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Highline Water District,
(formerly King County Water District 75 prior to 1991), incorporated in
1946, has been ensuring that our communities
have safe, clean water for both indoor and outdoor use. The District has gone
through many periods of change and currently serves an estimated 68,500 people living
and working in
South King County.

Highline District Office about 1950
During the period from 1962 to
1965, the South Seattle Water company in the McMicken Heights area and the Star Lake Water
Cooperative were annexed into the District. Subsequent mergers into the Highline
Water District include Water District No. 4 in 1979, the northern portion of former Water
District No. 56 in 1987 and the Normandy Park Water Company in 1989. The District
has 18,100 accounts representing residential homes, apartments, businesses, schools
and more.
The District serves sizable portions of the cities of Des
Moines, and Normandy Park, as well as portions of Tukwila, Burien, SeaTac, Federal Way,
Kent, and Unincorporated King County. The total area of the District is about
18 square
miles.
The District also provides street lighting service to
customers in unincorporated areas within the District. Street lighting is installed and
maintained by Puget Sound Energy. District customers pay for this service with a surcharge
on their water bill.
There are approximately 288 miles of water main. As are all water districts in
King County, Highline Water District is required to prepare and follow a coordinated
comprehensive water plan. Under the guidelines of this plan, the District is constantly
upgrading old and undersized water mains.
Until 1962, all water came from the District's wells.
Today, about 75% of the water supply of the District is purchased from Seattle Public
Utilities under the terms of a long term securing water
supply for the District through the year 2061. The District
supplements its Seattle water source with local wells. This enables the District to
keep the cost of providing water lower than solely purchasing it all from Seattle. The
wells, which draw from medium to deep aquifers were
designed to furnish approximately 25% of the total volume of water supplied by the
District.
This page last updated 7/15/2010. |