A ..
Of course, another problem was beginning to surface. I had retired by the time they
started hassling with flood insurance, when Congress passed that law. I'm sure the
interagency groups hassled with that for some time.
Q ..
I think one of the problems they were having was trying to set up uniform guidelines
because of the differences in cost-benefit analysis for water projects with the Corps
doing it one way, and then BUREC doing it another way, and Interior a different
way.
A ..
Yes. That certainly was a factor on the flood frequency business. Of course, on the
question of spillway designs, I think we had some studies on it. There were always
people attacking, taking a dir-n view of the Corps' procedure because it gave pretty
severe results. I don't remember when that got to the interagency group. It did
later on. I think they did finally publish, I think either the subcommittee or the main
agency published some reports on those spillway design problems. But Bob
Buehler, an engineer that I worked with in Knoxville, became quite active in the
group and insisted that you could do it on an economic basis by assigning a value
for life and that sort of thing--deciding from economics how large the spillway
should be.
Q ..
Were you involved in any other kind of interagency groups?
A ..
Well, I probably was, but I don't remember. This Water Resources Council and its
predecessors were the main interagency activity for a large number of years.
Q ..
Okay. Let me go on to another question. In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the
Corps of Engineers and the Department of Agriculture were involved in an
upstream-downstream controversy. This was largely fought out in the Federal
Interagency River Basin Commission. Did you have any involvement in this?
A ..
I don't believe so, no.
Q ..
Did you have any views on it?
A
I think it was more political than anything else.
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