“High-Lights and Gutter-Shots From The Walla Walla Foundations and Materials Branch”
McNary Dam Newsletter, “The Sage Hen,” circa 1951

Certain people have been wondering just what goes on in a foundaitons and materials branch, and why. Well, hold on to your hats, folks; here we go.

The F. & M. boys, when they’re not scrounging around in the field, occupy, for appropriate reasons, the psychopathic ward at Walla Walla Air Base. With few exceptions, each has his own cell from which the padding, unfortunately, has been removed. Just to keep things exciting, and to conserve valuable energy, practically all doors have been removed except the outside ones, and those leading to the push-button Chic Sales.

With two exceptions to be mentioned later, these F & M characters fall into four general categories: Cement Rats, Mud-Balls, Borers, and Rock-Hounds. Whoah-back. Let’s go over that again slowly.

The Cement Rats monkey with concrete, — what goes into it, what goes into, how good it will be, and how long it will stay put. Some joker, standing on the banks of the Columbia makes an [a]sinine remark like, “Let’s build a concrete dam here.” His “straight” man looks over the aeolian dunes and basalt crags and says, “Fine. What’re ya gonna use for aggregate?” From there on the conversation goes something like this: “The what!” “You know, the aggregate-what they put in concrete besides cement.” “Oh, that. The Rock-Hounds will find it, and the cement rats will have it tested. They’ll send in samples of everything for fifty miles around and spend years trying to co-relate conflicting data.”

“Yeah?” “Yeah, then we’ll use what’s closest to the damsite.”

The Mud-Ball is a peculiar bird, speaking a language all his own. He designs earthwork dams, levees, railroad embankments, drainage systems and such. He obtains a goodly share of his data from the Borers, who go around punching holes in the ground, and sending the holes in for test. The results mean something to the Mud-Ball, who interprets them in such terms as tri-axial sheer, field density, bearing capacity, consolation, angles of friction, cohesion, and compaction Do you follow me? Too bad. I got lost “way back there. Let’s get back to the borers.

Upon requests from the Cement Rats, Mud-Balls or Rock-Hounds, these boys make holes in the ground. All kinds of holes. They use augurs, shot drills, diamond drills (yeah, real diamonds!) or shovels; all to answer just two questions; “What’s underneath?” and “What is it good for?” In rock, they drill holes too small for your hand, or big enough for a man, bos’n’s chair, light, camera and note-book. They usually save the hole, that is, the core that came out of it. They dig and drill in sand, silt, clay or gravel; and when it happens to be in a farmer’s back yard and they don’t leave things quite to the farmer’s liking, he protests. The answer he gets might go like this: “Relax, Mr. Slocum. That’ll all bee under water next year anyway.” And everything would be quite legal if Legal would leave it that way.

Now, about those two exceptions:

A. The Boss. He’s a character too, but he doesn’t fit into any one of the classes mentioned. He’s supposed to know enough about each field to direct and understand what’s going on, and back the play. And brother, he has his hand full!

So now for the Big Question, WHY? Well, all this answers certain very distressing questions about a damsite. Can we put a dam there that will last? Will it stay where we put it? Will the foundation hold it up? and last and most important: What’s upstream, a bath-tub? — or a sieve?

After reading the above, the Boss asked a question: “What, actually, has this Branch done?” The answer, even concisely put, would run closer to 60,000 words than 600. Excuse me, please!