ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

DONALD (DON) J. DUCK

1996

ËËËËËË

STATUS OF INTERVIEWS:
OPEN FOR RESEARCH

ËËËËËË

Interviews Conducted and Edited by:

Brit Allan Storey
Senior Historian
Bureau of Reclamation
ËËËËËË

Oral History Program

Bureau of Reclamation
Denver, Colorado
Edited and Printed: 2007-2008
SUGGESTED CITATION:

DUCK, DONALD (DON) J., ORAL HISTORY

INTERVIEW. Transcript of tape-recorded
Bureau of Reclamation Oral History Interviews
conducted by Brit Allan Story, Senior Historian,
Bureau of Reclamation, in 1996, in Conifer,
Colorado. Edited by Brit Allan Storey.
Repository for the record copy of the interview
transcript is the National Archives and Records
Administration in College Park, Maryland.

Record copies of this transcript are printed on 20 lb.,

100% cotton, archival quality paper. All other copies are
printed on normal duplicating paper.
 i

Table of Contents

Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Statement of Donation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv

Brief Chronology of the Life of Donald (Don) J. Duck

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix

Oral History Interviews of Donald (Don) J. Duck . . . . 1

Born in Sanford and Raised in Terre Haute,
Indiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Attended Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
................................1
Started College in February 1949 . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Enlisted in the Air Force During the Korean War
................................2
Stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska
................................2
Went Back to College at Family’s Insistence . . 2
Attended College on the G.I. Bill . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Graduated in Civil Engineering in 1959 . . . . . . 2
Spent Time in Alaska Doing Survey Work . . . . 3
Job Opportunities upon Graduation . . . . . . . . . 3
Interview with Bureau of Reclamation . . . . . . . 3
Offered a GS-7 Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
June of 1959 Moved to Flaming Gorge Damsite
................................4
Just Setting up Camp in Dutch John . . . . . . . . . 4
Worked in Construction Inspection . . . . . . . . . 5
Required Scaling above Some Work . . . . . . . . 5
“In fact, construction safety kind of began there
at Flaming Gorge, Glen Canyon. . . .” . 6

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

ii

Work organized into three shifts . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Selected to be a lead construction inspector . . 7
“No one of the three of us really had much dam
experience. Naturally, mine was zero. . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Met Roscoe Granger, Field Engineer at Flaming
Gorge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Gene Walton Was Construction Engineer at
Flaming Gorge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
“So you had the Davis Dam group, and then
Roscoe with his Monticello Dam group,
which is true of every project that I ever
worked on, you had these different
people that were drawn in from other
projects, and you make the mix again,
and go on and build . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . 8
“At that time, those of us who got involved . .
.were really getting in on the last of the
big dam building era. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . 8
“It was a great time to be with the Bureau of
Reclamation if you were interested in
dams, dam construction, large projects . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Concrete Development in Reclamation . . . . . . 9
Concrete quality control issues at Flaming Gorge
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Fluctuations in Sand Moisture at Flaming Gorge
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Enos Ryland Was Sent to Look into the Sand
Moisture Control Problem . . . . . . . . . 11
“. . . once we got Denver convinced that it was a
sand moisture problem, then they made
the contractor get it under control. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
“But everybody’s objective was to get the best
concrete we could in that dam . . .” . . 12

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 iii

“We never had any problems with money . . .

the water conservancy districts . . . had a
lot more problems with funding and with
money than any of the power projects did
. . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Relationship of Projects with the Chief Engineer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Grant Bloodgood Became Chief Engineer . . . 15
“. . .we took six-inch cores and some eighteen-
inch cores . . . [and] a couple of these
core samples . . .We sent them to the
Denver lab in a gunny sack. You know,
it wasn’t a core, it was loose material. . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Contractor Was a Joint Venture of Kiewit, M-K,
and Utah Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Doug Baker Was the Contractor’s
Representative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Peter Kiewit Came out to Inspect the Project
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
“. . . Pete Kiewit had gotten up a couple of hours
earlier, he got his own pickup, and when
Doug caught up with him, he had the
back end of the pickup full of rubber
gloves that had been thrown around. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
“Doug, assigned one of his principal
superintendents . . . They followed us
around, and reported on what we were
doing, . . . on a twenty-four-hour basis. I
don’t think I ever saw it get that bad
anyplace else. But once the problem got
straightened out, as far as concrete
control was concerned, why, it kind of
reverted back to normal relations. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

iv

I always had . . . final product in mind, and you

had a spec as a guide, but you didn’t
necessarily need to follow the letter of
the specification to get the result that you
wanted . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
“We wanted a good product, a Reclamation-
quality product. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
“But the relations get rocky, depending on a
number of different things. One thing, if
a contractor’s losing money, you have
more difficulty getting the product you
want . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Shifts rotated each two weeks . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Excavation at Flaming Gorge Dam for the Arch
Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
“. . . the shape of the keyways and the abutments
were of extreme importance. . . .” . . . 23
Laying out Blasts During Preparation of the
Keyways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
When Ernie Schultz Retired and Merlin Copen
Took over There Was a Change in
Concrete Dam Design Philosophy at
Reclamation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Louie Puls was more conservative than Schultz
and Copen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Ernie Schultz and Merlin Copen thinned up
Yellowtail Dam quite a bit . . . . . . . . . 25
“I followed Roscoe Granger until he retired. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
“The preparation of the foundation, the shaping
of the foundation, the maintaining of the
quality of the rock. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . 26
How Reclamation and the Contractor Assure
That the Quantities Figures for the
Contract Are Correct . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Office Engineering Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 v

Blasting Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
How Reclamation Passed Information from Shift
to Shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Getting Around the Damsite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Inspection Crew at Flaming Gorge . . . . . . . . . 33
“. . . as the work progressed, the size of the
crews would go up to significantly more
than . . . in the early stages. . . .” . . . . . 33
Roscoe Granger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
“He trusted me, and I got by with some things,
working for Roscoe Granger, that he’d
have fired anybody else on the spot, but I
did what I thought I had to do. . . .” . . 35
The Staff Stationed at Grand Coulee Wasn’t
Thrilled to Have a Big Construction
Project like the Third Powerhouse on the
Doorstep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Setting up Coordination among the Contractor,
Construction Staff, and Local Operations
Staff at Grand Coulee . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
“For years and years, the Bureau of Reclamation
had a superior position to the
Department. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
“I just know that Reclamation occupied the
seventh floor of the Interior Building, and
Interior just did not mess with
Reclamation in those years. . . .” . . . . . 39
Another Coordination Incident During
Relocation of the Switchyard . . . . . . . 39
“And that was the end of the coordinator. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
“. . . there was a hell of a friction between the
Ephrata office, who I think had
somebody that they thought should have
Roscoe Granger’s job. . . .” . . . . . . . . . 40
Accident While Dismantling the Old Switchyard

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

vi

Towers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Roscoe Granger Retired from the Grand Coulee
Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
“When Ellis Armstrong came in as
Commissioner, he did away with the title
Chief Engineer . . . and there was an
effort to de-emphasize the control . . . of
the Denver Office . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
“. . . the way the field worked with the Denver
office didn’t change at all. . . .” . . . . . 43
Ted Mermel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
“The nearest thing that I remember about Ted
was his involvement in moving to those
big units at Grand Coulee. I think he had
significant influence . . .” . . . . . . . . . . 45
Oil-filled Transmission Cable at Grand Coulee
Later Replaced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Gene Walton Came to Flaming Gorge from
Davis Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
“Gene was, I guess, more of a perfectionist than
most anybody that I’ve worked for, as far
as heavy construction was concerned. . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
“Flaming Gorge has a number of, looked like
miniature dams, downstream from the
dam, that were a product of Gene
Walton’s concern about those shale
seams. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
“. . . at Flaming Gorge we had a number of
Australian engineers that were assigned
up there, in training. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . 48
“. . . Gene [Walton] came out of that Snowy
Mountain [Project] . . . Then Davis Dam,
then Flaming Gorge. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . 49
Meets Roscoe Granger at Dutch John . . . . . . 50
Russell Borden Was Chief Inspector at Flaming

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 vii

Gorge and Had Been Involved with

Reclamation Projects Involving Concrete
Pipe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Approached by the Construction Contractors
about Working on the Problems with
Siphons on the Central Arizona Project
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Enos Ryland’s Liaison Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Born in 1930 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Why He Became an Engineer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
“. . . in looking back on my career, I can go all
over the world and kick something that I
had something to do with putting there,
and that’s a great feeling. . . .” . . . . . . 55
Walking Through a Day of Concrete Inspection
at Flaming Gorge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
“. . . concrete control, quality control was a
fundamental objective of the Bureau . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
At Flaming Gorge “. . . concrete placement was
by cableway system and eight-cubic-yard
buckets. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
“Consolidation of the concrete was also
extremely important. Internal vibration . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Concrete Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Checking Aggregate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Testing for Slump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Going out on the Damsite to Do Inspection Work
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Concerns about Concrete Placement in the
Tunnel at Flaming Gorge . . . . . . . . . . 60
In the Flaming Gorge tunnel we “Took a whole
bunch of core samples and did not find
one that failed. Every sample looked like
perfect concrete. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

viii

Yellowtail Tunnel Failed in One Hundred Year

Flood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
The Designers Required Special, Difficult-to-do
Finishing in the Elbow of the Tunnel
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
“. . . it’s impossible to get the finish required by
the designers in the construction process.
. . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Damage Caused by Hundred Year Flood at
Yellowtail Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
“The critical part of the whole thing was that we
lost the flow through that tunnel. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Correcting the Spillway Design Problem at
Yellowtail, Glen Canyon, and Flaming
Gorge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Life in Dutch John, a Reclamation Construction
Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Social Life at Dutch John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Driving out from Dutch John to Shop . . . . . . 70
“Toward the end. Nobody wants to be there for
the finishing up, cleaning up, all the dirty
little ends that are left . . . everybody’s
looking to move on to . . . the next
project. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
“. . . Roscoe, of course, was going to Yellowtail.
. . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
“. . . I took the field engineering job at
Yellowtail. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
“When the thing was circulated, I called Roscoe
and I said, ‘You got somebody in mind
for this job, or am I going to Morrow
Point, or what am I doing?’” . . . . . . . 73
“So I started as a GS-7, promoted to 9 in a year,
promoted to 11 in a year, and I was an 11
when I left Flaming Gorge. . . .” . . . . 74

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 ix

Issues Regarding Staffing of Reclamation

Construction Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
“But it’s true of any job you ever have . . . that if
[you] can have three or four key people
that have the experience, or you have the
confidence in, then you can take a whole
mix of people, put them together, and
make it work. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
“There was never any doubt where I was going
after Yellowtail. Roscoe wanted me at
Coulee. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
“And then some of the young engineers that had
been with me at Yellowtail–in fact, quite
a number of them–went along over to
Coulee. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Roscoe Granger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Felt Yellowtail was one of the last good projects
– “. . . good bid, contractor was making
money. . . . a number of things. . . .” . . 77
Phil Soukup Was Morrison-Knudsen’s Manager
at Yellowtail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Ironworker’s Strike at Yellowtail Dam . . . . . . 78
Asked to Have Breakfast with the Contractor’s
Superintendent at Yellowtail . . . . . . . . 79
“He and his cook brought trays of scrambled
eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes,
whatever–two trays, to [my] wife and I,
said, ‘You son of a bitch, if you can’t get
out of bed, why, we’ll bring you
breakfast.’” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
“As far as having a good bid, contractor making
money, good relations, excellent relations
all through the job, from the people both
in the Bureau and the contractor’s people,
went real well. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
“. . . it was a big tug-of-war between the Corps

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

x

of Engineers and the Bureau, about who

was going to build Libby, and, of course,
when it comes to those struggles, the
Corps always won. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Moving from Flaming Gorge to Yellowtail . . 83
Excavation Had Been Completed When Arrived
at Yellowtail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Ready to Start Placing Concrete at Yellowtail
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
How Work Was Divided among the Shifts at
Yellowtail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Became a GS-14, and Later a GS-15, at Grand
Coulee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
“Of course, Yellowtail is in a limestone
formation, therefore always a question of,
you know, one, is the reservoir going to
hold water?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
“And then that Upper Madison limestone, and a
tremendous amount of grouting done,
tremendous amount of foundation
treatment, tremendous quantities of grout
pumped into that foundation. . . .” . . . 88
“Long tunnels, strictly for foundation treatment. .
. .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
“Yellowtail was another cableway system. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
“Large quantities of grout, and large numbers of
drain holes, to provide for foundation
stability. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
“About a half mile downstream from the dam, as
the reservoir filled, these springs began to
show up . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
“. . . the cement grout was just coming straight
through. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
“. . . there’s about a hundred second-feet, which
is a significant amount of water, that’s

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xi

coming out of that left abutment. . .”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Anchor Dam Had a Problem with Seepage into
Sinkholes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
“If there isn’t any water table, why, you may
have a potential problem—karst
limestone. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
How Duties Changed When Moved from
Inspection Supervisor to Field Engineer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
As Principal Inspector Your Focus Is the Daily
Activity as Opposed to Planning for
Future Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
As Principal Inspector Supervised up to 20
People; as Field Engineer Supervised up
to 120 People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Staffing for the Office Engineer . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Staff Were Watching Libby and the Third
Powerhouse to See What Project Would
Go Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Roscoe Granger Had Been Promised the Third
Powerhouse Project When it Was
Authorized and Funded . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
“. . . well, it had been authorized, I’m sure. I’m
not sure that it had been funded. And
there’s a big difference. . . .” . . . . . . . . 97
Harold Aldrich and Bruce Johnson . . . . . . . . . 97
Regional Director Responsibilities for
Construction Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Issues with the Bureau of Indian Affairs while
building the access road for Yellowtail
Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Harold Aldrich Tried to Convince Him to Stay
on as Regional Engineer . . . . . . . . . . 100
“I was on to the next big construction project.
That’s what I wanted to do. . . .” . . . . 100

