Ernest Graves
Q:
Quite a few of the people in Washington, I guess, criticized Colonel [Lieutenant
General Max W.] Noah, who was after McGinnis in Saint Paul, for going too far over
toward the environmentalists.
A:
Yes. But Max just did an outstanding job in his relations with the local people.
Minnesota wasn't going to support any more development work than recommended.
I just think Max did a good job of fitting the Corps to the scene. There may have been
people in Washington that felt we should be trying to do more development work in
Minnesota. But you can't do any of this Corps of Engineer civil works without the local
support. If you don't have it, then you shouldn't be trying to pursue it.
Q:
Speaking of local support, when you came to the Directorate of Civil Works, Senator
[William] Proxmire--just about then--asked that the LaFarge Dam be stopped.
A:
That's an interesting one because that's the one that Governor Lucey had tried to stop.
Lucey had written a letter when I first became the division engineer of the North
Central Division. He'd written this letter to Fred Clarke asking that the dam be stopped.
Our response to this was to go to see Lucey. Chuck McGinnis and I went to Madison
and met with him. We said that we would be willing to have a review of the project, but
that there was a lot of support for it among the local people.
Lucey, who had sort of gotten his neck out a little bit on this, said all right. He had a
one-week review, which was conducted there in Madison. McGinnis went down there
for that week. The review team included people from the Corps and from the state.
They heard a lot of people comment on the project.
They prepared a report which talked about the flood problems on the Kickapoo River
and the solution. When all this was done, Lucey said he thought the project should
proceed.
Lucey also told me, when I saw him at several meetings after that, that he had been
tremendously impressed with the responsiveness of the Corps and McGinnis and myself
and with the way we had come in and done this review.
That didn't last because Lucey was a very charming guy, but he wasn't resolute. In his
case, it was a little bit who had his ear at the time. The same environmental people who
had challenged LaFarge earlier, after about two years, came along. Again, Lucey was
on the networks saying that he had questions about LaFarge.
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