- The Union Bay Natural Area, located along the north shore of Lake Washington adjacent to the University of Washington’s East Campus, occupies what was for many years Seattle’s largest garbage dump and, slightly to the east, the site of Henry Yesler’s (1810-1892) Union Bay lumber mill. The Montlake Dump (also known as the Ravenna Dump, University Dump, and Union Bay Dump and later called the Montlake Landfill) served the city for more than 40 years, and garbage and rubbish of nearly every description was poured into a marshland created by the lowering of Lake Washington in 1916. After the landfill was closed in 1966, there began, haltingly at first, a decades-long (and ongoing) experiment to determine whether, and how, land that has been severely degraded by human activity could be restored to a natural state…