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xii

Dominy Promised Grand Coulee to Roscoe

Granger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
“You know, I didn’t even consider it [regional
engineer] much of a job. The big
construction projects were where I was
headed. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
“. . . there were a lot of . . . projects that were
being thought about, in the planning
stage . . . And it looked to me like, you
know, there was no end to it. And that’s
what I wanted to do. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
“. . . you know that when you start pushing the
state of the art, you’re going to have
problems. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
“. . . 600 megawatt, plus turbine generating units,
and the scale of everything going up, you
know, for that size unit, we were going to
have problems of one kind of another . . .”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
The Third Powerhouse Was Being Contracted at
the Time of Arrival on the Project . . 104
Preliminary Site Clearing Had Begun, but No
Construction Contract Work . . . . . . 104
“We had the switchyards to move– without
taking them out of service . . .” . . . . 104
“Had to remove the end of the dam, and there
was a significant amount of planning that
went into that. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Drove a Tunnel Through the Dam to Provide
Cable Access to the New Switchyard
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Laying Oil-insulated Cable up a Substantial
Change of Elevation to the New
Switchyard Had Not Been Done Before

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xiii

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
“Again, those kind of things. Designers think
they’ve got it figured out, and you go
build them, and then you modify them if
it doesn’t work. Nothing unusual about
it, as far as I’m concerned. . . .” . . . . 106
Third Powerhouse at Grand Coulee Was a Joint
Venture of Vinnell, Dravo, Lockheed,
and Mannix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
“. . . Vinnell, went through, if I’m not mistaken,
three managers in less than a year . . “
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
“Everything got behind real quick. . . .” . . . . 108
Serious Problems Because of Political
Commitments for Completion of the
Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Cure Notice Sent to Contractor . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Contractor Was Using Two Rather than Three
Shifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
“. . . a good part of them came from the West
Coast. They called a lunch recess at ten
o’clock in the morning, Denver time. . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Sponsorship Shifted from Vinnell to Dravo
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Decline of the Heavy Construction Industry
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Howard Latham Became Reclamation’s Safety
Officer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Howard Latham Affected the Construction
Program for the Third Powerhouse . . 116
The specifications required taking down the
concrete in the dam in five foot lifts
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
“. . . they proposed that we just knock the rock
out from under . . . those blocks, and tip

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xiv

them into the forebay area. . . .” . . . . 117

“. . . I have a hell of a lot of confidence, but I had
a hell of a lot more confidence then than I
do today. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Viewed the Third Powerhouse as a Straight-
forward Heavy Construction Job . . . 120
Had to Shut down Some Units in the
Powerplants Before Blasting . . . . . . 122
“. . . the first blast in the interior of the dam for
these tunnels that were being driven, we
blew the elevator doors off, and they
went clear to the pit. . . .” . . . . . . . . . 122
The Civil Works Were near Completion When
He Left, but the Units Still Had to Be
Installed in the Third Powerhouse . . 124
“I left there kind of unexpectedly, as far as I was
concerned. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Ed Sullivan, the Regional Director in Boise,
Talked to Him about Career Goals . 125
Chief Engineer’s Title Changed When Ellis
Armstrong Became Commissioner . 125
Asked to Attend an Engineering Conference at
Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Called by Assistant Commissioner Bill Keating
and Asked to Fly to Washington, D.C.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Told He Was Being Considered for the Position
of Deputy Director of Design and
Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Arthur Asked Him When He Would Be Able to
Move to Denver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Ellis Armstrong Disrupted the Denver Office
with His Shake up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
“. . . dealing with those people is a high-risk
exposure anytime . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xv

“. . . it was my feeling that, really, the Bureau got

to the point where its confidence level
reached an over-confidence in whatever
we were doing . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Fontenelle Was a Near-disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Felt Barney Bellport Should Have Highlighted
Fontanelle Dam Problems to Staff . . 131
Teton design didn’t require large outlets . . . 132
“All of the studies that were done, the effort that
was put into what exactly happened at
Teton, nobody knows yet today.
Everybody has their ideas, but it simply
isn’t possible to tie down exactly what
the hell happened there. . . .” . . . . . . . 132
Was at His Daughter’s High School Graduation
When Teton Dam Failed . . . . . . . . . . 133
When Teton Dam Failed, Harold Arthur Had
Recently Lost His Wife . . . . . . . . . . . 135
“. . . his time was all spent on the Teton failure
activities . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
“. . . my time was spent trying to run what was
left of the Denver office, as well as
dealing with some of the Teton-related
matters that were being done here in
Denver, dealing with the media . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
“We immediately set up a Teton room record
group, and tried to gather up every piece
of paper that was related to Teton in any
way . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
“You know, we still had projects under
construction and projects on the drawing
board, and all of those things. . . .” . . 137
Harold Arthur Wanted Someone from the
Construction Side of Reclamation in His
Office in Denver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xvi

Dealt Mostly with Construction Problems . . 139

The Chain of Command Was Formal in Denver
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Quantities Contracting as Related to Removing
the End of the Dam at Grand Coulee
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
The Contractor Made Some Money on the Dam
Removal, but There Are Lots of
Tradeoffs in a Large Project of this Type
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Responsibilities on the Third Powerhouse Job
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
The Site Was Prepared for a Fourth Powerhouse
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
“I spent an awful lot of time on safety . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
The Common Excavation Was a Problem
Because the Contractor Chose to Use
Highway-type Trucks . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Excavation from the Third Powerhouse Was
Placed Six Miles Downstream on the
Right Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
“Asbury went under with the last truckload of
material that they hauled out of there. . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Moving to the Denver office “. . . was probably
the start of a stressful remaining career . .
. I was completely comfortable . . . on
construction projects, and . . . doing what
I wanted to do. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Personal Issues with the Move to Denver . . 148
Wanted to Do Things Differently than Was the
Custom in the Denver Office . . . . . . 149
Promoted to GS-16 after a Year in Denver . 150
Went into the Senior Executive Service . . . 150
Was Thinking of Leaving the Federal

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xvii

Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Believed the Civil Service Reform Act Opened
the Government to More Politicization
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
“Carter’s water project “hit list.” The
handwriting was on the wall, as far as I
was concerned. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
NEPA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Design of the Third Powerhouse Exterior by
Marcel Breuer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
A Bald Eagle Nesting Tree Was Affected by
Spoil from the Third Powerhouse . . . 153
Thinking about Leaving Government . . . . . . 154
“I dealt an awful lot with contractual problems,
with contractors, and money problems,
and settling disputes on whatever project
was out there. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
“We had a lot of underground construction going
on, and . . . there are always problems
with underground construction. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Contractors Were Losing Money . . . . . . . . . 156
“In my view, it was really a good time for
owners–purchasers of projects. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Third Powerhouse Was One of the Contract
Issues Handled in the Denver Office
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
“I mentioned that Vinnell, Dravo, Lockheed,
Mannix. None of them are in the heavy
construction business anymore. . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
In Process of Negotiating Claims with M-K
When Teton Dam Failed . . . . . . . . . . 158
At That Time about 90 Percent of Claims Were
Negotiated and 10 Percent Went to

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xviii

Litigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
“Bizz” Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Cecil Andrus and Keith Higginson . . . . . . . 159
After the Failure of Teton Dam, Harold Arthur
Was Busy with Reviews of the Failure,
and Duck Was Doing Other Work of the
Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Harold Arthur Fired after the Failure of Teton
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Bob Jansen Brought in from the California
Department of Water Resources to Run
the Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Review of Internal Procedures at Reclamation
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Decided He Wanted an Internal Review . . . 161
Reclamation’s Study Argued for Centralized
Design and Construction Responsibility
in Denver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
“It got to be a kind of a tug-of-war between the
regions then and the Denver office . . .”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
The Development Part of Reclamation’s
Program Has Ended . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Reclamation Has Very Deliberately Killed off
the Planning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Some Operation and Maintenance Has to Be
Done by Reclamation . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
“My opinion is that the [environmental] zealots
have gotten control of the program, and
the purpose is to make everything so
expensive, or costly, whatever, that you
just don’t build projects, you do studies. .
. .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
The Denver Office Before and after the Failure
of Teton Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Dealing with Auburn Dam and the Oroville

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xix

Earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Yuma Desalting Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
We Contracted for Review of All Major
Contracts under Construction . . . . . . 167
Auburn Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Robert Jansen Replaced Harold Arthur . . . . 168
Jansen and Higginson Disagreed over
Implementation of the Internal
Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
The Work of the Denver Office Proceeded as
Reorganization Progressed . . . . . . . . 170
Robert Jansen Moved into the Office of Dam
Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Rod Vissia Brought in to Run Denver Office
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Position Abolished So He Could Retire Early
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Decentralization of the Contracting Process
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
“My view was, we couldn’t even keep a fully
competent [procurement] staff in one
location in Denver, and then we were
going to disperse it to seven other . . .
regions . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Pacheco Tunnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Billy Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Indexing Both the Costs and Authorization for
the San Felipe Division of the Central
Valley Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Cost Reductions on the San Felipe Project . . 173
Auburn Dam Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
The First Pacheco Tunnel Had Serious
Difficulties, Including “Squeezing
Ground” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
In Pacheco Two the Engineering Problems Were
Anticipated, and There Was Little

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xx

Difficulty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
“. . . we sure handed them the hammer to beat us
about the head and ears with Teton. We
would have built Auburn, . . . but for
Teton. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Had it Not Been for the Teton Dam Failure, We
Would Have Built Auburn Dam as a
Thin-arch Concrete Dam . . . . . . . . . 177
Significant Work Was Completed on
Construction of Auburn Dam . . . . . . 178
Even today “. . . we don’t know, exactly what the
failure mechanism was. . . .” . . . . . . 179
“. . . you certainly felt a sense of responsibility
for everything that was going on,
including Teton. I sure as hell didn’t feel
the need to take any blame for it. It’s an
engineered project. Something didn’t
work. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
The Big Thompson River flood drew some
attention away from the failure of Teton
Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
“. . . there isn’t anything that’s going to dampen
that feeling, that ego, that goes along
with having been a part of some very
successful projects. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . 181
“That failure [at Teton Dam] did not impact and
affect the international reputation of the
Bureau at all. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
“Failures are a part of the engineering
construction process. . . .” . . . . . . . . 182
Talk at the National Society of Professional
Engineers on the Failure of Teton Dam
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
The Tendency after a Disaster Is to Guard
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
The media want fast information and often

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xxi

publish the wrong information on

disasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Believes the Media Is Most Interested in the
Initial Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Let it Be Known at a USCOLD Meeting That He
Was Leaving Reclamation and Was
Approached by Three Companies . . . 185
Harza Was Doing Things Similar to
Reclamation’s Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
“Chose Harza . . . because . . . what I wanted was
to get out of that top management, get
back down to construction . . . what I
liked to do . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Harza Offered an Opportunity to Participate in
Ownership of the Company . . . . . . . 187
“. . . it looked to me like Harza had the most to
offer. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Harza Didn’t Have the Same Depth of Staffing
That Reclamation Had . . . . . . . . . . . 188
The Private Sector Relied on Reclamation
Innovation and Knowledge . . . . . . . . 189
The Private Engineering Companies Had less
and Relied on Reclamation Standards
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Used Reclamation to Recruit While at Harza
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Bath County Pump Storage Project . . . . . . . 190
Strontia Springs Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Lawyers and Political Types Tend to like
Litigation Which Drives up Cost and
Takes More Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
M-K Had Major Claims for the Strontia Springs
Dam Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Thinks M-K Might Have Been out of Pocket 8-
10 Million Dollars on Strontia Springs
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xxii

“. . . from 1980 to 1986, I was enjoying what I

was doing, except that international
travel gets to be a drag when its so much
and all over the world. . . .” . . . . . . . 193
“So on Thanksgiving morning, I boarded an
airplane for Honduras. That pretty much
said it for the rest of my time with Harza.
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of travel. .
. .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
“. . . I was spending a week or two a month in El
Salvador at that time. . . .” . . . . . . . . 194
Didn’t Want to Be Involved in the Bath County
Pump Storage Project for Virginia Power
Which Had Been Tabled Because of the
Impact of Nuclear Projects on Cash Flow
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Elected President of Harza in 1986 . . . . . . . 195
Had to Use High Pressure Grouting on the
Tunnels at Bath County Power Project
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
“At any rate, at the same time they elected me
President, they made me take the Project
Manager job for Bath County. . . .” . 196
Trying to Keep the Susitna Project, a High Arch
Dam, Going . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Bath County Went into Service . . . . . . . . . . 197
On the Bath County Project “we were spending
at the rate of $12 million a month on
remedial grouting, and I wasn’t sure who
was paying for it. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Worked out the Bath County Project Overruns
Without Litigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Settling the Strontia Springs Claims Without
Litigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Strontia Springs and Bath County were
similar–“making the decision what had to

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xxiii

be done, going ahead and get it done, and

the owner taking responsibility for it. . .
.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
“If you got to absolute loggerheads, could not
settle it, the magnitude of the dollars got
so great that it couldn’t be settled, they
were litigated. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Elected Chairman of the Board at Harza in 1987
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Left Harza in 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
When Elected President of Harza There Were
Losses and a Declining Workload to Deal
with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
In the First Year Bought out 50 Percent of the
Ownership of Harza and Cut Overhead
Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Rocky Mountain Pump Storage Project for
Oglethorpe Power in Georgia . . . . . . 202
Made Enemies and Friends While CEO of Harza
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Resigned and Moved Back to Colorado . . . . 203
Participated in the First Technical Exchange
Group Sent to China . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Harza Worked the Ertan Project on the Yangtze
River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Decline of Planning at Reclamation . . . . . . . 205
Don Anderson opposed centralized Denver
office and supported regional directors
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
How He Met Many People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xxiv

(Intentionally blank page)

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xxv

Statement of Donation

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xxvi

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xxvii

Brief Chronology of the Life of Donald (Don) J. Duck

1930, August 8 – Born

1949, February – Started College at Rose-Hulman

Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana

1950, October – Enlisted in the Air Force and stationed

largely in Alaska

1959 – Graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of

Technology

June 1959-January 1964 – Flaming Gorge Dam

construction

January 1964-August 1967 – Yellowtail Dam

construction

August 1967-August 1972 – Grand Coulee Third

Powerhouse construction

August 1972-1980–Deputy Director, Office of Design

and Construction, Bureau of Reclamation

1980-1986–Chief of Construction, Harza Engineering

Company
1986-1987–President of Harza Engineering Company

1987-1990–Chairman of the Board, Harza Engineering

Company

Retired to Conifer, Colorado

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 xxviii

1999–Died

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 xxix

Introduction

In 1988, Reclamation began to create a history

program. While headquartered in Denver, the history
program was developed as a bureau-wide program.

