Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
were replaced by pipelines. There is a thirty-foot deep water ship channel to Sacramento so
that ocean-going ships pass through the San Francisco Bay and all of the way up to the Port
of Sacramento. Export shipments came to the port by truck or train and went into the ocean-
going ships in Sacramento. There was a shallow-draft lock between the deepwater ship
channel and the Sacramento River at Sacramento that was designed to handle shallow draft
traffic. By the late 1960's there was so little barge traffic that the lock was used, primarily,
for recreational navigation. I think it has since been turned over to local agencies for
operation as a recreation facility.
So all you had going up there was the ocean-going ships?
The big ships, yes. Part of the problem with changing use is related to the time delay
A:
between when a feasibility study is completed, when the project is authorized, and when it's
constructed. At the time the feasibility studies were done, there was a lot of shallow-draft
traffic on the Sacramento River, but by the time the lock was finished, shortly before I went
there in 1964, shallow-draft barge traffic had decreased. The Deep Water Ship Channel
project was authorized in 1946, and construction was initiated in 1949, suspended in 1950,
resumed in 1956, and became operational in June, 1963.
I don't really know what the Corps policy used to be in terms of post-authorization studies,
but in general the feasibility studies are reanalyzed in the light of conditions at the time it was
authorized. If conditions have changed, a different decision can be made. There can also be
a long delay between funding for post-authorization planning and when funds are allocated
to start construction. Again, things can change a lot in the interim.
Well, these projects have such long life spans. I mean the life span of some of those projects
is 40-50 years, from the time they first start talking about some of them, until they get them
in the ground.
Yes. It's too bad, because they're needed when you study them and things change. If the
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project had been constructed shortly after studies were completed, then, perhaps, the change
would have been in a different way.
So you said it changed very much for you when you went into planning because you began
to have other major concerns, other aspects beyond rivers and hydraulic structures.
A:
Yes.
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