Engineer Memoirs
environmental reasons. That was long after I'd left Tulsa. Another major disappointment occurred
when the Pine Creek Dam was lowered to delete hydropower because oil prices had dropped
temporarily. I believed then and remain convinced that the criteria were shortsighted when
hydropower was excluded permanently from sites that had the natural features to support power.
Throughout the district area there were approximately a dozen other individual projects. So the
program included the Arkansas project, the Central Oklahoma project, the salt study, both the Red
and Arkansas, the Little River projects, and a significant group of miscellaneous projects.
While all that planning was going on, we were actually building, as I recall, something like
or 26 dams.
Q:
Were any of them particularly problematic projects?
A:
I mentioned Central Oklahoma and the salt study. I didn't mention the Grand River drainage. The
Grand River is an anomaly. The Grand River Dam Authority is a state operation. Fort Gibson was
a Corps project and it was the southernmost dam in the series. All the upstream dams had flood
control and hydropower. The Corps regulated the flood control for the entire system through Fort
Gibson. We worked closely with the Grand River Dam Authority.
One interesting event occurred. Pensacola was a Grand River Dam Authority project being
prepared for construction in 1962. The Corps reviewed the flood control and other aspects of the
plan. As I looked it over, I thought, "This project seems familiar." I realized shortly that when I
was at the University of Iowa many years earlier, I had been given a problem to design the dam
and spillway for a project. It turned out that the Pensacola was that dam. I compared my spillway
to the one they were building and was happy to learn that their spillway was less than one foot
higher than mine.
Some of the most important activities were the public hearings on these projects. The real estate
hearings were always delicate. I did all hearings personally-at least ten a year. Sometimes we'd
have three or four hearings for the same project, particularly in real estate. I learned early the
value and sometimes the difficulty of communicating with the audience. The public attendees
included farmers and ranchers who didn't always understand technical data. In many cases we
had to get down to each person and his property. I would always make a reconnaissance
throughout the proposed reservoir area of a new project. I would then be able to speak with
knowledge about individual property and so forth. Public hearings were hard but essential work.
A project called Boswell Dam near Atoka, in Carl Albert's district, was interesting. Mr. Albert
had said that as long as he was in Congress, we would never build Boswell Dam. It was probably
one of the best dam sites in the United States and was needed for water supply to Oklahoma City,
but his constituents objected, and he never let it get built. However, we did have the public
hearings in Atoka, which I remember well -a very hostile group. During the noon break one
elderly lady in the audience stopped me and said, "I don't understand why you come out here and
take our land away from us." She then explained that she had come in a covered wagon with her
family many years ago.
I asked to be excused, and as I began to move away, she started tapping me with her cane. Then
I said, "Ma'am, I'm sorry to tell you this, but I just have to go to the bathroom."
She said, "Well, that's one place I won't follow you."
During the same hearing one man became very obnoxious. Fortunately on my drive around the
reservoir the day before, I had gone by his place and actually seen this same man sitting on his
porch in a rocking chair with his feet propped up on the porch post. When he gave me a hard time
about the value of property and so forth, I explained I was by his place the day before and he was
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