One component of Reclamation’s history program is its

oral history activity. The primary objectives of
Reclamation’s oral history activities are: preservation of
historical data not normally available through
Reclamation records (supplementing already available ta
on the whole range of Reclamation’s history); making
the preserved data available to researchers inside and
outside Reclamation.

The senior historian of the Bureau of Reclamation

developed and directs the oral history program.
Questions, comments, and suggestions may be
addressed to the senior historian.

Brit Allan Storey

Senior Historian
Land Resources Office (84-53000)
Office of Program and Policy Services
Bureau of Reclamation
P. O. Box 25007
Denver, Colorado 80225-0007
(303) 445-2918
FAX: (720) 544-0639
E-mail: [email protected]

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

xxx

(Intentionally blank page)

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 1

Oral History Interviews of Donald (Don) J. Duck1

Storey: This is Brit Allan Storey, Senior Historian of

the Bureau of Reclamation, interviewing
Donald [Don] J. Duck, a former employee of
the Bureau of Reclamation, on February the 7th,
1996, at about nine o’clock in the morning, at
his home in Conifer, Colorado. This is tape
one.

Mr. Duck, could you tell me please where

you were born and raised, and educated, and
how you ended up at the Bureau of
Reclamation?

Born in Sanford and Raised in Terre Haute,

Indiana
Duck: I was born in Sanford, Indiana. Small town,
like seventy-five population. Moved to Terre
Haute, Indiana, when I was about two years old,
and ultimately wound up at

Attended Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. It was
called Rose Polytechnic, at that time. It was a
private, men’s engineering school, well known
in the Midwest, not so well known anyplace
else.

1. n.b. – The interviewee was obviously concerned

that his name not be associated with the cartoon
character, Donald Duck. Upon first meeting he
immediately introduced himself as “Don Duck.”

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 2

Started College in February 1949

Started college in February 1949.

Enlisted in the Air Force During the Korean War

The Korean War came along, and I enlisted in
the Air Force in October of 1950, and spent
three of the four years in the Air Force, in
Alaska, at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

Stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in

Alaska
Loved Alaska. Left Alaska, fully intending to
go back.

Went Back to College at Family’s Insistence

However, the folks and all my relatives insisted
that I return to college, finish college, and then I
could do what I wanted to do. That was their
influence.

Attended College on the G.I. Bill

Anyway, I graduated, went back, had four years
of G.I. Bill. In spite of the fact that I had a lot
of the two-year prerequisites out of the way,

Graduated in Civil Engineering in 1959

I took a full load, filled out with mechanical
engineering courses, but graduated in civil
engineering, in June of 1959.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 3

Spent Time in Alaska Doing Survey Work

During the process of job placement, and
so forth, at the school– incidentally, I spent the
three years in Alaska in surveying. It was just
like having an ordinary job. I did all kinds of
surveying, headed the surveying group at
Elmendorf Air Force Base. Therefore, with
that background, I continued in civil
engineering.

Job Opportunities upon Graduation

In going through the interview process, I
had a couple of job opportunities, at that point
in time, between eight- and nine-thousand-
dollar-a-year offer, which was pretty good
money in those years.

Interview with Bureau of Reclamation

The head of the civil engineering department,
Professor McLean, said that this group from
Reclamation was going to be on campus,
interviewing, and he thought that I ought to talk
to them, with my background, my interest in
[construction] school, and all, that I should talk
to these folks from Reclamation, who I knew
absolutely nothing about. But I signed up to
interview with them. And included in the group
turned out to be a good friend for years, and for
the life of me, I can’t remember his first name,
but he was the Personnel Officer in Salt Lake
City. Name was Mitchell.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

4

Offered a GS-7 Position

They had a heck of a presentation on the
upper Colorado River Storage Project, which
included Glen Canyon and Flaming Gorge.
Both projects were just going under
construction. They offered me a–well,
ultimately offered me a GS-7. Of course, I was
a little older. I was twenty-nine years old when
I graduated. As I recall, the salary was $5,430 a
year. My folks thought I’d lost my mind.

June of 1959 Moved to Flaming Gorge Damsite

Nevertheless, they offered me a job on
Flaming Gorge Dam, and in June of 1959, we
loaded up. Had a year-old daughter. We made
the trip to Flaming Gorge, by way of the old
U.S. 30, through Rock Springs, Green River,
and out across the Sagebrush Flats into Dutch
John Gap, Ashley National Forest. You know,
that whole drive across Wyoming, I couldn’t
see a dam site anyplace. It really opens up as
you go into the Ashley National Forest.

Just Setting up Camp in Dutch John

But anyway, by the time we got there, my
wife had decided we should take a job I’d been
offered in Alaska. She didn’t think much of
Rock Springs, Green River. Of course, they
were just setting up a camp in Dutch John, and
it was pretty bleak. Nevertheless, I said,
“We’re here. We’ve taken the job. We’re
going to try it.”

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 5

Worked in Construction Inspection

I took an assignment with the construction
inspection group, got myself into a little bit of
trouble the first week. I was relieving an old
technician/ inspector who was given to kind of
playing tricks on new people, name was Bill
Grimes. He was a unique character. He had
been a driller, had taken this job with the
Bureau, and was kind of a chief inspector on
excavation. He really was good with powder
blasting. He followed me for several years,
from Flaming Gorge, to Yellowtail, to Grand
Coulee. Bill was a character.

At any rate, I was inspecting on a road cut

job–drilling, blasting, steep cut on the left
abutment of Flaming Gorge Dam. As Bill went
off shift, he gave me a station, and he says the
contractor can’t drill beyond this until that rock
cut was scaled.

Required Scaling above Some Work

It got me into a confrontation with the
contractor, the foreman, and the superintendent.
Everybody on the job knew about it, but we
shut them down. We didn’t permit them to go
ahead.

Bill Groseclose, who is a friend of

mine–had lunch with Bill yesterday, we had a
drink or two and reminisced a little bit–was the
shift supervisor, and he was called out. This is
the first week I was there. And made it stick.
There wasn’t anything in the specifications, but

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 6

the slope needed scaling. There was no

question about that.

Storey: What does that mean?

Duck: We didn’t really have any authority to shut

them down, but we shut them down, got them to
scale it.

Storey: What does that mean– scaling?

Duck: Scaling? Cleaning loose rocks off the slope up

ahead. This was a deep cut, and you know,
from 100 to 200 feet above us. As you move
under it, it needs to be cleaned down, and it
needed to be scaled.

Storey: So that it’s safe?

“In fact, construction safety kind of began there

at Flaming Gorge, Glen Canyon. . . .”
Duck: So that it’s safe. That was before you had
anything much in the way of safety
requirements in construction specifications. In
fact, construction safety kind of began there at
Flaming Gorge, Glen Canyon. The emphasis on
safety became a lot more significant than it had
been in the past.

Work organized into three shifts

Anyway, as the dam construction got
under way, they organized into three shifts–a
day shift, swingshift, graveyard shift.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 7

Selected to be a lead construction inspector

And Russ Borden, who was the Chief Inspector
at that time, selected Bill Groseclose, Darrell
Hansen, and myself to be the lead inspectors on
each of those shifts.

“No one of the three of us really had much dam

experience. Naturally, mine was zero. . . .”
Each of us had a crew of inspectors that were
responsible for the construction inspection of
everything that was going on. No one of the
three of us really had much dam experience.
Naturally, mine was zero. I think all three of us
had not been associated with dam construction.
Darrell may have been on surveys, related to
dam construction.

But anyway, here we three were selected

to be responsible for supervising the inspection
that went on in that project.

Met Roscoe Granger, Field Engineer at Flaming

Gorge
Of course, the first guy I met when
Dolores and I drove into Dutch John, was
Roscoe Granger, who was a field engineer for
Flaming Gorge. Gene Walton was construction
engineer.

Gene Walton Was Construction Engineer at

Flaming Gorge
Gene Walton had come over from the Davis

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 8

Dam project, and Roscoe came from a project in

California–arch dam in California, Monticello
Dam.2

“So you had the Davis Dam group, and then

Roscoe with his Monticello Dam group, which
is true of every project that I ever worked on,
you had these different people that were drawn
in from other projects, and you make the mix
again, and go on and build . . .”
So you had the Davis Dam group, and then
Roscoe with his Monticello Dam group, which
is true of every project that I ever worked on,
you had these different people that were drawn
in from other projects, and you make the mix
again, and go on and build whatever you’re
trying to build.

Roscoe was a sage of the Bureau. He was

a favorite of Grant Bloodgood, of Barney
Bellport. And that’s the other thing.

“At that time, those of us who got involved . .

.were really getting in on the last of the big dam
building era. . . .”

2. Note that information in parentheses, ( ), is actually on the

tape. Information in brackets, [ ], has been added to the tape either
by the editor to clarify meaning or at the request of the interviewee
in order to correct, enlarge, or clarify the interview as it was
originally spoken. Words have sometimes been struck out by editor
or interviewee in order to clarify meaning or eliminate repetition.
The transcriber and editor have removed some extraneous
words such as false starts and repetitions without indicating their
removal. The meaning of the interview has not been changed by
this editing.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 9

At that time, those of us who got involved,

that were my age group, little younger, little
older, whatever, were really getting in on the
last of the big dam building era. We were close
to, touched on, some of the great names in dam
construction, dam engineering.

“It was a great time to be with the Bureau of

Reclamation if you were interested in dams,
dam construction, large projects . . .”
It was a great time to be with the Bureau
of Reclamation if you were interested in dams,
dam construction, large projects, which, you
know, I spent my life in the large dam project
area.

Anyway, we were close to finishing

Flaming Gorge, and there were lots of
interesting things that happened at Flaming
Gorge that taught–you know, we were on the
learning curve, and the learning curve was
pretty damn steep.

Storey: Tell me about it.

Concrete Development in Reclamation

Duck: Well, concrete, you know, mass concrete–and,
of course, Boulder Dam, Hoover Dam, Grand
Coulee–a lot of those reports, the history of
those projects, you know, developed the
technology for what was being used for Glen,
Flaming Gorge, and later projects. Concrete
problems–some of the things that were kind of

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

10

amusing, but really not, they were using a heavy

media separation process that was demonstrated
in the lab and carried to the field. The attempt
was to get rid of lighter-weight, deleterious
materials from the aggregate sources, and the
aggregate sources were full of this kind of stuff.
So the materials were kind of–the way they
were handled was more or less unique for those
projects.

Of course, the mass concrete, six-inch,

maximum-size aggregate for mass concrete, we
tried to maximize the amount of six-inch
material, minimize the amount of sand, minimize
the amount of moisture. And there were
problems with the sand manufacturer.

Concrete quality control issues at Flaming

Gorge
I can remember the Chief Engineer, Grant
Bloodgood at that time, sent Enos Ryland out,
because we were having all kinds of concrete
control problems.

Fluctuations in Sand Moisture at Flaming Gorge

Of course, one of the things that we all knew,
that we couldn’t get anybody’s attention on,
was that the sand moisture was fluctuating. In
the manufacturing of sand process, short of sand
anyway, sand moistures were fluctuating 5 or 6
percent, which makes one heck of a lot of
difference in the slump of the concrete, or how
fluid it is.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 11

Enos Ryland Was Sent to Look into the Sand

Moisture Control Problem
He sent Enos Ryland to see what the
problem was. Bill Groseclose was on the block
with Enos Ryland, I was in the batch plant,
Darrell was in the batch plant. Each of us had a
function to try to control, or watch. At that
point in time, the sand moisture just went
absolutely berserk. One bucket would splash
over the forms, and the next one would just look
like a pile of rock, and we wound up with a
block full of that kind of material, to where we
just had to shut it down.

And then Enos went back to the lab, and

they plotted the results of the sand moisture test.
We were adding, each of us standing on a mixer
in a four-mixer plant, adding cement, or adding
water, visually, and it went to the point where
the operator would put the cement in the dry
batch, and the water in the wet batch. You
know, the whole thing fell apart.

I got this call from Groseclose down on

the block. Bill said, “Mr. Ryland doesn’t
believe you’re putting your best foot forward.”

I said, “It’s the best foot I’ve got.”

(laughter)

“. . . once we got Denver convinced that it was

a sand moisture problem, then they made the
contractor get it under control. . . .”
And anyway, we kind of went on from there,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 12

got pretty much–once we got Denver convinced

that it was a sand moisture problem, then they
made the contractor get it under control.
Wasn’t completely under control, but a lot
better than what we’d been experiencing.

“But everybody’s objective was to get the best

concrete we could in that dam . . .”
But everybody’s objective was to get the best
concrete we could in that dam, and, ultimately,
it’s a great project.

Storey: How did they get the moisture content under

control?

Duck: Stockpiled the sand, and the intent was that it

drained for three days.

Storey: That way they got a stable moisture content?

Duck: Yeah, get a stable moisture content on it. We

never did get to three days, but you get some
time on it. By even twenty-four hours, if it
drained for twenty-four hours, it was more
consistent than just coming out of the
processing plant.

Storey: But it wouldn’t be normal for you to be in the

batch plant adding cement to the mixture, would
it?

Duck: Hell, no. (laughter)

Storey: So that was an unusual situation, trying to get

things under control?

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 13

Duck: Trying to get things under control, right.

Storey: And figure out what was going on.

Duck: Yeah.

Storey: What did Mr. Ryland do?

Duck: He was a liaison officer in the construction

group, in the Denver office, so he was Grant
Bloodgood’s eyes and ears to come out to the
projects and see– Mr. Ryland was a unique
individual, too. Got to be great friends with
him. You know, you’re looking back at just
starting out. All of us were pretty much
unknown quantities. Of course, Russ Borden,
you know, had worked with Ryland before.
Russ was a–that was his first big project. He’d
always been on those smaller irrigation projects.
Been on some dams, but big difference between
the large projects and the smaller irrigation
projects, those that, you know, had a power
component.

