Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
project for which he served as a consultant. As far as I know, it's never been overtopped.
So the Corps wouldn't be able to go to FEMA and say, "It was done at this dam, it was
overtopped, and it worked perfectly.
The Corps made a big issue about Rafferty Dam having an emergency
spillway.
The board decided to consider reducing the size of the concrete spillway required to handle
the probable maximum flood. Additional model testing was unsuccessful. It was
concluded that it would cost significantly more to pass all the discharge through the
enlarged concrete spillway. Saskatchewan Power decided to spend the additional money.
About that time, I was seriously considering retiring from consulting. I wrote
Saskatchewan Power advising them that I was terminating my consulting practice and
would no longer be able to serve on their consulting board. I immediately got a letter back
from them saying, "You cannot retire from this board. You were the one who convinced
us that the
spillway would work and that it would save us a lot of money. Since
we're in this big hassle with the Corps, you've got to be on our board to convince the
corps. I agreed to continue serving on the board. That was when the
spillway
was still in the plans. In the course of the next six months or so, Saskatchewan Power
gave up and decided to adopt the concrete spillway plan.
This example at Rafferty and the Corps' reluctance to go ahead with what they didn't see
as a proven design--did you find in your dealing with a lot of the districts and divisions
that the Corps was ultra-conservative in their engineering approach?
A:
Yes, they were. The Canadians, and many U.S. non-Federal organizations and engineers,
frequently said that the probable maximum flood, as defined by the Corps, is ultra-
conservative, and many of them don't use it. But when dealing with FEMA, it had to be
used because they accepted it.
So, the Corps, while naturally inclined to be conservative, was forced further in that
direction by FEMA standards?
Yes. However, for some projects, it doesn't cost much more to use the maximum
probable flood instead of the 1 ,OOO-year flood.
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