Vernon
a mistake and it was too high.
Well, there was another example of where shortly after the study had been done they had
a big flood and a big flow very close to what the standard project flood had been estimated
to be. So Dick Fields said, "Hey, I guess you're right, go back and change it. But if that
flood hadn't come along, why his trying to satisfy the political concerns would have had
a big impact on the design of the project. It's tough.
The funds are limited and everything--what do you do? Do you still do all of your
hydrology on the basis of no concern about what it cost to take care of it or do you try to
squeeze it as much as you can to make the hydrology fit the project that the people want
and that sort of thing. There is a lot of politics involved. Of course, most of the people
that I've dealt with in hydrology were on a high professional level [and] felt very strong
about being unbiased about their decisions and try to keep answers reasonable and not
actually fudge the answers to get something that a top official might want.
Q ..
That's in the area of ethics that has become much more important now for professional
engineers.
A
It's an important one of engineering--you know it's tougher in an area like hydrology than
in something like structural engineering where a lot of the stuff is pretty straight forward.
It's all well documented and everybody knows what the right things you're suppose to put
in there and so they can't ask you to fudge any.
But when it comes to hydrology, suppose the project doesn't quite make the benefit/cost
ratio and there is a lot of pressure to have that project have a B/C ratio of 1.0. The
planner comes over to you and says, "Hey, we can't make it on this project and the
Congressman wants it real bad. The district engineer called and we're going to build him
a project. What can you do with that frequency curve?"
Well, all you got to do is move the line a little bit and the project is justified, you know.
It doesn't take much to move that line. But we'd say, "Well, grant it, it's possible that it
could be on that line but how about your damage analysis. You know, how good are they?
Are they so accurate that you couldn't change them to get your justified project
no they re accurate. Well, they're no more accurate then the frequency curve.
Now do you fudge it a little bit until you get the project?
You know for certain that the answer you've got isn't proof perfect, you can't prove that
it's perfect, but you still have a tough time trying to say, "Well, should that thing be
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