“We never had any problems with money . . .

the water conservancy districts . . . had a lot
more problems with funding and with money
than any of the power projects did . . .”
We never had any problems with money,
or getting money for them, or whatever. The
irrigation projects that were being funded–you
know, my irrigation users, the water
conservancy districts, and a lot of them had a lot
more problems with funding and with money
than any of the power projects did, really. It

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 14

took me a long time to realize that. In fact, I

spent my entire field career– Flaming Gorge,
Yellowtail, Grand Coulee Third Powerplant–we
never had any problems with the money, with
the funding, like I saw later when I came here to
Denver.

Storey: Was Mr. Ryland telling you what to do in the

field?

Duck: No.

Storey: How did this work, this relationship with the

Chief Engineer?

Relationship of Projects with the Chief

Engineer
Duck: Well, at that time, Chief Engineer ran the
projects. It had moved from the ivory tower
appearance, of the Denver ivory tower design.
For years and years, that was a perception of the
Denver office. You know, the ivory tower, the
engineers. And when Grant Bloodgood–this is
going back peripherally, and I probably wasn’t
even thinking about it. Floyd Dominy became
Commissioner when?

Storey: In ‘59, I think.

Duck: Got to be close to when I started. Anyway,

that’s the way I remember it. I think Dominy–

Storey: Floyd became Commissioner in ‘59, and stayed

until ‘69.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 15

Grant Bloodgood Became Chief Engineer

Duck: Right. Well, Floyd brought Grant Bloodgood,
who had a construction bent, a construction
background, in as Chief Engineer. Now, he
may have started as Deputy or Associate Chief
Engineer or something else. Anyway, he
wound up Chief Engineer, and, of course, they
were trying to interject a construction bent to
the design side of it, kind of balance out the
designers telling you exactly–you know,
absolute control, of these major field projects.

Enos Ryland was brought in, and I don’t

know Ryland’s background that well, but
anyway, he was brought in to head up a liaison
group in the Denver office, made up of
construction people, who were sent out to the
projects as liaison with the Denver office. I
probably have in my files a letter that he wrote
back to the field after he came back to Denver.
It was a great letter. He exonerated the field of
all this, and put the responsibility on the
contractor, which is where it should have been.
There was no control on the sand moisture. He
kind of hit the contractor between the eyes, and
took the rest of us off the hook, you know, not
being responsible for the poor quality.

Well, another thing. Gene Walton was

another unique individual. These are all strong
characters. The Roscoe Grangers, the Gene
Waltons, those guys, they ran their project.
But–I forgot what I was going to say.

Storey: We were talking about Mr. Ryland and his

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 16

letter.

Duck: Oh, yeah. The Denver office, that group, Grant

Bloodgood, you know, had the authority to shut
the project down, or whatever. And in the field,
more reluctance. So that provided some
insulation, or support, for making those
decisions. We knew that the project probably
should be shut down.

“. . .we took six-inch cores and some eighteen-

inch cores . . . [and] a couple of these core
samples . . .We sent them to the Denver lab in a
gunny sack. You know, it wasn’t a core, it was
loose material. . . .”
What I forgot, or what I was going to say was,
what triggered this whole review, Denver, and
so forth, was sent in–we took six-inch cores and
some eighteen-inch cores out of the dam. Well,
a couple of these core samples–and this was
getting back to Walton and the way he thought–
come out. We sent them to the Denver lab in a
gunny sack. You know, it wasn’t a core, it was
loose material. Well, you think that didn’t get
to the lab. (laughter) Nobody else that I know
of would have sacked them up, would have
taken more core someplace else. But Gene
insisted that we ship the core sample in in a
sack. (laughter) Thus, Ryland’s visit. And,
like I say, if you could dig that letter up
someplace, it’s kind of typical of what you
could expect at that time. It was a great letter.

Storey: Who was the contractor there?

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 17

Contractor Was a Joint Venture of Kiewit, M-K,

and Utah Construction
Duck: It was a joint venture, sponsored by Peter
Kiewit. It was Kiewit, M-K, and Utah.

Storey: Morrison-Knudsen and Utah Construction

Company, I think it is.

Duck: Utah Construction. Not sure they were called

Utah Construction then, but I believe it was. It
later wasn’t–it was Utah Mining and–but, Utah
Construction, it was that group. Project
Manager turned out to be a great friend of mine
in later years, Doug Baker.

Storey: He was the contractor’s representative?

Doug Baker Was the Contractor’s

Representative
Duck: He was the contractor’s project manager. And,
you know, those were the days when Peter
Kiewit was still active, extremely active, in the
company. Kiewit’s been, and is still, one of the
most successful construction contractors out
there. Doug Baker–I can remember a time,
which was amusing to me, not amusing to Doug
at all, but Ben Williams, who kind of was a
head of the construction group, out of home
office, for Peter Kiewit.

Peter Kiewit Came out to Inspect the Project

But Kiewit and Williams were going to visit the
site, and, of course, everybody was pretty

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 18

nervous about Peter Kiewit inspecting, showing

up to inspect the construction progress. It was
related, in part, to the troubles that we’d been
having with concrete control and some of those
kind of things.

“. . . Pete Kiewit had gotten up a couple of

hours earlier, he got his own pickup, and when
Doug caught up with him, he had the back end
of the pickup full of rubber gloves that had
been thrown around. . . .”
Anyway, Peter Kiewit–Doug got all ready
to drive him around in his–I can’t remember
what, I suppose a pickup, but anyway, Pete
Kiewit had gotten up a couple of hours earlier,
he got his own pickup, and when Doug caught
up with him, he had the back end of the pickup
full of rubber gloves that had been thrown
around. You know, everybody on the
construction group, you know, cold weather and
all, wore those rubber gloves. I don’t know
how much they cost, but anyway, Pete Kiewit
had a pickup load of rubber gloves in the back
of his pickup. Of course, he ate Doug’s ass out,
as we knew he would, but that was Pete Kiewit.
He was looking for every dime that was
within–his target that time it was gloves.

Storey: That’s interesting. How were relations between

Reclamation’s employees and the contractor’s
employees?

END SIDE 1, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 7, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 7, 1996.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 19

Storey: You were telling the story, I think, about Peter

Kiewit going out on the site and finding all
these fairly expensive gloves.

Duck: That was a trauma for Baker at that time,

dealing with that. His people were throwing the
money away.

Storey: Tell me about how Reclamation and the

contractor related to one another.

“Doug, assigned one of his principal

superintendents . . . They followed us around,
and reported on what we were doing, . . . on a
twenty-four-hour basis. I don’t think I ever saw
it get that bad anyplace else. But once the
problem got straightened out, as far as
concrete control was concerned, why, it kind of
reverted back to normal relations. . . .”
Duck: It depended, kind of, on the individuals, and
changed, on that project, over the years. When
you run into the kind of construction difficulties
such as this concrete control problem created, it
was bad enough between the two groups–
between Reclamation and the construction
people–that the contractor, Doug, assigned one
of his principal superintendents to tail Darrell
Hansen, Bill Groseclose, and myself. They
followed us around, and reported on what we
were doing, or having our people do, on a
twenty-four-hour basis. I don’t think I ever saw
it get that bad anyplace else. But once the
problem got straightened out, as far as concrete
control was concerned, why, it kind of reverted
back to normal relations.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

20

If you take it to what the individual intent

was, and I think it’s the reason that the three of
us got into the positions that we were in, in spite
of the fact that there were other senior people,
more senior people on that project for those
kind of jobs than the three of us really were, but
we all had the same intent–work with the
contractor, help the contractor, stay out of their
way, and have our people do the same thing.
And that carried out throughout. I think it was,
to a large extent, that attitude, and intending to
work with the contractors.

I always had . . . final product in mind, and you

had a spec as a guide, but you didn’t
necessarily need to follow the letter of the
specification to get the result that you wanted .
. .”
I always had the idea that, you know, you
had a final product in mind, and you had a spec
as a guide, but you didn’t necessarily need to
follow the letter of the specification to get the
result that you wanted, and the contractors
appreciate the dickens out of that sort of
approach. I spent my career that way, trying to
work with contractors. Help them make money.
That was my objective. If they had it bid, we
wanted a product.

“We wanted a good product, a Reclamation-

quality product. . . .”
We wanted a good product, a Reclamation-
quality product. That’s known the world over.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 21

“But the relations get rocky, depending on a

number of different things. One thing, if a
contractor’s losing money, you have more
difficulty getting the product you want . . .”
But the relations get rocky, depending on
a number of different things. One thing, if a
contractor’s losing money, you have more
difficulty getting the product you want, and we
spent an awful lot of years where the industry
was so competitive, and the number of projects
available, the number of contractors out there,
everybody was underbidding. So you were
working in that environment a good part of the
time.

Storey: Was that the case at Flaming Gorge?

Duck: No.

Storey: That was later?

Duck: That was later.

Storey: You mentioned that you became a shift

supervisor. Would that be the right term?

Duck: Principal Inspector was the title. Principal

Inspector on a shift.

Shifts rotated each two weeks

And then we rotated shifts every two weeks, be
on day shift for two weeks, go to swing shift for
two weeks, go to graveyard for two weeks.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 22

Storey: What were the hours for each of the shifts, do

you remember?

Duck: About eight hours.

Storey: Yeah, but the time when the shifts were

scheduled.

Duck: Like 7:30 to 4:30, 4:30 to 11:30, 11:30 to 7:30,

something like that.

Storey: Could you walk me through a typical day of

inspection when Flaming Gorge was in the
process of construction?

Duck: Assuming that you’re talking about when the

dam was in construction. Keyways had been
excavated, foundation cleaned up.

Storey: Yes. Actually, maybe I should have asked you

a different question first. Let’s talk about the
excavation phase first. You were there for that,
weren’t you?

Duck: Yes.

Storey: Why don’t you walk me through a day on that,

first.

Excavation at Flaming Gorge Dam for the Arch

Dam
Duck: Going back a few years. Excavation was going
on on both the left abutment and the right
abutment. In general, as I recall, we were
taking 24-foot lifts. These were arch keyways,

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 23

arch dam keyways, so they had to be shaved.

Arch dam design really relies on the foundation
to carry the load, and the shape of the concrete
dam transmits that load–water load, hydraulic
load–directly to the abutments.

“. . . the shape of the keyways and the

abutments were of extreme importance. . . .”
Therefore, the shape of the keyways and the
abutments were of extreme importance.

Laying out Blasts During Preparation of the

Keyways
Well, surveys would lay out the keyway,
the lift to be taken in those keyways. Drillers
would move in. We, as the inspection group,
had the responsibility for really drawing up the
load pattern and exactly how much powder
went into each hole, in each slope hole on the
keyway, and preserving those keyways, the
quality of the rock and so forth. Disturbing it as
little as possible was also important. Looking at
delay patterns and making a record of that.
Then they would blast it, excavation equipment
would move in, and move that material out, and
you’d lay out the next blast.

Storey: Now, you say “lift.” What’s a lift? I

understand a lift when you’re pouring concrete,
but I don’t understand this.

Duck: Well, as I say, we were taking 24-foot lifts, as I

recall. In the deeper excavation, I think we
were pulling 24-foot lifts. Drill a 24-foot-deep

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 24

hole, a whole pattern of holes. Say this room,

blow this room up. Kind of has the shape of a
keyway. Then drill 24-foot holes on maybe 3-
foot centers on the back wall, where we were
shaving it, two rows, slope hold, 24-foot deep,
and then pattern holes, to break up the rock, the
general rock mass might be from 3- to 6-foot
centers. And drill with air-track drills, and then
loaded with powder, either stick powder or we
were using some fertilizer and ammonium
nitrate, blasting agent. And so you were taking
24 feet of rock out.

Storey: At a time.

Duck: At a time. At the lift, yeah.

Storey: Okay. A lot of historians are going to be doing

this, and they aren’t going to understand these
terms, some of them.

Duck: Oh, yeah, yeah. You haven’t run into it before?

Storey: Not for rock work. You’re the first person

who’s ever talked about rock work.

Duck: Rock work for arch dams is as important, as the

shape of those keyways. Understand that if you
look at the progress of arch dam design, you can
walk through the various structures
Reclamation designed and had built. You
know, you go to–well, Grand Coulee, gravity
section. Gravity dam. The mass of the dam is
what retains the water. To Boulder, which, I
guess, is described as a gravity arch, but–

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 25

Storey: I think so.

Duck: –it’s a heavy arch. There’s some arch

component to it. To Glen Canyon, which is a
heavier–it’s thinner than Hoover, but still a
massive arch dam, thick arch. To Flaming
Gorge, which is a thinner yet arch, but still what
would be considered a heavy arch. To
Yellowtail, which was thinned down, because
of the change in design philosophy at that time,
from Ernie Schultz to Merlin Copen.

When Ernie Schultz Retired and Merlin Copen

Took over There Was a Change in Concrete
Dam Design Philosophy at Reclamation
Ernie Schultz retired. Merlin Copen assumed
the concrete dam design responsibility.
Therefore, in the middle of the project at
Flaming Gorge–or at Yellowtail, they thinned
that dam up significantly. It’s more like
Flaming Gorge.

Louie Puls was more conservative than Schultz

and Copen
Louie Puls was more conservative. Louie
Puls had the influence on the initial design at
Yellowtail.

Ernie Schultz and Merlin Copen thinned up

Yellowtail Dam quite a bit
Then Ernie Schultz and Merlin Copen came
along, and they thinned it up–reduced the
quantity of material by quite a bit. Actually,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 26

from an arch dam design standpoint, the

efficiency of the arch and so forth, a reduction
in mass of the concrete actually improves the
design.

But you go then from Yellowtail–and

actually, Morrow Point went under construction
about the same time as Yellowtail–I elected to
go to Yellowtail because that’s where Roscoe
Granger went.

“I followed Roscoe Granger until he retired. . .

