Engineer Memoirs
thought that we could be very helpful to the cities in coordinating and integrating the planning
of the city from all these various aspects - u t i l i t i e s and flood control, water supply, programs of
interest to the Corps, plus transportation and utilities and items which other federal agencies
might be financing. So with the cooperation of the city fathers, we began a joint planning group
with the other federal agencies and the city. Together, under Corps direction the first "urban
studies" was developed. Over the next five or six years we did the same for many cities
throughout the United States.
That turned out to be a very important program. The decline in the new project planning
workload, as a result of the environmental interest and the lack of interest in pushing for marginal
projects, generated a capability among our planning staff. So this urban studies program not only
provided valuable assistance to our cities but it did allow us to put our best planners to work on
a new mission. The results provided to the communities a product they would not be able to
develop themselves. The amount of money which went into the urban studies program was
significant.
So that was a new Corpswide mission that came out of a question presented to me by Senator
Hruska, one that I think carried with it a great advantage to the Corps.
Let me go back and ask you a couple of follow-up questions here if I could. Did the Rocky
Mountain Arsenal problem become a big one while you were there, or was this one of the first
signs of trouble?
A
That was the first sign of trouble. Actually, we did have a chemical demil project. We built a
special furnace to bum small chemical munitions. The chemical demil furnace was already in the
works. It wasn't a result of the ducks, but the best answer to your question is that was really the
forerunner of what later proved to be a major problem.
The environmental activist community was really centered pretty much around the Denver,
Colorado, area. There probably were others, but Denver was, at least, in the forefront. Without
any doubt about it, after we got over the first trauma of the National Environmental Policy Act,
the Missouri River Division became very serious about doing a good job with the environmental
opportunities. We took a lot of heat. I'm sure everyone else did, but we seemed to be the center
of the movement. The public hearings were complicated. I think that those two districts and the
division as a whole really "got with the program" as CSM Santacrose would have said. Fontenella
Park, across the river from Omaha, was a program initiative with environmental phases. The man
who ran it had collected data on the development and history of the Missouri River Basin, the
river itself. I asked to put an exhibit out there, in which we would show the geological structure.
We did it. It was a good public education item and a good public relations item for the Corps,,
At Fort Peck in Montana we had an excellent project engineer-Don Beckman. He was a
made archeologist who collected skeletons of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals from the
reservoir area. He developed a little museum in the project visitors gallery.
They're still finding things out there?
A ..
Still finding things out there.
Q .. I think while you were there, there was some movement or transition in the Missouri Basin
Association volunteer
state, local, federal officials.
A
That would refer to the Water Resources Congress [WRC]. In 1970 there was the Mississippi
Valley Association and the River and Harbor Congress. They were combined at a meeting in
February of 1971 at the Hilton Hotel on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. I remember it very well
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