Franklin F. Snyder
It was interesting. I retired in `66, and it was `74 before I got kicked off of the
Board of Control. What happened, and I was joking when I said I got kicked off,
but I did have to resign. The North Central Division Engineer is always a member
of these International Joint Commission (IJC) committees and boards. The Chief of
Engineers had a representative, which meant the Corps of Engineers had two people
on this board and on the St. Lawrence River Board of Control, but the U.S. Seaway
Authority, that was actually operating the project, didn't have a representative.
So how they left me on there for, let's see, eight years, I don't know. But finally,
it was so obvious that the Corps wasn't entitled to two people on the board with the
operating agency not even being represented, so it was in `74 when I resigned from
the Board of Control. The Corps was writing my travel orders and everything, and
paying my subsistence.
Q ..
me ask you now. What were you doing with Hathaway on the St. Lawrence?
Let
What kind of studies were you doing?
A
Well, we had almost a hundred years of record on the lakes. You'd think it would
be easy to use forecasts, particularly with all of the storage in the various lakes. The
project was supposed to raise minimum levels and lower maximum levels on Lake
Ontario. The new dam project dam was way down the St. Lawrence River, but the
control of the river actually backed up and controlled outflow from Lake Ontario,
the amount going out of the lake and the inflow control the level of Lake Ontario.
So an awful lot of our time was spent in running that hundred years of record with
different restrictions on how the project could be operated, and setting up a plan of
operation that would meet the requirements of raising minimum levels and lowering
maximum levels. This is jumping ahead of the story, but the Lake Ontario Board
of Engineers submitted their studies to the International Joint Commission in 1957.
I don't know whether you are familiar with the IJC or not. They meet in the spring
in Washington and in the fall in Canada. All the Boards that they have report to
them at the meetings. In the meantime, the Saint Lawrence River Board of Control
took over the responsibility for further regulation studies. Regulation of Lake
Ontario began in 1960.
Of interest is that in 1962-63 a more critical dry period occurred and in 1985-86 a
more critical wet period occurred than had happened in the earlier 100 years.
Deviations from the operating plan had to be made. You would think it would be
easy to use forecasts in operating, particularly with all the storage in the lakes, but
because of the storage successful forecasts of the rainfall would have to be for
periods longer than are possible.
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