.”
I followed Roscoe Granger until he retired. But
Morrow Point is another increment of thinning
down of the arch dams. And then on to Crystal,
which is a thinner, double curvature arch dam.
And Mountain Park, and there’s some of the
other arch dams that are around that, you know,
you can just see the progress in the old concrete
dam design. But in each case, that foundation is
critical.

“The preparation of the foundation, the shaping

of the foundation, the maintaining of the quality
of the rock. . . .”
The preparation of the foundation, the
shaping of the foundation, the maintaining of
the quality of the rock. Excavation for arch
dams is a critical part of the process.

Storey: Now, if I’m understanding what was going on,

the contractor would have been paid on some
sort of a unit basis for the removal of the rock.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 27

Duck: Cubic yard basis.

Storey: How did you keep track of that?

How Reclamation and the Contractor Assure

That the Quantities Figures for the Contract Are
Correct
Duck: You know, the mass is there. You know what–
well, by survey. You take original ground
survey sections, and then as-excavated sections,
and compute the quantity of rock that was
removed.

Storey: How do you arrive at an agreement with the

contractor about the surveys? Is this just
something you do, and you say, “Okay, here’s
our survey,” or is it something they have to
review and approve, or how does that work?

Duck: For the most part, the contractors just accepted

the Bureau surveys, and, you know, they were
available to be reviewed. There have been
disputes over sections and so forth. I never
really found it to be that much of a problem.
Contractor usually–well, I think, going back to,
like, Hoover Dam, I think the Bureau did
everything. I mean, surveyed for form work,
surveyed for powerplant layout and so forth,
form work.

We later on–and this was true at Flaming

Gorge–the contractor had the responsibility for
laying out his forms, and the Bureau checked
form work and so forth. They could, with their
own crews, check original ground sections, as-

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 28

built sections, but we very seldom had any

problem with the–like I say, took good original
ground sections, and then you have the as-
excavated result.

Storey: And then you send figures to the office?

Duck: Yeah.

Storey: They calculate them.

Office Engineering Work

Duck: They compute the quantities. In all these
project offices, you had groups, office
engineering, that did that sort of thing. And
then progress payments to the contractor.

Storey: Let’s see, did we get through a whole day of

excavation work?

Duck: Well, I think so.

Storey: What kinds of problems would come up in

excavation, or issues, if you wish?

Duck: Shut her down for a minute and let me think.

Storey: Okay. [Tape recorder turned off]

Blasting Work
Duck: Again, more related to arch dam work–the
loading, the hole spacing, drilling.

Storey: The loading of the drill holes with the powder?

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 29

Duck: Loading the powder in– yeah. That was

probably as much a controversy as you run into,
and once you get agreement on how it’s going
to be done–and this goes back to Bill Grimes.
At Flaming Gorge, we used stick powder on the
slopes, stick powder taped to primacord, with 2-
foot spacers between sticks of powder, which,
for one thing, you use up a lot of sticks. But
again, it’s an effort to preserve those
backslopes. [Tape recorder turned off]

Storey: I think you were talking about loading the holes

with the sticks, and so on.

Duck: Yeah. Spacers. Two rows. The argument was

always, are you going to put one row in? Is one
row adequate? Are two rows necessary? We
always required the two rows there, and a
shorter relief hole. The patterns were laid out,
pretty well controlled. Well, this was always a
potential for a bone of contention about whether
all that was really necessary or not.

Storey: That would be because they would save money,

or because it was easier, or what?

Duck: Take less time, take less effort. You bet.

Storey: Make more money.

Duck: Make more money. You bet.

Storey: How did you pass information from one shift to

another shift? Or did you?

How Reclamation Passed Information from

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 30

Shift to Shift
Duck: Well, we had what we called a pass-on book.
Significant items–and the principal inspectors, it
was kind of our book, we passed on information
in that pass-on book, and then there were shift
reports from all the inspectors. Whatever they
were inspecting, whatever they were doing, they
gave the status of it– what they’d done, what
they’d approved, what they had turned down,
maybe, or what needed to be done. And those
reports always were reviewed by the principal
inspector and passed on to the inspector.

Storey: How did you go on shift?

Duck: Each principal inspector had a vehicle, a

carryall. We gathered up our crew at the camp,
and appeared at the field office, which might be
moved around from time to time on the project,
but we would relieve–actually inspectors
relieved on the site. Principal inspectors would
sit down and talk for thirty-, forty-five minutes,
while the relieving inspectors went directly to
the site and relieved whoever was there. Then
the inspectors would come back to the field
office, load up, and go back to camp.

Getting Around the Damsite

Storey: What was it like getting around on a major
excavation site like Flaming Gorge? How did
you have to get around?

Duck: Well, there would be a central office.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 31

Storey: That would be a building?

Duck: A field office, and then you had pickups that

were available to go to more remote parts of the
work. But it was walk in and walk out, then, to
the site.

Storey: In a major construction site?

Duck: Uh-huh.

Storey: Is that dangerous?

Duck: Oh, yeah. Everything about a major project like

that carries some risk.

Storey: What were the conditions like? I presume the

field office was a little building of some sort.

Duck: Yes. Yep, shack. Shack, yep.

Storey: Or a trailer. And you’d go there, and then

you’d walk or you’d drive to wherever you
needed to be?

Duck: Yes.

Storey: Was there blasting going on all the time?

Duck: Well, not all the time. There was the sequence:
drill, blast, clean up. Clean up, in the sense–the
arch dam jobs was a matter of working a
bulldozer into the keyway and then pushing the
material into the bottom of the river. Then
other equipment would be picking up out of the
bottom of the river. Well, as you can guess,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 32

when you’re pushing material out of the

keyway, there isn’t anything going on in the
bottom of the river. But as they’re cleaned up,
the keyways, and the danger of rock falling
down into the bottom disappears, then the
equipment moves into the bottom of the river
and starts picking up and hauling out to some
waste area from there.

Also included in that sequence is what I

was talking about before, the scaling operation.
You move in with high scalers and bar rock
down,3 bar loose material out of them. And
that’s a continuing process. Blast, muck out,
scale, lay out survey, drill the holes, load the
holes, move everybody out, blast, move a dozer
in, push the material out. And sometimes
getting the heavy equipment into those
keyways, into the blasted material, was no small
task, building ramps and roads and, you know,
access into the keyways.

Storey: I think of keys, and I think of little things. How

big is a key? Do you have a recollection of how
big the keyway was on Flaming Gorge?

Duck: Varies from the top–of course, more narrow at

the top. Guess, maybe 50 feet, to whatever the
base width of the dam was, which might be 180
feet, 150 feet, at the bottom.4 It tapers out.

3. Meaning that you manually used pry bars to

loosen and remove rocks.
4. The top thickness of Flaming Gorge itself dam
(continued...)

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 33

Thicker at the bottom.

Storey: And what you’re seeing is the gravity aspect

here, where the dam’s getting wider and wider,
thicker as it goes down.

Duck: Thicker as it goes down, yeah.

Inspection Crew at Flaming Gorge

Storey: How many people would be on a shift, working
inspection, at Flaming Gorge? Do you recall?

Duck: Probably–it varied somewhat, but eight-, ten-,

on a crew, depending. Both Flaming Gorge,
Yellowtail, powerplant at the toe of the dam.
So when you pretty much complete the keyway
excavation, you go into the foundation, the
bottom part of the excavation, the powerplant
excavation, and when construction starts, you
have the powerplant going with the dam.

“. . . as the work progressed, the size of the

crews would go up to significantly more than . .
. in the early stages. . . .”
So as the work progressed, the size of the crews
would go up to significantly more than they
were in the early stages. But I’d say a dozen-,
fifteen- max.

4. (...continued)
was 27 feet while the maximum base thickness was 131
feet.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 34

Storey: At the beginning, or at the end?

Duck: At the end, yeah.

Storey: Do you remember any of those folks?

Duck: Oh, my memory for names and that sort of thing

kind of disappeared, but if I thought about it, I
would come up with–of course, Neil Stessman
started there. I think Don Fillis started there, as
far as young engineers are concerned. We had a
mix of young engineers and technicians. Some
of the technicians–Jim Simmons, and some of
the local people like Dewey Erich, Gene Briggs.
I’d have to do a little thinking about it.

Storey: Well, why don’t you, instead, tell me about

Roscoe Granger, obviously an important person
there, from your perspective. What was he
like?

Roscoe Granger
Duck: Well, he was pretty tough. I always found him
to be fair. He had a reputation for being
hardnosed. He was a favorite of mine, and I
was a favorite of his. Moved on to Yellowtail
with him, and then over to Third Powerplant at
Grand Coulee. He was a rather small, slight-
built man, gray hair. Lot of people had a lot of
fear of Roscoe Granger. He could unload about
as quick on anybody as anyone I ever knew, and
it stuck.

Storey: What was his position?

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 35

Duck: He had been Field Engineer for Barney Bellport

at Monticello Dam, but Roscoe had worked on
Hoover Dam, and had passed through, I think,
Grand Coulee, when Coulee–you know, Coulee
followed Hoover.

Storey: Some of the powerplant stuff, especially.

Duck: Yeah. And then it seems to me like maybe

Trinity-Shasta, but Monticello was really the
first arch dam, and that was one of the reasons
that they brought Roscoe over to Flaming
Gorge. Like I say, Roscoe was a character.
Great guy to work for, as far as I was
concerned.

Storey: There have to be stories about him.

Duck: He was selected, of course, off of Flaming

Gorge. He was Field Engineer at Flaming
Gorge. Moved over to Project Construction
Engineer. He was the head of the field office at
Yellowtail, and then the same at Grand Coulee
Third Powerplant. He had the reputation that he
either liked you or he didn’t like you, and those
that he didn’t like moved on.

“He trusted me, and I got by with some things,

working for Roscoe Granger, that he’d have
fired anybody else on the spot, but I did what I
thought I had to do. . . .”
He trusted me, and I got by with some things,
working for Roscoe Granger, that he’d have
fired anybody else on the spot, but I did what I
thought I had to do. Never had Roscoe chew on

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 36

me for anything. It was that kind of

relationship.

Storey: Did he have a reputation for chewing on

people?

Duck: Yep.

Storey: Did you ever see it happen?

Duck: Yeah, I saw it happen. And probably the most

interesting chewing that I–happened over the
telephone. I have a couple of different
incidents, if you want to jump ahead.

Storey: Sure.

Duck: When we moved into Grand Coulee Third

Powerplant, there was already an operations
group there, operations and maintenance. That
was an operating facility. Big organization.
And you may get a different reaction from some
about–

END SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 7, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 7, 1996.

Storey: This is tape two of an interview by Brit Storey,

with Donald [Don] J. Duck, on February the
7th, 1996.

You were talking about how construction

people related to the operating people at Grand
Coulee, I think.

The Staff Stationed at Grand Coulee Wasn’t

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 37

Thrilled to Have a Big Construction Project like

the Third Powerhouse on the Doorstep
Duck: Right. Established group, not really thrilled
with having this big construction group move in
on top of them. And, of course, the operations
people–you know, things are pretty well set.
Your routines are pretty well set. Well, we
absolutely–you know, a construction group
moves in, and you have a job to do, and you’re
going to do it. And things begin to happen,
begin to change. Of course, we had our
problems with operations there.

I can’t even remember what my title was

at Coulee, but Howard Fink was assistant. I
guess my title was Field Engineer, but Howard
Fink, who came from Glen Canyon, was
Roscoe’s assistant. So there was Roscoe and
Howard Fink. Howard Fink came out of an
office engineering environment, a little different
than the field, which is always good to mix
those backgrounds up. And Howard’s a great
guy, too, but different. You know, no Roscoe
Granger. But we had all kinds of
confrontations–I call them confrontations, and
they were kind of interesting.

One of the things that I remember most

was we were driving tunnels within Grand
Coulee Dam, drilling and blasting, in the dam,
for cableways.

Setting up Coordination among the Contractor,

Construction Staff, and Local Operations Staff
at Grand Coulee

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 38

I was working with the coordinator that

the operations group had set up to handle, to
coordinate, make sure that everybody knew
what was going on. I called the whole group
together–contractor, operations coordinator, and
our field people, you know, people that were
going to supervise the work–and we laid out
how we were going to start drilling and blasting
in that dam, and when we were going to do it.
Of course, operations had to provide, in some
cases, air and water. There’s air and water in
the dam. You make provisions for making
connections to station air and water and so
forth. This all got done, like, two, three days
before it was really going to take place, gave
them time to get their air and water connections
provided for.

The day that the contractor moved in to

start work, the local Interior–I think Department
of the Interior, anyway, Bureau– guards were
standing there, preventing them from going to
work. And you can imagine what kind of a
reaction I had when I got a call on the radio that
guards were there and wouldn’t let Gibbons and
Reed go to work. Well, I hit the ceiling, and hit
Roscoe, and Roscoe hit the telephone, and the
Department of Interior. He had a one-sided
conversation with the Interior Secretary about
this B.S. that was going on. I thought that was
kind of unique. (laughter)

Storey: Really. (laughter)

Duck: And if you go back far enough, you’ll

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 39

understand.

“For years and years, the Bureau of

Reclamation had a superior position to the
Department. . . .”
For years and years, the Bureau of Reclamation
had a superior position to the Department. It
was just there. I don’t know whether you’ve
heard this before, but that’s–

Storey: Tell me about it.

“I just know that Reclamation occupied the

seventh floor of the Interior Building, and
Interior just did not mess with Reclamation in
those years. . . .”
Duck: I don’t know that much about it. I just know
that Reclamation occupied the seventh floor of
the Interior Building, and Interior just did not
mess with Reclamation in those years. I think
that was part of the later problems that
developed. The results of that were apparent
later on. As you might guess, I wasn’t really
interested in that, or didn’t pay much attention
to it at that time. But that was a perception that
a lot of us had.

Another Coordination Incident During

Relocation of the Switchyard
Anyway, he chewed on Interior pretty
hard. And the funny thing about it, there was a
second incident. We were tearing out–well,
building a new switchyard as a part of the work

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 40

that was necessary. Tearing down the old

switchyard, removing it, was a part of the work
that was required. I did the same thing with the
coordinator and the contractor, making
arrangements for getting into the existing
switchyard to start–actually, again, was hooking
up the fire hydrants for construction water, was
really all they were doing at that time, to go to
work on the new yard. Had this all arranged.
We all met, got together, and agreed. This is
what was going to happen, and this was when it
was going to happen.

