Engineer Memoirs
Q:
And that would recur.
A:
And that would recur. So how would you do this? So I think that's one reason it was
never brought to fruition.
Q:
You had your hands full up there.
A:
There were a lot of things going on.
Q:
The 12-foot channel was going on.
A:
That's right. I tried to dismiss that and succeeded. We had a study on the navigation of
the upper Mississippi River. We issued an interim report saying that the 12-foot channel
was not justified.
That's an interesting example of the way these things work. There was one theory that
it was a mistake to issue this report because the navigation interests would be upset if
we did. The other side of it--and the reason I issued it--was that it was a phony issue
and I wanted to put it to bed. It was pretty evident that it would never be economically
justified. It wasn't all that important to the navigation interests. They knew it was never
going to happen.
But it was a lightning rod. It was attracting all kinds of strikes from the
environmentalists. They were using that to paint the Corps black. They still tried to,
even after I issued the report. But that was an example of one of many things we did
to try to come to terms with the environmental groups.
Q:
What groups caused you the most trouble?
A:
The Sierra Club was the most aggressive group. They may not have been at the national
level. But they had a good organization, and they were everywhere, helping to organize
the people that were opposed to these projects. They are the ones I remember that were
most effective.
Q:
How did you fare at the hands of the press in the region?
A:
It was a mixed bag. We got good credit for some of the things we did. We got
criticized. We got some good coverage, not so much in Chicago because not a lot was
going on in Chicago. But in Detroit we got some good coverage.
We got some very good coverage because in Cleveland the work on the harbor was
very important to the city. We got some good coverage out of the work that we did on
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