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Starting over again, there was a Coordinating Comrnittee on Great Lakes Basic
Hydraulic and Hydrologic Data composed of three representatives of Federal
agencies in each country having responsibilities for such data. Hathaway was
Chairman of the U.S. Section. The Committee collated data in Canada and the
U.S., adjusted the lake inflow and levels to present diversions and channel
conditions. I took that job, too, when Hathaway retired. The group also provided
an acceptable set of data for the regulation studies. They established an official
network of stations that Canadian agencies, and the Lake Survey, agreed to maintain
and publish the records. They were published. The stations were also used in the
forecasting, but that was done by an Operations Advisory Group that prepared each
week's operating plan.
In the original studies, the Canadians, who did most of the computations, started
doing it manually. It was a backbreaking job. We worked with monthly data. But
to run a hundred years by hand to test an operating procedure is quite a lot of work,
and the Canadians began to work out a computer program where they could speed-
up the procedure.
In the meantime, though, I had ideas on how to do it, too. So with help during their
spare time of a couple of people in the office, I ran through a proposed method of
operation. I introduced some--they wouldn't accept forecasting--but I introduced
some ideas that really were sort of forecasting. Some of the decisions were made
on the basis of forecasting based on past relationships. We ran through the hundred
years of records. Well, that sort of broke the ice, so then the Canadians did another
study and went further into that sort of predicting business. Their plan was the one
we finally adopted.
Q ..
Was their use of a computer program something pretty new at that time? This was
1950 sometime?
Computers
A ..
Yes, it was just getting started though. I have an interesting story for you about the
Corps computers. I think the Corps was, other than the Army who had the big
Univac, one of the first government agencies to get into the computer business.
Colonel Whipple, the executive officer in the Civil-Works Division, was a really
smart man. He was too smart, actually, because he was in an executive position,
but he sometimes tried to do our engineering work for us, which didn't go over too
well with the engineers.
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