Margaret S. Petersen
They were in the Sacramento District from the early '40's. Gomez was Chief of the
Engineering Division when I went there, and Doyle was Chief of the Planning Branch most
of the time I worked there. There's a lot in California that has to do with the relationship
between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps. The Corps built several large multi-
purpose storage projects that were turned over to the Bureau for operation. The Corps
continued to control operation of the reservoirs for flood control storage in the flood control
space, setting flood control releases and so forth. The Bureau was interested in optimizing
power production and, therefore, in keeping the reservoir as high as possible at all times. We
had day-to-day conflicts over releases each time we had a major flood.
Q:
That was a very unusual relationship, between the Corps and the Bureau, that didn't normally
take place.
No, it didn't, but it did in California.
A:
A:
So in November `64 I went to Sacramento, and I worked there until `77 when I retired. I
suppose that I really took an early retirement because of frustration with delaying tactics of
the conservation groups. We no more than finished a feasibility study when the Congress
passed another law; all the rules changed, and we redid the study. We redid the same thing
year after year. With the high inflation rates of the early
project costs escalated
significantly each year and benefit-cost ratios steadily declined. Projects that had been
economically feasible became marginal. Irene had a heart attack in `72, and she was having
additional problems at that time. She died in `79.
Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, The University of Arizona
In the fall of 1980, I was asked to come to Tucson to teach in the Civil Engineering
Department of the University of Arizona. I didn't want to do it--I had never wanted to teach;
public speaking was always very difficult for me. However, Emmett Laursen, whom I have
known since we were undergraduates and who was on the faculty here, persuaded me to try.
I was invited to teach because there had been a death on the faculty.They needed someone
immediately, and they wanted somebody with a lot of experience. Actually, teaching was
the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I taught only graduate classes, initially, and that
led to the three books I have done. Most of our graduate students were foreign and they
couldn't cope with stacks of notes. The first two books on planning and on river engineering
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