And some operator, standing on the gate,

gate padlocked, wouldn’t open it, wouldn’t let
the contractor in.

“And that was the end of the coordinator. . . .”

And that was the end of the coordinator. I said,
“Get the guy out of here. I’m not working with
him.” From then on, the major part of the
coordination activity took place between Ray
Seely and myself.

Storey: Who was Ray Seely?

Duck: Ray was the head of operations. He was the top

guy. My perception was that a lot of this was
coming out of Ephrata, out of the Ephrata
office.

“. . . there was a hell of a friction between the

Ephrata office, who I think had somebody that
they thought should have Roscoe Granger’s
job. . . .”

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 41

They had responsibility for Coulee, and there

was a hell of a friction between the Ephrata
office, who I think had somebody that they
thought should have Roscoe Granger’s job. I
don’t remember all the background to it, but
those frictions were there between the region
office, between project offices, between the
operating offices, and construction. Always
seemed to be there at the start, and by the time
you finished a job, why, they all worked out.

But Roscoe, in tearing down old existing

switchyards, one of the local–was really a junk
dealer–got the contract for dismantling some
towers.

Accident While Dismantling the Old Switchyard

Towers
This is one of things that, you know, Roscoe
would have fired anybody else. He didn’t want
this junkie tearing down, you know, working on
government property. So the idea was to load
these huge pieces of the tower on and truck
them to his yard. Had to cross that bridge,
fairly narrow bridge, and quite a bit of traffic on
it. I saw this guy’s operation, and it wasn’t too
good.

Anyway, I was letting him tear down the

towers on our government property, and it was
where Roscoe wouldn’t normally see it, or
anybody else. But anyway, he told me, “Make
them haul them out of there.” Well, I didn’t do
it. One of the workers for this junk dealer had a

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 42

flat tire on his pickup truck, I guess it was.

Now, instead of getting a jack out, and jacking
his truck up to change the tire, he drove a
mobile crane–old, dilapidated, beatup mobile
crane–down there to pick the truck up, to
change the tire. Well, that was all right. I guess
the thought was all right, but he dropped a Park
Service antenna that was stretched across from
the Park Service headquarters, just down below
us, and dropped that on a 1,300-kv powerline
which set the radio on fire. Didn’t hurt
anybody. And Roscoe never said a damn word
to me about it. And we kept on tearing those
towers down. (laughter) But I can tell you for a
fact, he’d have run anybody else off. But you
talk about unexpected. People do the
damnedest things.

Roscoe Granger Retired from the Grand Coulee

Job
Storey: Yeah, they sure do. Did he [Roscoe Granger]
retire then, after Grand Coulee?

Duck: He retired at Grand Coulee. He went back to

Tracy, California.

Storey: Was this when the Chief Engineer was still

running the construction program?

Duck: Let me do some thinking about that. The Chief

Engineer was still running the–this takes it back
to Ellis Armstrong, Barney Bellport.

“When Ellis Armstrong came in as

Commissioner, he did away with the title Chief

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 43

Engineer . . . and there was an effort to de-

emphasize the control . . . of the Denver Office .
. .”
When Ellis Armstrong came in as
Commissioner, he did away with the title Chief
Engineer, as I recall, and there was an effort to
de-emphasize the control, I think, of the Denver
office, and the office of the Chief Engineer.
That took place– it had to be about the time
Coulee started, as I recall, because we had Ellis
Armstrong out there as Commissioner a number
of times. I can’t remember whether he was
there when the project was funded. It isn’t
when they’re authorized, or anything else, when
they get funding, and when construction starts.
But I kind of believe that– do you know when
Ellis came in?

Storey: Well, Ellis would have come in in ‘69, soon

after–well, ‘70, probably. Soon after Floyd
[Dominy] left. Ellis was in ‘69 to ‘73.

Duck: Floyd would have been Commissioner. And

Coulee was under way in ‘67, ‘66.

Storey: So Floyd was still Commissioner.

Duck: When that project started, it was as it had been

for several years. Denver Chief Engineer had a
high degree of responsibility, and it was really
that way even after they changed title. That
didn’t make a lot of difference.

“. . . the way the field worked with the Denver

office didn’t change at all. . . .”

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 44

Ellis had a thing about the Chief Engineer title,

I think, and that got changed, but the way the
field worked with the Denver office didn’t
change at all.

Storey: So the Denver office would have still been

supervising Mr. Granger?

Duck: Yes. Well, he had two hats. Always did.

Regional Director for some of the functions and
the Chief Engineer for the technical activities of
the project.

Ted Mermel
Storey: Did you ever run across a guy named Ted
Mermel while you were there?

Duck: Yeah, sure.

Storey: Tell me about him.

Duck: Knew Ted pretty well. I don’t remember what

his title was, but he was, I think–

Storey: He was Assistant to the Commissioner for

Engineering.

Duck: Engineering, yeah. And a kind of a

technical/non-technical, depending on your
perspective. But Ted had, I think, responsibility
for–or, I don’t know whether he was
responsible for anything or not, but what he was
doing was, I think, pushing the state of the art
on a lot of things out on the point, on

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 45

development, of technology. He was extremely

active in USCOLD, ICOLD.5

“The nearest thing that I remember about Ted

was his involvement in moving to those big
units at Grand Coulee. I think he had
significant influence . . .”
The nearest thing that I remember about
Ted was his involvement in moving to those big
units at Grand Coulee. I think he had
significant influence on how, you know,
those–it went to the six big units instead of
twelve smaller units, and so forth. And that was
pushing the state of the art quite a bit.

Oil-filled Transmission Cable at Grand Coulee

Later Replaced
Cable. I think also the oil-filled cable
transmission, he was involved in that as well.

Storey: That carried it up to the terrace up there where

the new switchyard was?

Duck: Right. Started up with oil-filled pipe cable

systems, that later on we had a lot of difficulty
with, and I think they probably replaced all of
them by now. From that to a self-contained, oil-
cooled cable, that I think is working all right.
But at that time, there were longer systems in

5. ICOLD is the International Commission on

Large Dams. USCOLD is the U.S. Committee on Large
Dams.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 46

place, but none with the kind of change in

elevation that we had there at Coulee.

But Ted was a character. Interesting guy,

you know. Then my contact with him probably
in ICOLD, USCOLD, he headed a number of
committees, I think, in ICOLD that I had some
contact with him, one way or the other. But he
was another thinker.

Storey: Well, we’ve wandered a little way from

Flaming Gorge. You mentioned a Gene
Walton. Tell me more about him, if you would.

Gene Walton Came to Flaming Gorge from

Davis Dam
Duck: Well, Gene was–like I say, I don’t know much
about his background beyond, he came to
Flaming Gorge from Davis Dam.

“Gene was, I guess, more of a perfectionist

than most anybody that I’ve worked for, as far
as heavy construction was concerned. . . .”
Gene was, I guess, more of a perfectionist than
most anybody that I’ve worked for, as far as
heavy construction was concerned. One of his
main things at Flaming Gorge was the chamfer
strips on the edges of the blocks. You know,
one form could be missing, but if he took one of
his walk-through inspections, and a chamfer
strip was missing, or crooked, or something,
why, he’d pick up on that right quick. But he
had a good relationship with the Denver office.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 47

He and his wife were great to us. That

was my first job. I looked at it as old Roscoe
probably was the one that decided to hire me,
but Gene was Construction Engineer.

Storey: What’s the significance of the chamfer strip?

Duck: You know, the dams are built in blocks.

Storey: Yeah. And rises.

Duck: Low blocks, high blocks. Well, in the corners,

where the blocks join on the downstream face,
we were using an inch and a half, which made a
3-inch chamfer, going up the face of the dam.
And you had to have this block, this strip, in the
corner of the form, to form that groove, going
up the face of the dam.

“Flaming Gorge has a number of, looked like

miniature dams, downstream from the dam,
that were a product of Gene Walton’s concern
about those shale seams. . . .”
That and the fillets. Flaming Gorge has a
number of, looked like miniature dams,
downstream from the dam, that were a product
of Gene Walton’s concern about those shale
seams. You know, we excavated tunnels into a
number of shale seams, upstream and
downstream. Well, Gene went ahead and
carried these fillets out, and that was a major
thing for him. His personal hand is in a lot of
that stuff.

Storey: Why would he be upset about the shale seams?

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 48

Duck: Get saturated and weaken. Collapse, leak,

whatever.

Storey: So, the objective of the tunnels was–

Duck: Cut that off. The objective of the tunnel was to

cut off the seepage through the shale seam, and
then his idea was to protect downstream, still
downstream from the dam. The toe of the dam
carries quite a bit of the load. As the arch tends
to deflect, the toe, or downstream toe of the
dam, carries quite a bit of the load. But anyone
that looks at that dam and sees these big gravity
walls downstream will wonder what–or some of
us kind of wonder about–

Storey: What was that all about?

Duck: That was Gene’s project. He’s a perfectionist.

He was on top of the details as much as
anybody I ever worked around, probably.

Storey: What did he look like? How did he act?

Duck: He acted like–and I can’t remember. His

background may have been military. In
thinking back now, he was assigned down in
Australia to the Snowy Mountain project. Have
you heard anything–

Storey: Which was one Reclamation provided

assistance with?

“. . . at Flaming Gorge we had a number of

Australian engineers that were assigned up
there, in training. . . .”

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 49

Duck: Yes. And Gene spent some time in Australia,

and then at Flaming Gorge we had a number of
Australian engineers that were assigned up
there, in training. Had several of them. Good
guys–all off the Snowy Mountain project. In
fact, Reclamation had great relations with
numbers of different foreign engineers, but
Australia, in particular, at that time.

“. . . Gene [Walton] came out of that Snowy

Mountain [Project] . . . Then Davis Dam, then
Flaming Gorge. . . .”
And Gene came out of that Snowy
Mountain–had been assigned down there. Then
Davis Dam, then Flaming Gorge. Kind of a
military bearing. Pretty good-sized guy.

Storey: What about Russ Borland [Borden]? Well, first

tell me about Gene’s title. What was his title?

Duck: Project Construction Engineer.

Storey: So he was over Roscoe?

Duck: Yeah. Roscoe was his Field Engineer. Gene

was Project Construction Engineer, and Roscoe
was Field Engineer.

Storey: Okay. But I thought you said a little while ago

you thought Roscoe had picked him.

Duck: Picked me.

Storey: Oh, okay. I misunderstood.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 50

Duck: Yeah. I think Roscoe probably–knowing Gene,

he probably was involved in it, too, in
reviewing applications and so forth.

Meets Roscoe Granger at Dutch John

I never asked Roscoe, but he was the first
person that Dolores and I ran into when we
pulled into Dutch John. Roscoe was coming out
of the administration building, as we were
driving by with our Indiana plates, he stopped
me, shook hands, hugged Dolores. He was the
first person I met at Dutch John.

Storey: Now Russ Borland [Borden].

Duck: Borden. B-O-R-D-E-N.

Storey: Oh, Borden. Okay.

Russell Borden Was Chief Inspector at Flaming

Gorge and Had Been Involved with Reclamation
Projects Involving Concrete Pipe
Duck: Russell Borden. Russ was just a heck of good
construction engineer, had a wide and varied
background. Had been responsible for some of
the early concrete pipe that the Bureau had
manufactured, was manufacturing. He was
around Salt Lake, in that area, at that time.
Throughout the rest of his career, after I met
him, he was always involved in whatever pipe
the Bureau was either manufacturing, having
manufactured, design, what have you, for
projects all over the West. And they use a lot of
pipe, a lot of plastic pipe that’s turned out to be

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 51

giving them some trouble. Some cylinder-

reinforced, prestressed, large concrete pipe
down there in Arizona, they’ve had a bunch of
trouble with, I understand.

Storey: On the siphon?6

Approached by the Construction Contractors

about Working on the Problems with Siphons
on the Central Arizona Project
Duck: Yeah. Used to, they’ve quit calling me now,
but used to try to get me involved in some of
that–the contractors, construction contractors.
Kiewit was involved, and their CEO contacted
me a year or so ago about if I could be of some
assistance. I told him I didn’t think I could be,
therefore I didn’t.

But Russ was on a number of the projects

up in Wyoming–Farson. I got the impression,
you know, that these smaller projects, problems
with money, problems with landowners,
problems with water users, the conservancy
district wanting to maintain as low a cost as
they could. They’re paying for it, paying a
percentage of it back, anyway. And anyway, he
was in that region–Salt Lake–therefore, he was
one of the guys that were pulled in kind of from
locally. And with his background, with his
experience, he wound up Chief Inspector.
Darrell, Bill, and I, and like the head of the lab
and a couple of other surveys, probably. Herb

6. This is on the Central Arizona Project.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 52

Semme was Chief of Surveys. But anyway,

Russ was functioning as Chief Inspector. Great
supporter of mine, all of my life, even after I
left the Bureau.

Enos Ryland’s Liaison Group

He was one that was selected to come into
Enos Ryland’s liaison group after Flaming
Gorge. So he came to the Denver office and
worked for Ryland up until the time he retired.

And then he traveled out to–they had

certain projects, certain areas, some of them had
underground, or tunneling, experience; some,
grouting. They had kind of technical
specialists, although they weren’t all specialists,
in that liaison group. And they were there to
provide assistance to the field. That’s where his
career wound up. Construction liaison. He
retired. Retired at Grant’s Pass, Oregon, and
salmon fishing. Dug clams. That was his–yeah,
used to talk to me on occasion–

Storey: That’s a little ways from the clams.

Duck: Yeah.

Storey: I think we’re almost at the end of our time for

today, so I’d like to go back and clear up a few
things.

Duck: You’ve probably got a lot to clear up.

Storey: You mentioned you were born, but you didn’t

tell me when. (laughter)

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 53

Born in 1930
Duck: That’s typical. August the 8th, 1930.

Why He Became an Engineer

Storey: Okay. Why did you become interested in
becoming an engineer? How did that happen?

