Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
there. We tried to play with what we would do with districts and that sort of thing at the same
time.
We tried to take a special focus on the Missouri River Division and the responsibilities of the
Air Force and how we'd address that. The North Central Division, we came down to, was the
most vulnerable. The problem was, "What do you do with the responsibilities of the
commander, North Central Division, with respect to Canada and the Great Lakes?"
One of the schemes we came up with basically took the Ohio River Division and the North
Central Division, Detroit and Buffalo Districts, and put them together. The problem was, I
felt fully employed at the time as the Ohio River Division Engineer, and didn't know whether
I would get time to go do the Canadian. That was a sticky wicket there.
Then the thought was that St. Paul and Rock Island could go to the Missouri River Division.
So, we might end up with the Lower Mississippi Valley Division and then two at the top. Of
course, the more recent plan came up with a single at the top--the Ohio River Division.
Out of all that, and having thought about it a lot from my time in Civil Works and as deputy,
and down in the Ohio River Division, and having participated in this study of the center, and
being in the Mississippi River Commission, I thought that the plan the Williams group came
up with was brilliant. It really addressed a lot of things and kept things about the right
balance.
First of all, there are some folks who say, "Why do we have to have the division level?" I
say, "You really need divisions. I mean, our districts' perspective is, frankly, pretty narrow.
They bring a very local bias. Now, the locality might be as big as a state and a half, but their
bias is much more local."
You start confronting ideas with ideas at the division level, and you need that one-up review
that comes not only in engineering design but other things too. The pressure put on the
regulatory program came from me at division. The pressure put on closing Kentucky River
came from me to Louisville District, who didn't want to do it.
Huntington District would never have solved the Yatesville Dam situation because they just
would have thrown up their hands and said, "We can't do it. You go tell Congressman
Perkins." Or, "All we could see is go buy it for million." Neither of which was really a
responsible position.
It took the division to guide district solutions. Now, when I say division--I don't mean just
me. I'm talking about my strong staff--Dick Armstrong, Jack Kiper, and Jimmy Bates and
their staffs who worked out all the details, who'd come up with alternatives and challenge
with the "what ifs." I mean, you need that mature, experienced-level kind of thing to develop
comprehensive regional solutions.
I don't think Huntington could have done the EPA job with Chemdyne without the division.
There was another case where Huntington District would not give a permit to the developer
of a privately developed power site at one of our main stem dams on the Ohio--an
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