Standing together at the reflecting pool
Community members collaborate at a Shape Our Water workshop in November 2024.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the course of the Shape Our Water project, it’s that fostering long-term resilience in our city’s drainage and wastewater systems requires all of us working together.
Community and collaboration were at the heart of our work in 2024. Over the past year Shape Our Water convened more than 250 individuals who brought their imagination about the future, lived experience both past and present, and a passion for stewardship to contribute to the planning process. Through more than 14 project workshops, participants co-created more than 800 ideas for drainage and wastewater management solutions.
Shape Our Water also fostered connection and creativity at community events, including the Seattle Design Festival. The Raindrop Run game/art installation continues to inspire conversation, most recently with the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps who used Raindrop Run to explore what green stormwater infrastructure they might want to see in their neighborhoods and learned how to engage family and friends in advocacy for those solutions.
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Shape Our Water is about long-term infrastructure planning, but it’s also making our often-invisible drainage and wastewater systems more visible – and celebrated.
Since the beginning, we’ve created fun and informative ways to learn about the power of water at work across Seattle, hear how community members build relationships with our waters, and explore examples of innovative water management solutions that already exist in our City.
An important and visible way that Seattle Public Utilities creates and maintains our current drainage and wastewater systems is through the work of frontline crews. Our team working through the RV Wastewater Program is just one example of a wide kaleidoscope of people-centered initiatives that provide essential services while also innovating in how we protect both humans and the environment.