Duck: You really want to know, huh?

Storey: Sure.

Duck: The school was there. It has a great reputation

in that part of the country. It just went coed this
last year–‘95 was the first coed class, and
believe it or not, I supported bringing the
women in, for a number of reasons. But it’s
always been a–

END SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 7, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 7, 1996.

Storey: You were saying this school7 was in Terre

Haute.

Duck: In Terre Haute, right.

Storey: Yeah. And it just went coed in ‘95.

Duck: It went coed in ‘95. Been a men’s college.

Student body, 1,000 to 1,200. Thirteen civils in
my graduating class. Lot of personal attention.

7. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 54

You didn’t get by with anything. They knew

what was going on all the time. And really
respected in that part of the world. Well, you
know, outdoors, the civil engineering was kind
of a natural for me, although my dad was
influencing me, had influenced me, into
enrolling in chemical engineering. I had a
confrontation, a run-in with the head of the
chemistry department, my first year, in
freshmen chemistry, and I had decided by then
chemical engineering wasn’t for me, anyway,
and I just transferred to civil. Freshmen year
didn’t make any difference anyway. You’re all
doing the same thing.

Storey: You didn’t ever think of going anywhere else?

Duck: Didn’t think of going anyplace else.

Storey: So you had decided to be an engineer, really, by

the time you went there?

Duck: Yeah.

Storey: But why?

Duck: Well, it could be the same, you know, I’d have

the same reason and I probably didn’t
understand it at the time, but I think I had more
respect for engineering than anything else. And
I think it’s held up. If you look at law, if you
look at medicine, look at a lot of these other so-
called professions, I think engineering is still
there, although I question the direction that
we’ve taken on some things.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 55

“. . . in looking back on my career, I can go all

over the world and kick something that I had
something to do with putting there, and that’s a
great feeling. . . .”
But nevertheless, in looking back on my career,
I can go all over the world and kick something
that I had something to do with putting there,
and that’s a great feeling.

Storey: Good. I’d like to ask you now whether or not

you’re willing for these tapes and the resulting
transcripts to be used by researchers.

Duck: Sure.

Storey: Good. Thank you very much.

Duck: You bet.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 7, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

Storey: This is Brit Allan Storey, Senior Historian of

the Bureau of Reclamation, interviewing
Donald [Don] J. Duck, a former employee at the
Bureau of Reclamation, on February the 12th,
1996, at his home in Conifer, Colorado, at about
nine o’clock in the morning. This is tape one.

Walking Through a Day of Concrete Inspection

at Flaming Gorge
Last time, we talked a lot about Flaming
Gorge, and at one point I asked you about
walking through a day when you were doing

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 56

concrete inspection on the dam, and then we got

sidetracked, as I recall. So let’s start with that
question today.

“. . . concrete control, quality control was a

fundamental objective of the Bureau . . .”
Duck: Okay. Well, of course, the concrete control,
quality control was a fundamental objective of
the Bureau, and the Bureau pioneered a lot of
the concrete technology, but a day of so-called
concrete control and a day of concrete
placement inspection, and so forth, have to start
someplace. So if a concrete placement was
supposedly ready, according to the contractor,
they called for a checkout. Checkout included:
construction joint inspection, construction joint
cleanup, form, quality of the forms, that they
were in the right place, and that all the
embedded materials that were supposed to be
included in that concrete placement were there.
The inspector would sign out on the checkout
card, and if everything was as it was supposed
to be, they called for concrete.

At Flaming Gorge “. . . concrete placement was

by cableway system and eight-cubic-yard
buckets. . . .”
Then the concrete at Flaming Gorge
mixing plant–four-cubic-yard mixers, and
concrete placement was by cableway system
and eight-cubic-yard buckets. The plant more
or less monitored in by weight, cement, sand,
and the various gradations of aggregate that
were supposed to be included in the mix. [Tape

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 57

recorder turned off]

Storey: ... about aggregate gradation, I think.

Duck: Right. The aggregate production process was

separate, a source of aggregate, and usually the
material was processed into the various sizes at
the aggregate source, and then hauled and
moved into the batch plant. Over the top of the
batch plant were usually–wherever, and
whatever process you was using, a set of final
screens that did, in fact, produce the size
gradation that you wanted in a concrete mix.
That cement, quantity of water, and those things
were all checked at the batch plant by batch
plant inspectors, which included the aggregate
gradation, the slump control, and so forth. In
theory, the plant, if it was set up to run, would
produce consistent quantities of concrete,
transport it to the block–whether it was a block,
or the powerplant walls, or whatever it might
be, whatever the concrete was called
for–maximum size aggregate, etc., slump,
etc.–the plant would produce, when set up
properly, that mix.

When it reached the placement, then

there’s always a concrete placement inspector
who was responsible for seeing that nothing
foreign got into the placement, got covered up,
and so forth, monitored the quality of the
material that was coming out, and vibrated the
concrete.

“Consolidation of the concrete was also

extremely important. Internal vibration . . .”

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 58

Consolidation of the concrete was also

extremely important. Internal vibration, usually
a four- or five-man crew, that kept the
placement, at that point in time, moist. We
were using mortar layer, and making sure that
the mortar stayed alive, didn’t dry out, that sort
of thing. When the block was completed,
making sure that the top of the lift was prepared
so that it would be easy to clean up for the next
placement. That pretty much consisted of it.

Concrete Sampling
Storey: So am I hearing correctly that there would be
concrete samples taken at the batch plant, and
then concrete samples when it was placed?

Duck: Yes, on a more or less irregular basis, but the

concrete could be slumped at the placement, as
well.

Storey: What did they do with the samples?

Duck: Put them back in the batch concrete.

Storey: Well, what kind of sample were they taking?

This wasn’t going to a lab?

Duck: No, no. It was all done at the batch plant or in

the placement. So the material was just there.

Storey: So, what were they doing to it then, when they

took the sample?

Checking Aggregate

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 59

Duck: If they were checking aggregate, they would

take a sample, screen it through the various
sampling screens, and make sure that the
various sizes that were supposed to be there,
were there, would be washed through, and those
samples would be waste then.

Testing for Slump

Slump control, you screened out everything
above an inch-and-a-half-size aggregate, and
check the slump in a slump cone.

Storey: To see how much it collapses when you remove

the cone.

Duck: You’d rod it X number of times in three lifts, in

the slump cone, raise the cone up, set it beside
it, lay the rod across, and measure the number
of inches of slump. But, in fact, for the large
aggregate mixes, you screened out everything,
plus an inch and a half. So you’re really
slumping more the mortar part of it than that.

Storey: How did people get out to the blocks to do the

inspection?

Duck: Walk.

Storey: What was it like walking out there?

Going out on the Damsite to Do Inspection

Work
Duck: Climbing a bunch of ladders, up or down, one

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 60

way or the other, depending on where you were.

When you were starting off, in the bottom, of
course, you were climbing up. As you reached
more than the halfway point, probably moved
an inspection shack up on one of the abutments,
and then climbed down to the block. So it was,
you know, on foot. Climbing, one way or the
other. All the time.

Storey: How long were you at Flaming Gorge?

Duck: From [June 1959] January 1964 until [January]

August of 1967. You interviewed Neil
Stessman, you mentioned. The only other
significant thing, other than kind of a routine
sort of a job, one of the things that Neil might
have remembered, or might remember, was
placing concrete in the spillway tunnel.
Flaming Gorge incorporated an incline spillway
tunnel. I don’t know whether anybody has
talked about this or not.

Storey: No.

Concerns about Concrete Placement in the

Tunnel at Flaming Gorge
Duck: For all practical purposes, the intake in–and it
was tunnel, a large-diameter tunnel, if I
remember right, 36-, 38 feet in diameter–
inclined at about 45 degrees, to the horizontal,
and then a longer section of horizontal tunnel,
which was the method there of spilling
floodwaters, flood flows. Of course, the
excavation on an incline tunnel is tough in
itself–that’s another problem. But when it came

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 61

to placing concrete in that sloping tunnel, the

contractor elected to pump from the top. This is
the incline portion. Or not pump from the top,
use gravity flow, pump into a hopper, to a
pumpline or concrete line that was wired to the
crown of the tunnel, and then uncontrolled
discharge into the forms, and, of course, that
was not consistent with any good concrete
placement practice that any of us had ever been
around, but it created a heck of a problem
between myself and, of course, the tunnel
superintendent. Just dropping the concrete 250-
, 300 feet, whatever it was, and it varied, of
course, as you came up the slope, separate all
the things that you knew were bad for concrete
placement occurred in that process. Aggregate
separation, the breakage– you know, it appeared
to me that the concrete was going into the form
at about the speed of light. You could shut the
lights off. Breakage just looked like–and, of
course, I got into a heck of a–and I think Neil
Stessman was on my shift at that time, and I had
a heck of time with the contractor’s people.

Storey: That would be the tunnel superintendent you

mentioned?

Duck: Tunnel superintendent. Yeah, contractor–arch

dam constructors, the joint ventures’ tunnel
superintendent, and we had a heck of a time
over this whole thing. Well, my point,
eventually, is that, you know, turned down all
of these placements. One side would just look
like mortar, water; the other side, rock. And
dangerous. Really a dangerous situation. These
guys, the concrete placement crew, vibrator

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

62

men, and so forth, down here in the bottom of

this thing, with that pumpline wired in the–one
of the things that they did was put a deflector on
the end of the pumpline, and we all called it the
“cutts compensator.” (laughter) But, you
know, it didn’t really change anything much.
And, you know, everything about it was
contrary to the specification contract
documents, and all this sort of thing.

But as these placements were made, they

were turned down, subject to verification by
taking core samples. Of course, when we were
near completion, I went back in and marked
exactly where I thought the core samples should
be taken. I knew. I knew what I’d seen, right?
I was young, and I knew what I saw, and I knew
what the book said.

In the Flaming Gorge tunnel we “Took a whole

bunch of core samples and did not find one
that failed. Every sample looked like perfect
concrete. . . .”
Took a whole bunch of core samples and
did not find one that failed. Every sample
looked like perfect concrete. And when the
smoke all cleared, I said, “Well, you know, it
didn’t make any difference what your
placement practice was going to be.” I decided,
I think I said at the time, “You could blow it in
the air 300 feet, gather it up with a garden rake,
and if you got it vibrated, if you got internal
vibration into it, you’ll probably come up with a
satisfactory product.” And that’s the way, you
know, I kind of looked at it that way. How you

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 63

handled it wasn’t really as important as getting

it consolidated, getting good internal vibration,
and they were getting that. So that was just
kind of a lesson for everybody, coming off of
that. But it caused me an awful lot of grief, and
it caused the contractor an awful lot of grief
while we were going through it. (laughter)

Storey: I could see where that would be troublesome.

And what would have happened if the core
samples hadn’t proven okay?

Duck: We’d have tore it out.

Storey: And they would have had to replace it?

Duck: They knew that’s the risk they were taking, that
we would have had them remove it. Go in and
chip it out and redo it.

Storey: But as it worked out, everything turned out

okay.

Duck: As it worked out, not a single–and I took a

bunch of cores, and not a single core failed, or
not a single sample failed.

Storey: Now, when you say you took a bunch of cores,

did you do it personally?

Duck: No. I had a drill crew come in, with a core drill
bit.

Storey: The contractor or Reclamation?

Duck: Had the contractor take it. They took the cores;

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 64

they had the equipment. But we had somebody

watching them all the time. And I looked at the
cores. I took a flashlight, and looked down the
hole. I could not believe it. I just knew we
were going to find too much rock in one place
and none in another.

Storey: What did Roscoe Granger have to say about all

this, or did he have anything to say? (laughter)

Duck: Of course, Russ Borden, everybody was

supporting what we were doing, and Roscoe
didn’t have to enter into it. If we’d had to have
taken it out, Roscoe would’ve entered into it,
for sure, because it would have been expensive,
a heck of an expensive proposition.

Hoover Dam has the same type of tunnel.

It’s the same type of spillway system, right?
Never really had to be used for years. Flaming
Gorge has never had to be used. Yellowtail–
same design, same abutment. The spillway
tunnel was on the left abutment. Larger
tunnels–42 feet–I think, 42-foot finished
diameter. Just before I left–and, you know, I
had the same kind of setup there, only the
contractor used a different approach to place
that tunnel. He used a foot valve, which meant
that they had a big hydraulic valve and they
used a bigger pumpline. I think at Flaming
Gorge they used an eight-inch, and we were
using a ten-, twelve-inch pumpline at
Yellowtail, with a control valve at the
placement, which meant you opened the valve,
and you’d let in so much concrete, which is, in
my opinion, much better. You didn’t have the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 65

apparent problems that we had at Flaming

Gorge.

Yellowtail Tunnel Failed in One Hundred Year

Flood
But the bottom line was, when this was all
done, they got the 100-year flood the year we
topped out [Yellowtail] Flaming Gorge, and that
tunnel failed in the elbow and below the elbow.

The Designers Required Special, Difficult-to-do

Finishing in the Elbow of the Tunnel
And by cavitation–and that’s another story, too,
you know–the designers required special
finishing in that elbow section in the
downstream portion of it. Has anybody talked
about this at all?

Storey: No. Are you talking about Flaming Gorge, or

are you talking about Yellowtail?

Duck: I’m talking about Yellowtail now. Flaming

Gorge is a large reservoir, lots of storage.
Yellowtail, less storage. But at any rate, both
tunnels, including the Hoover spillways, Glen
Canyon spillways, the finish requirements.

“. . . it’s impossible to get the finish required by

the designers in the construction process. . . .”
And I said this from Flaming Gorge, from
my first experience in it, it’s impossible to get
the finish required by the designers in the

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 66

construction process. It’s just impossible to,

you know, even go back and try to repair
offsets. Anytime you try a repair, you loosen
aggregate, and you’re creating problems while
you’re trying to fix a problem.

