Margaret S. Petersen
"cutting edge," to use today's words, because nobody had designed such structures on such
sediment-laden rivers before.
The model studies, basically, and the sedimentation?
A:
No, the sediment, the structures. Locks and dams had been constructed on the Upper
Mississippi and on the Ohio, but those rivers didn't have the sediment worries that we had
on the Arkansas. Before construction of large upstream storage reservoirs, the Arkansas had
about the same sediment load as the Missouri, but the Missouri doesn't have locks and dams;
it is open-river navigation. It was all very interesting. The Little Rock District of the Corps
had a field group that gathered much of our basic data--discharge measurements, sediment
measurements; we also used a lot of aerial photography. All of us in the hydraulics branch
had opportunities to get out and see the river, frequently, to observe what actually happens
over time. There was a wonderful spirit of cooperation in the hydraulics branch under Jay
Pyle; everybody tried.
In those days, we could hardly consider recreation. But I remember at one of the reservoirs
on the Upper Missouri in the early
Gavins Points or Randall (I'm not sure which one
it was), one could go out to the old road's end at the water's edge after the reservoir filled.
The Corps had provided "minimum facilities for health and safety," and we could get right
up to the water's edge of the reservoir. It wasn't until passage of the Federal Water Project
Recreation Act in 1965 that opportunities for outdoor recreation and fish and wildlife
enhancement were required to be considered in planning for water resource projects. The
law also required participation by non-federal bodies, and in the absence of such local
participation, facilities for recreation, and fish and wildlife could not be provided. In the
'70's after passage of the National Environmental Policy Act
many
environmentalists took the attitude that, "The Corps should do this, therefore, do it." I don't
think they ever really understood that the Corps could do only what they were authorized to
do by law. I don't think many people understand that even today.
Reasons for Leaving
But at MRD you were doing the typical division work of reviewing the work of the districts.
Yes. Since Irene and I had not done similar detailed studies at the district level, we often felt
A:
that while, theoretically, we knew what we were doing, we didn't really have feel for a lot
of it. That basically was why we wanted to go to work in a district, why we decided to go
to Little Rock.
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