Water Resources People and Issues
from about million a year down to about to .5 million a year, which
hardly justified having a separate commission. So he decided to combine
natural resources with mathematics and physical sciences into the Commission
on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources. In essence, Wally
Bowman's job and my job were abolished.
They wrote Wally Bowman a letter saying that his job was abolished and gave
him a pretty nice golden handshake as they said good-bye. They even paid the
fee to an outfit that tried to help him get another job. But Wally didn't need
that kind of help. He helped Gus Speth write a proposal to the MacArthur
Foundation, and when it was funded, he became the administrative assistant
director of the World Resources Institute.
Wally, of course, was well known by everybody in the environmental field
because he had been the executive director of the Conservation Foundation and
had been involved with the NEPA authorization when he was at the Library of
Congress, so he was a big help to Gus Speth. The first grant was or
million from the MacArthur Foundation, and Gus raised a lot more money.
I never got any official notification that my job was terminated. I stayed on the
payroll and nobody ever told me that my title was changed. But later, in what
I thought was an unusual way, in a memo to the whole staff, Frank Press
announced that I was going to be involved in organizing the water resources
activities for the new commission.
Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources
Excuse me, which new commission?
The new commission was the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics,
and Resources, CPSMR. They changed the whole organization around and
eliminated some of the jobs, and I was given an allocation of funds to try to
develop a board on water science. In the meantime, the Potomac River studies
for the Corps of Engineers were nearing completion in the Water Technology
Board of the new Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, CETS,
and they decided they were going to create a board on water technology.
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