Engineer Memoirs
downstream from Chatfield Dam through that community. The citizens objected and asked
for the money to buy the land, move houses out if necessary, and leave it alone. Well, that
didn't sound like a bad idea. Economically it didn't look too bad either, after we checked it
out.
Our problem was an absence of any authority
to build something. The congressman from
Littleton, Colorado, at that time was Bill Brotsman. Obviously we needed some special
legislation in the case of the Littleton project to allow the Corps of Engineers to use the
money which was otherwise appropriated for a floodway to solve the flood problem with a
nonstructural solution by buying land, et cetera, et cetera. I don't remember the exact wording,
but that was the thrust of it. That worked out fine. People in Littleton were happy.
Later on, Section 22 in the next Water Resource Development Act authorized the Chief of
Engineers to consider nonstructural solutions to floods and other water resource problems.
That was a landmark event and Mr. Brotsman's assistance was crucial. Later, he became
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Personnel at the same time that Veysey became Assistant
Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. Well, nonstructural solutions were neither understood
nor popular in the Corps initially because our people had grown up building things. Actually,
we did accomplish several major water resource improvements with nonstructural solutions:
Charles River in Boston; Indian Bend Wash in Scottsdale, Arizona; Prairie du Chien
Wisconsin; and others. The philosophy of nonstructural solutions worked, and I think as much
as anything else, it did give us a platform to approach the public with an alternative to
constructing a dam. Nonstructural solutions grew out of the broader issue of environmental
concern. The urban studies mentioned earlier were an example.
Another example of the emerging influence of environmental concern was the Cross-Florida
Barge Canal-a landmark case in which the Corps was involved. There were two separate
Genera/ Morris gave an address at the opening ceremony of the Permanent International
Association of Navigation Congresses (PIANC) in Leningrad, U.S.S.R., on 5 September 1977.
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