John W. Morris
Well, that did not seem to be a sensational item, and at that time I really didn't appreciate the
importance of it. I hope I didn't act too dumb, but it turned out that was the beginning of the
Rocky Mountain Arsenal story, which is still going on to some extent. The reason the ducks died
was because of migration of hazardous groundwater.
Public meetings became a real challenge for our district engineers. They would try to explain the
advantages and the disadvantages of certain flood control projects, such as the one at Boulder and
in conjunction with the construction of Chatfield Dam near Omaha. At the same time, we were
putting together the project for Bear Creek Dam near Denver. All of those projects came under
very careful environmental review.
Through all this, the Corps was slowly but surely changing its way of doing business. Probably
the most important thing that happened to the Corps in the environmental program was General
Clarke's vision in requiring that we integrate environmental considerations at every point, every
step in the decision-making process. That set the Corps apart and later proved to be, I suppose,
the single most important organizational concept that was implemented during the early 1970s.
The alternative was to have an environmental review committee to review the planning or
engineering when finished to see how the effort fit the environmental criteria. General Clarke's
idea was to have everybody, at each step along the way, take the environment into consideration,
and as a consequence, we put together better projects.
Q .. What about the division's military construction work?
A:
Rock Island Arsenal was a military project of course. Also, on the military side, we were
converting all of our oil-fired heating systems to coal. Very shortly thereafter, for environmental
reasons, we put them all back like they were. During my period at Omaha, the oil shortage was
the big item.
Another item of major construction throughout the area was either upgrading or retiring each of
the ammunition plants. There were 11 ammunition plants throughout the Missouri River Division
area. There were serious hazardous materials by-products which had to be attended.
There was also a big program at
classified work inside the mountain. The Air Force
Academy was still being developed-physically, that is. Besides Rocky Mountain, the military
did not escape the environmental attention, either. At Fort Carson, for example, there were
several environmental protests. Fort Leavenworth and Fort Riley seemed to be relatively quiet.
From the construction standpoint, the big item was housing and barracks. We were trying to
provide better housing for our soldiers, and it was during those days that General Danny
Raymond, who was chief of Military Construction, came up with the idea of buying off-the-shelf
housing rather than designing it ourselves. That was a fine move which led to better housing at
less cost for our troops. So the housing program became rather active throughout this period.
Fort Leonard Wood was emerging from the World War II temporary type of construction into a
permanent post. General George Walker was commanding general at Fort Leonard Wood.
Q:
What about the urban studies? Weren't they part of your time in MRD?
A:
One other important civil works event was the birth of the urban studies program in the MRD.
Senator [Roman] Hruska, the senior senator from Nebraska, asked me one day if the Corps could
help the cities manage the money they were getting from various federal agencies and put it into
a sort of a comprehensive development plan.
I thought about it, told Senator Hruska that the Corps could help, but I thought we'd have some
difficulty if funds of another federal agency were diverted to the Corps. On the other hand, I
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