McNary Dam Newsletter, “The Sage Hen,” circa 1951

WE MAP THE FUTURE or PANNING PLANNING

A talisman, astrology, the crystal ball;
Sip a portion of the witches brew.
Throw your dart at the map on the wall;
A vision will tell you what to do.

Ah yes, the Planning Branch, dreamers, inventors of projects, imagineers. Some engineers may feel that the Foundations Branch is at the bottom of every project, but no – ask any member of the Planning Branch. He’ll tell you – it’s planning, planning is first in any project. (To assure the truth of this claim, most structural men mix the preliminary blueprints in the first batch of concrete so they can build the dam thing their own way anyhow).

But to actually follow a project through the Planning Branch, how about you and I doing a little imagineering of our own? For the sake of confusing everyone else, imagine a small river in the West-Central area of the Southeastern section of the Southwesternmost portion of Northeastern Oregon. Now let us name this river the Overflow, and assume it courses through a fertile valley of cotton fields. (Dr. Krick is keeping the sun shining for the farmers) and artichokes. At the lower end of this valley is situated Itsbanks, a trading and manufacturing center for the whole Overflow valley. Now the only phenomenon which upsets the idyllic tenor of life in old Overflow valley is that every spring the Overflow overflows its banks and flows over Itsbanks. In the spring of 1938 the Oregonian sent its ace reporter to report a reported flood flow in Overflow. His story was cabled to Portland with the title, “OVERFLOW OVERFLOWS IT BANKS INTO ITSBANKS,” and the paper fired him for drinking on the job. Well, the only people who would believe the reporter’s story, (we shall call him Mr. Writa W. Writa (who’d believe that name?) were the residents of Itsbanks, and they elected him president of the Overflow Water Resources Development and New Itsbanks Flood Protection Agency, or the OWRD & NIFPA and made him mayor and editor of the local paper. Until Mr. Writa Writa (I still can’t believe it) could make the outside world recognize and believe the town of Itsbanks-on-the-Overflow River, he was exiled and barred from all big city papers. So Mr. Writa Writa organized the farmers and businessmen and besieged the U.S.B.R., S.P.C.A, E.C.A, W.O.O.O.F, I.C.A.A, W.C.T.U, I.N.C.O.D.E.L, C.O.D, and the London, England Better Business Bureau with requests for help. Each of these agencies sent investigators. In addition the Red Cross sent three pints of blood and a dozen cookies, the Foreign Student Exchange Association sent a sophomore Himalayan Seismology research worker, and the E.B.B.B. sent a “Bundle for Better Business Bureaus,” but no mention was made of floods or protection. The U.S.B.R. volunteered to inundate the valley with backwater from a reservoir below the town and pump this supply to New Orleans to create more swamp land for them to reclaim and gain a foot hold in the East. This was rejected as a leading firm in Itsbanks was a bourbon manufacturer (Old Overflow, 8-months old) and Mr. Writa Writa hated his mixed with water.

Finally little Jerome A Jerome, 2 1/2 year old son of the town barber and surgeon, wrote his congressman, Senator Rain N. Remorse, asking his aid in protecting Itsbanks from the overflow of the Overflow. Resourceful Mr. Remorse got in touch with the Chief of Engineers, the North pacific Division Engineer, and the Walla Walla District Engineer and told them his people were drowning, losing their means of livelihood, and the river was raising hob with his great-niece’s sand-box and do something about it!

This was in 1941, Pearl Harbor. 1946-rush action on Mr. Remorse’s request. Where is Overbank?-Never heard of it. On a 1902 State Engineer’s Polyconic projection map of the West-Central area of the Southeastern section of the Southwesternmost portion of the Northeastern Oregon, an unmapped area was discovered labelled “Overflow-unsurveyed,” and an appropriate memo was mailed the Planning Branch, in quintuplicate. In 1947 Mr. Remorse’s request was delivered to the in-basket of the Chief, Planning Branch. Now we’re moving. Things’ll hum from here on.

Ho Hum! Well, first of all we’d better make a very preliminary investigation of the area. Unmapped area eh? Not a trace of information as to stream flows? No rainfall data? – Well, that’s normal. Funny, there’s never a thing known about these flooded areas, is there? Let’s send out our flash preliminary investigation man. Now this man must be an engineer – not a specialist, but a person acquainted with all phases of the job. We’ll call on Scotty S. Scotty and arm him with Kodak tourist, six rolls of film, measuring tape, scotch tape, red tape, bifocal lenses, notebook, credit-card and Life magazines. Four days later, old Scotty returns staggering into the office, appalled at the flood-potential in Overflow Valley and the treat to Itsbanks.

His report reads, “Biggest flood threat I’ve ever seen (they always are, folks). Five people drowned in five years and we don’t know how many before that as nobody connected a disappearance with the floods until a Mr. Writa Writa began keeping count in 1942. They didn’t ask any questions about where a man came from (until that “dang social worker from the State College came around with her questions and advice”) and weren’t too nosey about where he went, either. I figure 183,000 dollars worth of damage is done in town every year.

“I tentatively recommend a reservoir at what I’ve called Scotty’s damsite and levee improvements below the reservoir and through Itsbanks of maybe 10,000 c.f.s. capacity.”

