Engineer Memoirs
I could never have been effective as the director of Civil Works without such outstanding
help
One of the first challenges after Agnes was to replace the chief of engineering. Joe Caldwell,
who had been the head of engineering in the Mississippi River Commission, retired about the
time I arrived in Civil Works. It turned out I had to fill this position twice while I was director
of Civil Works. The first selection was Homer Willis. Homer came also from the Lower
Mississippi Valley Division, LMVD. We were always very pleased, very happy with his
work.
After Homer retired, I was successful in getting Lloyd Duscha, whom you may recall I had
brought to Omaha. I'd been working on Lloyd before, and he said he didn't want to leave
Omaha. When the job came open again, I went back to him, and he finally took it. I asked why
he didn't take it the first time. He said, "You didn't try hard enough," which I thought was
humorous. I had finally tried enough. I think history will prove that was a good choice.
We always had excellent people in Civil Works. Besides those mentioned already, Ken
Gene
and Lew Blakey left the Chief's office to take senior jobs in the field
so that they could return to the top responsible spots in Civil Works. The challenges that the
directorate as a whole faced from 1972 to 1975 probably were as intense as any period. I
should point out that the senior civilian in the Public Affairs Office by this time was Locklin
Mouton, who had been with me in Tulsa. That was fortunate because we understood each
other.
Q ..
What major problem areas did you encounter as director of Civil Works?
A
The whole period was laced with the environmental matters. The public perceived a lack of
clear policy in the Corps on where to go or how to get there. We were challenged on a lot of
legislation that we'd been using for years, like the modernization of the facilities on the Ohio
River. Out of that came the Lock and Dam 26 issue. Some public works projects were being
stopped, such as the Cross-Florida Barge Canal, as we were trying very hard to understand
and survive the legal implications of the National Environmental Policy Act.
At the same time, the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] and others were proposing
to the president of the United States that the function of the Chief of Engineers in the civil
works arena be placed under the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Reclamation, or
be combined along with the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Reclamation, et cetera
into a super cabinet under Secretary Earl Butz. Normally, the director of Civil Works, rather
than the Chief of Engineers, was the spokesperson in dealing with and if necessary, speaking
out against such changes. Of course, the risk there is that somebody might get fired. In that
case it'd be the director of Civil Works.
Another underlying problem was there had been no public works authorization bill, o r
omnibus bill, for some years, and many projects which were waiting their turn were standing
in the wings, and probably would not be put into an authorization bill until the National
Environmental Policy Act constraints had been satisfied. Besides, there was not a great deal
of enthusiasm to spend because the country was preoccupied with the oil shortage problem.
We had the Bicentennial, which was kind of fun and we'll come to that later, but it was
another significant event with which we had to deal. The most significant legislative event
besides NEPA was the Federal Water Pollution Control Acts amendments in 1972, called the
Muskie bill. It was passed in the Senate without a declining vote, 93-0. Included were a
couple of provisions which later became very important-Section 202 and Section 404, et
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