Departments like Agriculture had one official member of the subcommittee that
usually was rotated among the SCS, Agricultural Research Service, and the Forest
Service. Representatives of all agencies could participate in the meetings. Also
representatives of other interested agencies could participate. We had someone from
the Weather Bureau. Were they in Agriculture then?
Q ..
Commerce, weren't they?
A ..
Yes, Commerce. Commerce was a member of the main family. But anyhow, the
TVA had a representative on the subcommittees, and we would meet down at
Knoxville,occasionally. I'd spent a couple of years or a year and a half at
Knoxville.
Q ..
Like you said, the TVA was always very busy with the flood forecasting business
because of all of the dams they had.
A ..
Yes, yes. Well, anybody that operates dams has to worry about that. They have
large tributary dams like Norris. Norris was the first one of the large storage
projects. All of the main stem dams don't have any storage to speak of, so they
have their gate operations. They have to open up their gates as the flow increases
so that they don't cause any troubles. So they were in the business fairly early.
Q ..
How about non-Federal institutes, such as universities and these private research
labs and private firms?
A ..
As far as what?
Q ..
Their contributions to hydrology. I imagine the universities have a lot of theoretical
development.
Well, the universities became more active after the state water resource centers were
A
established. The universities, I believe in the early ' 6 0 s , organized a "Universal
Council on Water Resources Research. They are still quite active. In the earlier
days, of course, at the professional organizational meetings, there were always
university people giving papers and participating. Not necessarily real early in the
game, but some of the universities began being interested in having hydrology,
teaching hydrology. That started rather slow, I think. I don't remember which
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