Vernon
own technical analyses. They didn't like that kind of an answer, of course, because it
was in a way putting them down as far as the technical part.
I don't know how many people, but I know a lot of people, felt that their primary role
should be in the data collection, and it still is today. But I had my only significant
confrontation, I think, with another agency [with USGS]--somebody on my own level from
another agency. But it was one of the fellows from the GS--we had a problem with funds.
We were putting out a lot of money for data collection before trying to figure out how we
could cut back on some of those funds. Just spending too much money, they said.
One of the districts, Rock Island District, decided that they should do their own data
collection. That they could do it cheaper than to have the USGS do it. There got to be
a big controversy about whether they should do that or not, and the GS objected strongly
to it. But the district felt real strongly that they wanted to do it themselves. It finally got
resolved where they--the GS--continued to do it, I believe, was the final outcome.
But at that same time, it came up that the operations people were hard-pressed for money.
They said, `We've got to cut back on some of these areas. What can we do in the data
collection area Well, the Corps was paying for data collection, but the GS was doing
it.
So we got people from the GS to come over and talk about what we could do to cut back
on
We need data, but we can't be as generous with the money we've had in the
past. What are some of your suggestions? They said, "Well, there are things you can do.
We can still get the data, but we don't need to process the data as fancy as we do when
we put it in published reports. We could go out and still get the data and you would just
use it. You'd process it yourself or use it as you needed it. But you wouldn't archive it
in the nice, neat manner that we do it. That would save you so
percent or
something like that. Now it wouldn't get into the GS records because it wouldn't be
archived in the proper manner and the established procedure.
So headquarters level decided, based on this advice from the GS, that we could still do that
sort of thing. I signed a letter to the field offices saying that when you review your annual
budget for next year, we know that you're strapped for money, why [not] consider this
concept of getting the data but not processing it as refined as it has been in the past.
The head of hydrology over in GS hadn't really been involved in these discussions, it was
the people that worked for him. He saw that letter with my name on it, and he looked at
it and he blew his stack I guess. He called me up, and he called me every name in the
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