“Respectfully Submitted,

Scotty S. Scotty

P.D. & S.”

From Scotty’s findings, we decide that the Overflow overflow problem merits real study; so we recommend a further report, and the District Engineer surveys the findings and makes his report to higher authority; and having concurred with the necessity of permanent flood protection in Overflow Valley, recommends a further report and motivates proper request funds for this study. — Funds approved – $36,000 to Planning Branch for the report. Of course, the Branch actually receives only $16,000 – overhead is portentous these days.

But now we’re in the Survey Report stage! And now we must call on our specialists. Since the area is unmapped, an SOS goes out to the Engineering Service Branch, and a survey group is sent out to fill in the gap in the map. Until the girls discovered that he didn’t even have any film in that funny camera, the transitman, E. D. Squinton, was accumulating a nice collection of names and addresses by posing as a sidewalk photographer.

Following the F & M crew, the economists flock to the area and gain the personal history of each of the valley’s 47,289 inhabitants. It’s reputed that M. Art Nickertung even got Aunt Maudlin to talk about the night of April 17, 1902. That was the night Mr. Hooper’s surveying party from the State Engineer’s Office stopped in Itsbanks, and nobody knows anymore about it than that, so stop racing your minds. However, it is believed that these field economists are also collecting data for a Dr. Whimsey of the University of Indiana for his newest book “Flood Behavior of the American Rivers,” and we may hear more of Aunt Maudlin when that treatise is published.

It’s now the turn of the hydrologists and meteorologists to contribute knowledge of their specialties to this problem. Since absolutely no data is available on this area, except that which can be secured from the 10,000 people who have lived there from 21 to 121 years, a revision of the theory of relativity is employed. Near Ashville, North Carolina, is located a small stream which has every conceivable type of data available on it for 105-year period. Now the stream has absolutely no basis of comparison with the Overflow, but look at the information available!! This suffices to permit construction of a frequency-discharge curve, and now we need to know only what the largest likely flood will be so we’ll know how big a dam to build and how big the river channel should be made. This is neatly solved by transposing the storm of May 8, 1903, over Joplin, Missouri, to the Overflow Basin; employing the run-off characteristics of the February 4, 1892 flood on the Slate Creek, Upper Salmon River; and adding the snow-melt flood of June 1948, South Fork Palouse River; and – by using a little judgment, arriving at the correct flood to designate the Standard Project Flood. We have introduced a startling innovation which may not go far, however, as we always get our storms from Southern California, and this is treason! Nevertheless, let’s assume it goes through. Next a group of estimators and hydraulic designers begin experimenting with the costs and quantities for various sized reservoirs and channels. Then Hydrology again steps in and determines the amount of protection obtainable from these different size dams and levees, and the problem reverts back to the estimators. But this isn’t all. The costs must be adjudged from the angle of economic feasibility; so the men from economics must again be consulted. The P. E. & S. men alter dam-sites, hydrology changes regulations, hydraulics alter designs, D.P.R. section changes costs, juggling apples; just when you have two of them working smoothly, someone tosses in a third, and a fourth, and a fifth (Old Overflow, 8 months old?) apple; but eventually everything is balanced to everyone’s satisfaction. Or is it? Before everything can be permanently settled, it is necessary to hold a public hearing concerning the project, and this can be fun!

The District Engineer proclaims the hearing, Mr. Writa Writa who has been extremely cooperative in this study, arranges space for the meeting in the Itsbanks Town Hall, and all gather for the big government doins. The District Engineer addresses the gathered throngs urging the concerned interests to express their views of the proposed project, and then opens the meeting to the public, awaiting the barrage of questions and complaints from the floor. Old Mr. Moffit asks when his reappointment as postmaster will come through; 14 boys volunteer for duty with Teddy’s Roughriders; the Himalayan seismology student wants to know when we are letting out another earthquake; Uncle Jitters wants help with his income tax, and Aunt Maudlin wants to know who is the State Engineer now, please?

One misguided artichoke grower thought the meeting was about flood work on the Overflow, but his neighbors boo’ed him down, and he was last seen going for a ride in B. B. Shott’s airplane. B. B. returned alone and has been extremely close-mouthed ever since. The project proves to be a happy solution to everyone’s problems, and we store our abacus’ (or is it abacii?) and assemble the Survey Report. This is forwarded to the Division Engineer with the District Engineer’s recommendation for construction of the project. This report is passed along to the Office, Chief of Engineers, with appropriate comments from the Division Engineer. They have both approved the project and the report passes on to the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, who again review it and possibly direct alterations. You must realize we’ve literally skipped through a rather lengthy period of time. Nevertheless, the report is eventually submitted to Congress for action, and Mr. Rain N. Remorse is again showered with requests for his support. But time has wrought changes, and Mr. Remorse cannot remember a constituency called Overbank; besides he’s discovered that sand-box never did belong to his great-niece; he has no relations in the valley.

We regret to close on this note but Mr. Writa Writa is reported to have committed suicide by deliberately eating a basketful of whole artichokes. However, his great dream will be granted, and he will be laid to rest near his beloved Portland — If the locks at McNary are opened to public travel by then.– It’s the least we can do. –

60 (I was finished long ago)

P. S. One year after authorization another flood washed away a Chick Sales causing a change in the economic situation and we start all over.