Memoirs
Q .. Were there any problems with recreation while you were there?
A .. Yes. We were building parks along the Missouri River for recreation. Also, all our lakes provided
recreation facilities. People in the area were great outdoors people. We weren't really building
many new dams. Much of the additional recreation related to new items at old projects or
improving facilities at existing items. I don't recall it being nearly as big an issue as it had been
in Tulsa. Of course, whenever we fluctuated reservoir levels, we heard about it from
recreationists.
Land use was getting to be a greater problem than recreation. The shoreline at those big reservoirs
up in the Dakotas were difficult to police. Besides, Indian land borders the shore for many miles.
We didn't have a tight control over it, and we were having trouble with people infringing on the
public part of the project-fencing off segments, building, et cetera.
Q .. Did you continue to push value engineering?
A .. Yes. Value engineering was a Corps policy by 1970, so it was not a priority leadership challenge
in the Missouri River Division during 1970 to 1972 in view of the environmental issues and all
that was going on. In many ways, you know, the value engineering concept applies to the
environmental analysis. The value you're evaluating is the environment, not necessarily costs.
Q .. You mentioned project operations. Is this an area where mitigation became a factor?
A .. Mitigation initially became an operating procedure. To explain, as a result of the environmental
program, we re-evaluated every project to see if we should operate it differently. For example,
and also releasing water downstream during certain
we were concerned about
spawning seasons. After we had re-evaluated operations on all projects in the Missouri River
Division, surprisingly little change had to be made. We did make whatever changes were
necessary to mitigate adverse operational impacts.
Q .. Just a couple of quick questions. The housing construction you were talking about, this is military
construction public housing?
A ..
Military housing. In the civil areas, I wanted to provide in the remote sites a house for the resident
engineer and one other operations person, i.e., two houses. That program fell on bad times. We
were successful on a couple of the projects, but basically I think the program went the other
direction. We had to get rid of them and let the people live in communities and commute. To
answer your question, all the housing that I was speaking of before was military family housing.
Q .. Military. Mostly Air Force?
A .. No. Not mostly, but a lot. During that period the Army adopted a standard design for barracks.
We built new barracks on both Army and Air Force facilities.
Q .. That's in anticipation of the all-volunteer Army or is
A .. Well, let's see, could that be true or not? I don't think so. I think it was too early. Instead of just
a bare-bones barracks we gave the soldiers two or three to a room, in little clusters with reception
or lounge areas. The barracks were much different and we had problems at first, unique things
such as locks. Every soldier had to have a key. Of course they took the keys with them when they
moved. I remember General Rogers saying some people did nothing but make keys all the time.
I think that's almost true.
Q .. It sounds like quite a bit of the work was for the Air Force.
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