economics or environmental work or something like that. They weren't usually in the
particular technical discipline. They were more in the broad range planning type things.
Q ..
So they weren't really the engineers that could make a real estimate of the engineering
involved?
A
The sad part of it was--Gianelli, he thought he knew all the stuff but he didn't. He
certainly didn't know hydrology and hydraulics or if he did, he hid it pretty clearly,
because we'd go over there and talk to him about dam safety and you could tell he wasn't
the least bit interested in what you're saying to him. He'd sit there and listen to you, I
mean he'd sit there--you knew he wasn't absorbing any of it or really thinking it was
worth his while. He just did it because it was kind of forced on him.
Once in awhile you had some people that got involved in pseudo-technical matters, like
when Jack Ford was over there, he got involved with OMB on trying to set up some
criteria, technical criteria for making decisions on where the Federal interest stopped and
the community interest started when it come to stormwater management.
I got involved with him on some of that because OMB didn't just want to come right out
and say flat out, "We're not going to do anything in areas smaller than ten square miles
or something like that. They wanted some sort of a technical reason for turning down
projects or turning down work. So we had to develop kind of a hydrologic model about
certain size floods or--anyway we came up with a manual that described a Federal interest,
where you stopped it. It was based on a lo-year flood in a certain size area.
So, anyway, they got a technical procedure that wasn't strictly arbitrary. But the sad part
of it was the technical procedure was so loose, it was based on average conditions, and
you don't hardly ever have average conditions anywhere, [it's] either greater or less. But
it did serve their purpose so that OMB could say, "Okay, well, that won't meet our criteria
or requirements so we won't do anything in that area.
Dam Design Criteria
Q ..
They basically wanted a formula that they could put this project up against and say it
doesn't meet it?
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