Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
As a matter of fact, I later on had been asked by a professor at Miami University at Oxford,
Ohio, to come up and talk to his class on environmental engineering two straight years. I
used the TennTom as an example of how an engineer deals with environmental issues and
construction development. You see, I could make the point that although there was a channel
where there was not a channel before, certain things were seen by some as improvements--
bass fishing was superb the very next year after we opened Bay Springs Lock and Dam. We
protected against wash of any kind of nonnatural flow into the stream during construction.
We avoided with well systems and dewatering systems, sloughing off of the banks of the
175-foot-high cut--we pulled the water table way down there. We worked hard to design
against environmental injuries and for environmental improvements.
We took great care in building the disposal areas and shaping them so they would drain
properly. We put topsoil on them, and lime, and other things, and we tested them. Some of
the soils were very acidic from coming from the subterranean sands. It would be difficult to
support any vegetation on them. We would treat the surface and put on the lime and then
we'd sow grasses. Then we'd come back and monitor the systems for draining and settling
particles before the water percolated back into the stream. We really took a lot of care to
make the disposal areas be a positive, not negative, environmental feature. Even shortly after
finishing, we would go down there and people were talking about what a great duck flyway
we had built--because they now had all the ponds along the way where we left them up in
the disposal areas--and how good the hunting was, and the fishing, and things like that. So, I
think we really did do it in the best environmental way possible.
I think you have to remember that the main advocates against proceeding were the railroads,
who put together a coalition of opposition.
Q:
Did you have occasion to have direct interaction with railroad executives during your time?
A:
No.
Q:
Okay. I don't know if you have any other TennTom observations or comments at this point.
It might come up again.
A:
Well, of course, it continued throughout the period that I was division engineer. We had the
opening of a dedication of Bay Springs Lock and the divide cut just before I left, so I got to
be the division engineer that finished the project. I did leave a few claims for Pete Offringa to
take care of later on, but the clamor during that time was to finish. Oftentimes we came to
Washington to brief Hunter Spillan and Congressmen Bevill and Whitten where we were on
the project. The idea was: don't let the schedule slip, deliver on time, and don't let costs
increase.
We were held closely accountable for progress, not that we weren't always accountable, but
maybe with some sense of skepticism on their part that we really were going to finish when
we said we would. So, we picked a date and said we're going to finish by that date--if you
keep getting us the money we need--and we met those time frames. That was something,
then, that the congressional supporters of the project didn't have to go back and say to their
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