Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
Q ..
You didn't have more than what, even by that time 75-80 years of good records,
good statistical records?
A ..
No. The records that they had, the quality may have been all right, but they were
short and there just weren't too many of them. Very few records were as long as
50 years. I didn't mention that, but at the same time that Hathaway started a similar
program of putting out rain gauges, he also started a similar program with the
Geological Survey where they put in a bunch of stream gauges that we wanted for
our studies, and which the Corps paid for. The same sort of program as they did
for the rain gauges. Of course, Hathaway is the one that started that, too.
Q ..
I believe the Corps is still paying for that, for the gauges for the Geological Survey
and the Weather Bureau, both.
A ..
Yes, I think they still do. I saw something where Congress is talking about
eliminating the Geological Survey completely. I just can't imagine how an idea like
that would survive. You would think that all of the engineers in the country would
raise hell about that. I haven't seen anything about it lately.
Q ..
They may have decided there were better things to do than that. But at that time,
you didn't have any problems, but I found, talking to people like Verne Hagen that
they ran into problems with the relationships with the Geological Survey, and
between the Geological Survey, Corps, and the Weather Bureau, on defining various
common terms of reference, like national probable flood.
A
Well, the Bureau of Reclamation was the one that probably had more initial
reluctance. They finally became believers, too, and they sort of joined in with our
support of the Weather Bureau. They finally started hiring the Weather Bureau to
develop storms for them, too. But for a long time they took a dim view. I guess a
lot of private engineers to this day think it's out of this world. But there have been
enough extreme floods that have happened that it should have made believers out of
most of them, because even now they're going back and rebuilding some of the
original spillways that were built by the new procedures. They came up with bigger
possibilities, I guess. I am not familiar with the more recent developments,
particularly if there is a national probable flood. Sounds like someone trying to save
face.
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