Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
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important. But other people probably had a hard time being convinced that it was that
important. But should [we] give up something like a major hydropower dam because of
some little fish or something like that that nobody had ever heard of before.
The sad part of it is, I think, whenever they're going to build something like that,
immediately all the environmentalists assemble on the spot and start looking for everything
they
there that might be put out of existence because of the project. Not only that,
you not only have problems with fish and wildlife, but you have archeology interests who
get in there and there's a burial ground for a famous Indian tribe that went out of existence
2,000 years ago or something, and they need to find those lost buried Indians.
There have been some pretty famous finds like that that held up construction of projects.
While they had to go in and remove all remains and identify them all. They weren't sure
they had them all, so they kept holding up production.
Q ..
If I'm not mistaken, the Corps has in it's possession, in various places, more various
remains and pottery shards and everything else than about anybody in the world. Can't
get rid of the stuff anymore either.
A ..
It's probably true. Whenever they build a project, that's one of the first things they do is
go out and start digging for artifacts and seeing what they can find. They open it up for
all these people that want to come in and do their digging. If they think there is something
there, why they want to be sure and get it. Well, not only that, but when they go into
construction and they start digging up the foundation for a major dam, they sometimes run
into some artifacts or something, a real important find. They'll hold up construction while
the archaeologists come in there and clean out the sight and get all the good things out of
there.
Q ..
And then try to figure out what they all mean.
A ..
Where they come from and what each little thing means. But back in the early days when
they were building big dams, there was a lot of controversy. You'd see big articles in
LIFE magazine and other places about major projects and how much trouble they had
getting them built and how many people objected to them.
Q ..
Well, that should all calm down, shouldn't it now, because there just aren't that many big
places
to build big dams?
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