1,600 planned units,

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
half will be designated for low income families and seniors,
while the rest will be sold or rented at market value.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
Regardless of the income of the occupants,
nearly all units will be energy efficient

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
and constructed to the build green three star
standard. We’re applying the Sea Street prototype

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
the pilot project umm… to a whole sub basin

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
of the Longfellow Creek Watershed. A large pond is being
constructed that will not only beautified the community

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
but collect and clean surface storm water
runoff before it enters Longfellow Creek.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
Despite all the renovation, much has
been done to protect and preserve

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
the elder residence of High Point. We’re saving
over 100 trees. How we’re saving them is,

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
there are signs around the trees that say the value
of this tree is… Well, that one down here is actually

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
$71,000, that’s the highest one.
So that if a contractor messes

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
with the root system at all, they are subject to,
actually paying that amount. There’s a bunch of kids

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
who living out… uh…who live in a
tutoring program and they uh…

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
when they find out what we’re doing, they…
they actually adopt, each adopted a tree.

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
And that’s big pop over there. So they gave…
You know, they gave the names. You know,

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
I’ve assured them that you’re saving
big papa. Groundbreaking day,

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
a time for celebration and speeches. The renewal
of High Point, the creation of a community here

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
where we are not setting a drift,
those who are without resources,

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
but we will do it in a community that has a
good healthy mix of activities and incomes.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
People who own their own
homes, people who are renting,

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
people who are coming out of
homelessness and that mix

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
is what really creates a great city. Five
months later, we joined Tom and Miranda again,

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
with them is future High Point resident Selamawit
Gebresus . Tom and Miranda take Selamawit on a tour

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
of her future home. It has
the living room here,

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
the kitchen in the middle. Selamawit’s duplex will be among
the 35 breathe easy homes built that significantly decrease

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
the risk factors that cause
asthma among low income families.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
I’m happy because they’re gonna build it for
my kids to seek, you know, they have asthma.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
My dreams come true because I’ve been looking for
my kids, because my son been sick for four years

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
and I have hard time. But right
now I’m excited to see that.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
I’m really happy. Two months later, the
first homes at High Point are completed.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
A family inspects a prospective
new dwelling. What’s not to like?

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
High Point’s Public Housing is a far
cry from the public housing gettos

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
in other cities. And that tree looks good. Yeah…
Yeah. This gonna be a great place for the…

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
for the kids to play. So this is a big
day that first families are moving in.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
We’re… we’re very excited. It’s been a long haul.
Yeah. So we were able to say big papa. I wanna go,

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
show it to you… All right. Let’s go and so you can
look at it. The first moving vans are pulling up.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
Guys, stop. Soon a construction
site will be a home and after that,

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
a neighborhood. If High Point proves successful, it
could open the door to other sustainable neighborhoods,

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
not only in Seattle, but
all over the world.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
The stakes are high. What’s going
on here is much bigger than…

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
than just some new housing that’s been built. So
we feel like, you know, if you can do it here

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
in the middle of urban Seattle,
you can do it anywhere.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
Today is an important day at Stevens
Elementary School in Downtown Seattle.

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
Teacher Dave McMillan and his fourth grade class
are about to embark on an important field trip,

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
that will be the culmination of six
months of hard work and study.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
They’re part of a statewide 300
school program based around salmon.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
Last Friday we had a field trip up to the Cedar
River Watershed and they are just learning how umm…

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
to make the connection about, what we do on land affects
what happens to the water and then, of course what happens,

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
the condition of the water affects,
umm… the salmon run. Each January,

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
schools receive a batch of fertilized salmon eggs
to deposit in a tank. Students raise the fish,

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
while other teachers incorporate environmental
issues into their lesson plans.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
Nearly all the children in Seattle have participated
in this program. My kids as they went up, grew up,

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
and went through Seattle Public
Schools for instance, grew salmon.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
Well, my children could tell me every year
how many Coho had returned to that stream

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
and it was important to them that… that
creek be taken care of. Time to put

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
their lessons into practice.
Brooke Lake Washington. Yeah.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
Well, you know, our generation is probably
doomed to some of the habits and attitudes

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
that we have. Uh… we can learn
and we can change a bit

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
but it’s the next generation that I think is gonna
have the largest impact. Hopefully, this stewardship

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
to protect nature will not only be remembered but
passed on by these students to their children

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
and their children’s children.
So we want to get down

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
and put our bottles into the… into the water. Can
you do this, everybody? I don’t think of cities

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
as Utopia is. Umm… I
think of cities as new.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
When you think of it in urban design history or human history,
cities are like five, six thousand year old phenomenon.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
And I think there’s so much about cities
that we’re still learning how to get right.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
That’s exciting to me about working in cities. The idea
of an Eden seems like something you could have had

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
at one time and then lost. But
I think, actually the city is

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
just emerging now. This is
the time when we can prove

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
whether cities will be a kind of flowering
and celebration of human culture

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
or whether we’re going to not live up to the potential of it
is when all of us live in such close contact with each other,

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
can share dreams and
acknowledge each other.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
As they release the tiny salmon fry,

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:30.000
it’s a time of renewal of hope and new
beginnings. The future truly is now.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
Major funding for Eden’s Lost &

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
Found was made possible
by CDM, seeking to create

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
lasting environmental and infrastructure solutions
that strengthen the communities future.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
The Boeing Company committed to ongoing
innovation and environmental conservation.

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
Boeing, for every new
frontiers, the John D.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Additional funding

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
was provided by Rivers and
Mountains Conservancy.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
The Illinois Sustainable Education Project.

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
Ashoka, The Scots Miracle-Gro Company,

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
Seattle Office of Sustainability
and the Environment,

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
APTA, Pennsylvania Department of
Community and Economic Development,

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
the Philadelphia Water Department, FJC

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:20.000
and Newman’s Own Organics.