Ernest Graves
the study of the Cuyahoga River. We got press coverage on the land treatment sewage
disposal studies before we ran into a buzz saw because the farm areas where we
proposed these big disposal sites really didn't want this.
Q:
Disposal of dredge material was a hot issue, wasn't it?
A:
That was a hot issue. During the time I was there, we got a lot of positive press from
that. There had been a major study of this disposal, and the diked disposal was
authorized just as I came on board. The study had been going on for five years about
methods of disposal of contaminated dredge spoil.
We also had Section 404--the environmental part of the Water Pollution Control Act.
We had the authorization of the diked disposal. This all came together, but it was in the
action mode during the time I was there. We had to get the local assurances because
they were required to provide the land, easements, and rights-of-way for these diked
disposal areas.
Some districts did better than others. Chicago did terribly on this. We never did, during
the time I was there, get from Chicago a site for a major diked disposal area to take
care of the upper reach of the Illinois waterway.
There are two branches to the Illinois waterway. One goes diagonally up through
Chicago, which is the old Chicago River. The other one is a cutoff that runs south of
the city, east-west, and goes into Lake Michigan down at the very south end--down
near the south works of the U.S. Steel plant.
It was down there that we needed diked disposal areas to dispose of dredge spoil. U.S.
Steel was one of the big companies that was to benefit from this. Because of the
participation required of the local governments and private industry, we never did get
agreement.
There was a waterways committee of the Chicago Board of Commerce and Industry,
which was a municipal business group. We worked through them. They had Mayor
[Richard M.] Daley working on trying to get people to agree on this. But they never
came up with it. This was because the environmental groups were opposed to it.
You had to have a strong industry backing to put together the local equation for these
things. If industry wasn't together on it, then you couldn't coalesce the elements to get
agreement on one of these disposal areas.
Q:
Did you have any important military work while you were out there, or was it pretty
much civil works?
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