Engineer Memoirs
When asked what I expected the Corps to do, I advised them that the Corps' position was to
go the whole ten yards including authorization, which meant a complete evaluation of the
impact of this increased traffic on the environment of the upper Mississippi, et cetera.
Reauthorization would take four or five years. That didn't seem to be a very attractive idea,
but on the other hand, I felt that was the only course open to the government. I went to the
groundbreaking as Chief of Engineers five years later.
Interestingly enough, preparing the Lock and Dam 26 authorization language presented a
couple of wrinkles worth mentioning. The first lock 110 by 1,200 feet] was adequate for
traffic but would be
1976 traffic. The second lock was not needed for the current
needed to meet projected growth. It was impossible to authorize the second lock until the full
analysis had been made of the effect of added barge traffic on the upper Mississippi
environment.
The environmental impact on the upper Mississippi of the increased traffic which would result
from the second lock presented a difficult problem. The upper Mississippi is changing
naturally all the time and will continue to do so for many years. The basic problem was to
measure the impact of added traffic when there was no clear, stable baseline.
The study of this was put under the umbrella of the Upper Mississippi River Commission.
Ultimately the effect of increased traffic which a second lock would allow on the upper
Mississippi was reasonably well defined and found insignificant, and the project went ahead.
That was a landmark case because from then on all the other locks and dams that we've
modernized were done differently.
Lock and Dam 26 and also Tennessee-Tombigbee were two jobs that followed me through
my moves in OCE.
Another issue related to Lock and Dam 26 is still out there, and that is how to handle
recreational vessels. The impact of the recreational vessels on commercial traffic has become
significant since we originally opened these waterways. We should build separate locks for
recreational vessels. The standard commercial lock is not designed to handle smaller boats,
and while it would have been expensive, we had a chance to build small-boat locks as part of
the Lock and Dam 26 structure. In fact, an early plan provided a passage for recreational boats
that would not interfere with the commercial traffic.
I got on to this idea as a member of PIANC, which is the Permanent International Association
of Navigation Congresses. On the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal a lot of study went into the use
of separate locks for recreational vessels.
Q ..
How did you get involved with PIANC and other international activities?
A
Navigation basically was a first love of mine in the civil works arena, and because of that, I
became involved with PIANC in 1959, with the National Waterways Foundation later in life,
with Harry Cook's waterway conference, and actually was called upon by the government of
the United States to get involved in two international navigation projects. After the 1973 war,
the Corps was asked to advise the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Mr.
Ahmed
Bill Murden, Colonel Vincent Rathbum, Homer Willis, and I made up our four-man
team. Our job was to advise on how to put it back in operation and to improve its efficiency
after many years of inactivity.
That was a very interesting challenge. I made four trips over the years to the Suez Canal. The
Suez Canal Authority was very professional and did a magnificent job getting back in
operation. I'm not talking about removing the ordnance. The Corps of Engineers had very
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