________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
administration initiative, if you'll recall, for the nonfederal development of hydropower. The
district would not permit the developer to bring high-tension lines across the locks.
In fact, Huntington had a good rationale, but, also in fact, they'd taken a lot of weeks messing
with it, not solving it. The people pushed them, wrongfully so, and had even ordered the steel
that was now on site. So, here was the dilemma: "You [Huntington District] are thwarting us
from doing what's necessary."
We, meaning the division staff, worked out the solution to that problem, not the district staff.
They did their level work, but we forced the tough engineering analysis and questions and
answers that brought about a rational solution.
There's another example: the Tishomingo County roads. We were asked by Congressman
Whitten to look at the roads we were destroying in Tishomingo County near the upper part of
the TennTom project. Congressman Whitten's point was that Mobile District was not doing
that down in their area. "They're taking care of the roads and paying for the damage. Why
aren't you?"
Nashville District was adamant that there was no federal interest in doing that. So, I had our
staff look into it. When you come right down to it, we had fixed up a contract that was
different from Mobile's. Mobile was running their haul road right down the middle of the
project, so that's why their roads were not damaged. We were hauling huge stone in
mammoth trucks over county roads for some distance. The roads weren't designed for that
load, and we were destroying them as a result of our activity.
Did we have a responsibility? I thought so. So, once again, we worked the solution to come
up with how those things could be taken care of and the county reimbursed for the damage
we were causing. It would never have happened at the district level. It would have just
remained an issue.
So, I think divisions are an important and responsible level. We should not get rid of
divisions. They need to be there. The USACE headquarters should not be in the execution
mode. The translation point between policy and planning and programming and execution is
appropriately at the division level. So, we need to have them.
Do we need to have as many as we have? No. I think the solution the recent task group came
up with--the Lower Mississippi Valley Division and having divisions in the southwest and
northwest, southeast and northeast, and then in the upper middle, is the right kind of solution.
I also thought that the way they split Southwest Division was brilliant. I mean, I'd never
thought about their going away. It was always a very strong division, but when you really
come down to the numbers crunch, that does make a logical kind of split.
Also, I think keeping one in Cincinnati makes sense. I mean, everybody will say, "Well, you
were there," but in essence, with the prime role the Ohio River system has and the biggest
lock system that we've got on the waterways, that says that's going to remain an integral
thing that needs to work.
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