Jacob H. Douma
appointed Chief of the combined branch. I served as chief until I retired in `79.
Hydraulic design includes all types of dams and flood control channels, navigation dams
and locks, tidal hydraulics, coastal engineering projects, and all of the hydraulic laboratory
work. Hydrology is not as broad a field. It's limited to the hydrologic aspect of all these
design projects. Almost every project requires some hydrology studies to determine flood
design discharge.
Vern
was the top hydrologist under Al
and when Al retired, Vern thought
he would be the chief of that branch. Vern was, of course, a little disappointed. I said,
"Vern, you're the top hydrologist here. You know a lot more about hydrology than I do.
Just continue to operate the way you do, and if you have any problems, administrative
problems, or so on, I'll help you out. But don't come to me for answers on hydrology.
And we worked fine that way. He appreciated that.
That was the basic information that you would then work with in the hydraulic part.
A:
That's right. I didn't know very much about hydrology. I depended on Vern
for
the hydrology. I told him, "Vern, you're the Chief Hydrologist, as far as I'm concerned.
You go right ahead and operate the way you did before under
and if you have
any problems come to me, and I'll try to help you resolve them."
But, of course, all the administrative work had to go through me, because I was chief of
the branch. It worked out fine. When I retired, Vern
mentioned how very
agreeable and cordial we were at all times instead of having strong conflicting opinions.
I was very pleased to hear him say that.
What was your interaction with the people in Planning? Was there a lot of work with
them?
A:
Yes, quite a bit. As the Chief of the Hydraulics and Hydrology Branch, I talked with
Planning quite frequently about the effect of hydraulic design features on the planning
aspects of projects. If Planning saw any hydraulic feature that might have some bearing
on their planning, they would come to discuss it with me. We tried to eliminate passing
papers up the line and back down again as much as possible. That was with the blessing
of every Chief of the Engineering Division I ever worked under.
One time I told Wendell Johnson that I wrote some hydraulic design review comments that
were influenced by the project hydrology, and that I was going to discuss it with Al
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