Damage Caused by Hundred Year Flood at

Yellowtail Dam
Anyway, my opinion at Flaming Gorge, it
was not possible to get that finished. I
demonstrated it again at Yellowtail. And this
was toward the end of the project, the finishing
of the elbow section and that section below the
elbow. I turned that finish down time and time
again, and just kept the finishers working on it.
Bottom line was, they had the 100-year flood
just before I left Yellowtail. And within a
matter of hours, you couldn’t get–lost the flip.
There’s a bucket section that once you reach, I
think it was 12,000 cfs, something like that, you
begin to sweep this bucket section, which had a
raised lip on it. When it sweeps that bucket
section, then it flips the spill flow hundreds of
feet downstream and increases the efficiency of
moving water through that tunnel. Well, it
eroded the lower part of the elbow section out.
It eroded a hole in the tunnel, in the invert of the
tunnel, five, six feet deep. You know, you
could stand up when we finally got back in
there unwatered.

“The critical part of the whole thing was that we

lost the flow through that tunnel. . . .”
The critical part of the whole thing was

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 67

that we lost the flow through that tunnel.

Therefore, you couldn’t spill as much as what
was intended. And with moving everything
through the powerplant that you could, using
the outlet works maximum opening in and out,
but works everything through the units as you
could put through, we were still storing water,
and very nearly overtopped the dam.

The result of that tunnel failure, then had a

similar problem at Hoover, and then later on
had to use [the spillway at] Glen Canyon and
also had a lot of damage at Glen.

Correcting the Spillway Design Problem at

Yellowtail, Glen Canyon, and Flaming Gorge
So the end result was a change in the design,
which meant you had to go back into
Yellowtail, and the Yellowtail was, I think, the
first one that the [remedial] design was
implemented on, cut a slot at the upper end of
the curve section, the elbow section, and bring
that slot above where the water surface would
be, and introduce air on the boundary layer of
that sheet of water. That eliminated the
cavitation problem. It was tested then at
Yellowtail. They did the same repair at
Flaming Gorge and tested it successfully,
although I don’t know how long they ran the
test there. Did the same thing at Glen Canyon.

So it was again an advancement in the

technology. These tunnels were being built
with the idea that they were going to work, but
when you had to use them, they didn’t work,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 68

and the result could be pretty disastrous. First

year, if we put water over the–I was actually, at
the time, looking at where to cut the parapet
walls and which side of the dam to put the water
[through], in case we were going to overtop.

Storey: That was at Yellowtail?

Duck: At Yellowtail, yeah.

Storey: Why don’t you want it to be overtopped?

Duck: Well, a powerplant right down at the bottom.

You would just wipe a whole power facility out.
Some dams do have overflow spillways, but
they don’t have a powerplant at the bottom.

Storey: Something like Coulee we’re talking about

now?

Duck: Well, yeah, that’s a crest spillway. Have you

ever been out to Strontia Springs Dam?

Storey: No. That’s here in Colorado?

Duck: Yeah, up here on the Platte. Was supposed to

be an afterbay for Two Forks Dam. It has a
little power component, I think. But it has an
overflow spillway and a plunge pool. Crystal
Dam has an overflow.

Storey: Which is one of ours down on the Gunnison.

Duck: Yeah. I think Morrow Point has orifices, orifice

spillways. But Morrow Point has an
underground powerhouse. You know, that

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 69

facility isn’t sitting right there at the toe of the

dam.

Storey: When you were at Flaming Gorge, you were

married, weren’t you?

Duck: Yes.

Storey: You were living in a construction camp then?

Duck: Yes.

Storey: What was it like living in the construction

camp?

Life in Dutch John, a Reclamation Construction

Camp
Duck: It was very good. When we first moved in, we
were in what were called transa, two-bedroom
transa houses, which essentially were just
trailer-type, mobile sort of units, but without the
wheels under them. Then we moved to a three-
bedroom relocatable transa house, and then into
a permanent three-bedroom.

Storey: What’s this term you’re using? Transit house?

Duck: Transa. They call them transa houses.

Storey: T-R-A-N-S-A?

Duck: Right.

Storey: It was sort of a brand name or something?

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 70

Duck: Relocatable-type houses. I can’t remember

whether a brand name was associated with them
or not. But anyway, you could move them
around, anyway.

Storey: What was the social life like?

Social Life at Dutch John

Duck: Oh, you know, those camps–talking to these
folks yesterday about the relationships. You
know, living close together, you experience
kind of the same things.

Driving out from Dutch John to Shop

Although Vernal, Utah was, only 45
miles, 44 miles from the camp; Green River was
about 63; and Rock Springs, 75, that’s where
we did the shopping, for the most part, although
there was a supermarket sort of store available
there in the camp. But every couple of weeks
you’d go to Green River, or mostly Rock
Springs, for the supermarket and the shopping.

Each spring that I was there, the bridge

went out on the highway to Green River,
usually in February. Ice would take the bridge
out, and it’d take a couple of weeks to fix it. So
you either stayed in camp or you went to
Vernal, and that wasn’t that easy. You had to
go through the reservoir and the construction
roads. The highways weren’t built at that point
in time. Harder to get to Vernal then than to
Wyoming.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 71

A lot of social life. Both, you know, the

construction contractors and the Bureau people
did most everything together. When the
tensions got the highest, why, we were a little
bit farther apart, but it was kind of like a rubber
band–you go back and forth, depending on how
things were going. Everybody had their bridge
parties. The families, you’d have everybody in
camp, either for bridge or pinochle. And it’d
kind of circulate around. Everybody kind of
took a turn. Square dancing. A lot of the folks
square-danced, and traveled to Rock Springs,
Rawlins, Sheridan, and attended the square
dances and so forth. A couple of guys in the
camp rigged up a TV antenna, and the reception
was unbelievably poor, but unbelievably good
for that remote area. We did have TV.

Storey: What about construction traffic? Was that a

problem?

Duck: Construction traffic?

Storey: Traffic, yes.

Duck: No, no. But you knew everybody in camp. We

did an awful lot of things together, and out of
those things came some of the closest friends
you ever made. Near the–

END SIDE 1, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

Storey: You were talking about everybody wants to get

out toward the end.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 72

“Toward the end. Nobody wants to be there for

the finishing up, cleaning up, all the dirty little
ends that are left . . . everybody’s looking to
move on to . . . the next project. . . .”
Duck: Toward the end. Nobody wants to be there for
the finishing up, cleaning up, all the dirty little
ends that are left, that have to be done. So
everybody’s looking to move on to the next–at
that point in time, move on to the next project.
And, as I said, Darrell Hansen, Bill Groseclose,
and myself, the principal inspection shift
inspectors, Bill, I think, was the first to leave,
and he went to transmission construction that
was related to the project, moved over into the
Transmission Division. Moved, like, to Craig,
Colorado, I think. Don’t remember specifically
where he went.

“. . . Roscoe, of course, was going to Yellowtail.

. . .”
Darrell and I were–Roscoe, of course, was
going to Yellowtail. A fellow by the name of
Jim Seary was taking Morrow Point.

“. . . I took the field engineering job at

Yellowtail. . . .”
Darrell took the field engineering job at
Morrow Point, and I took the field engineering
job at Yellowtail. So they went to Colorado and
we went to Montana. Of course, Darrell and
“Bunch” Hansen are still probably a couple of
our closest friends that we have.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 73

Storey: How did you apply for the job at Yellowtail?

How did that come out?

Duck: An announcement came out for the–I forget, I

don’t remember what titles and government
jobs. They’re all over the map. But at any rate,
they were advertising for a GS-12. At this point
in time, I was a GS-11 at Flaming Gorge. GS-
12 at Yellowtail, in a field engineering position.

“When the thing was circulated, I called Roscoe

and I said, ‘You got somebody in mind for this
job, or am I going to Morrow Point, or what am I
doing?’”
When the thing was circulated, I called Roscoe
and I said, “You got somebody in mind for this
job, or am I going to Morrow Point, or what am
I doing?”

He said, “It’s your job. Apply.” So I

applied. That’s the way it was done at that
point in time.

Storey: What grade did you start out at when you came
to Reclamation in [‘59] ‘64?
Duck: GS-7. GS-7, which was because of my age. I
was twenty-nine when I graduated, and that
interviewing group told me they were sure that
they could get me in at–usually, entry-level
engineering positions, at that time, right out of
school, were GS-5.

“So I started as a GS-7, promoted to 9 in a year,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 74

promoted to 11 in a year, and I was an 11 when

I left Flaming Gorge. . . .”
So I started as a GS-7, promoted to 9 in a year,
promoted to 11 in a year, and I was an 11 when
I left Flaming Gorge.

Storey: What was the primary reason for you to go to

Yellowtail? Was it because of Mr. Granger or
was it because it was Yellowtail, or what? Or a
promotion?

Issues Regarding Staffing of Reclamation

Construction Projects
Duck: Combination of all the above. In the way those
things work, and, to a certain extent, throughout
my experience with the Bureau, the regions
have a certain number of people that usually are
coming available, or are available, within the
region. A construction engineer gets appointed
one way or the other, and that’s always a tug-of-
war, who’s going to be the Construction
Engineer.

At that point in time, the Chief Engineer

pretty much called the shots. The Regional
Directors had some input into it, but their
concern was making sure that somebody–you
know, their people, were placed in the job.

So the Construction Engineers, like

Roscoe, had some limited choice about who
they brought in. I happened to be one of the
ones that Roscoe pulled in, and then there were
others.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 75

At least started out at Yellowtail, Roscoe

had that operating a little different. He had two
of us–Lyle Cardin [phonetic], who was in the
region, on Anchor Dam, and Clint Matheny
[phonetic], who was on Anchor Dam, were
there in the region, and they were key people,
higher level people, that Roscoe agreed to take,
as well as some of the office engineering group
that were there in the region.

Technicians and, for instance, survey, and

so forth, came out of the Dakotas, out of
Bismarck, Huron, I think. You know, kind of
the joke was that Yellowtail should have
crossarms on it, because they were
transmission-type people. There had been a lot
of transmission work there, and they were the
ones that were made available from the region.

“But it’s true of any job you ever have . . . that if

[you] can have three or four key people that
have the experience, or you have the
confidence in, then you can take a whole mix of
people, put them together, and make it work. . .
.”
But it’s true of any job you ever have, or
my experience, that if [you] can have three or
four key people that have the experience, or you
have the confidence in, then you can take a
whole mix of people, put them together, and
make it work. That’s kind of what Yellowtail
was, kind of what Flaming Gorge was. Moving
on over to Grand Coulee, that was the same
thing there.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

76

“There was never any doubt where I was going

after Yellowtail. Roscoe wanted me at Coulee. .
. .”
There was never any doubt where I was going
after Yellowtail. Roscoe wanted me at Coulee.

“And then some of the young engineers that

had been with me at Yellowtail–in fact, quite a
number of them–went along over to Coulee. . .
.”
And then some of the young engineers that had
been with me at Yellowtail–in fact, quite a
number of them–went along over to Coulee.
And then Roscoe accepted the region’s key
people that they had available in office
engineering and so forth.

Roscoe Granger
I think [Floyd] Dominy had significant
call on bringing the Assistant Construction
Engineer in, Howard Fink, who was finishing
up, or had finished up, down at Glen Canyon,
because of Roscoe’s age and health, etc., and he
lived on the edge for a lot of years, but lived to
be 83-, 84. He looked like he had one foot in
the grave when I was at Flaming Gorge, you
know. He was a frail–and at Yellowtail, he was
taking bromine, some bromine product,
anyway, and, you know, packed him out to the
hospital in Billings, you know, out cold. His
stomach, whatever it was. The doctor told him
positively not to take any more of that stuff.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 77

Well, hell, you know, when I was in his

office– there are a couple of things. Every time
I happened to be in his office, he’d give me a
little short black stubby cigar, and I had to
smoke that. This is after they told him, strictly,
to stay off of it–wife all over him and
everything else–and he’d move a bunch of
books out, pull this quart bottle of this powder
out, pour a spoon of it, and down the hatch it’d
go. He kept right on. It was a bromide
poisoning or something. But that was Roscoe.

Storey: What were your plans for your career at

Flaming Gorge? What were you thinking? Do
you remember?

Duck: “Get me on to the next dam job.”

Storey: So you wanted to stay in construction?

Felt Yellowtail was one of the last good

projects – “. . . good bid, contractor was
making money. . . . a number of things. . . .”
Duck: I loved that work, you bet. That was my thing.
Yellowtail was one of the last of what I’d call a
routine–again, my experience, my perspective,
on the thing–good bid, contractor was making
money. You know, I had done quite a number
of things. I really got along with the project
manager–M-K’s [Morrison-Knudsen] project
manager–that was M-K sponsor, Kiewit, and
somebody else that I don’t remember. I don’t
remember who, without going back and looking
it up.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 78

Storey: Who was M-K’s manager?

Duck: Phil Soukup.

Storey: S-

Phil Soukup Was Morrison-Knudsen’s Manager

at Yellowtail
Duck: Phil Soukup. S-O-U-K-U-P. Soukup. And he
was one of the last of the old-time project
managers, construction project managers, that,
in fact, ran his project. They didn’t run it from
Boise. Nobody told him what to do. He was
responsible for it. He went in with a bid, and he
came out, he either made money, or if he didn’t
make money, he’s probably looking for a job.
But that’s the way, and that’s the way a lot of
them were, autonomous managers. Yeah, they
talked to–people came in from Boise every now
and then, flew in and took a look, and flew out.

Storey: From the headquarters at Morrison-Knudsen

there?

Duck: Yeah, right, right. Soukup was a character.

Yellowtail was the only place I know–and it’s
just what I know–that built a jail with the camp.

Ironworker’s Strike at Yellowtail Dam

And Soukup–I guess about the time I got there,
there was an ironworkers’ strike. He took the
strikers and locked them up in jail. Roscoe
about had a heart attack. But he had the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 79

strikers, the superintendent, and the ironworkers

locked up in jail. He let them out pretty
promptly. (laughter) But that’s what you could
expect from him. Driving son-of-a-gun.

I, as I said, had just an excellent working

relationship, just got off the ground with these
guys from the standpoint of helping them get
foundation prepared. Just come off of [Flaming
Gorge] Yellowtail. I knew what we were
looking for, and I got them going. And just the
early time, you know, their superintendents,
supervisory people, and I got along just great.
In fact, as a Project Manager, he was always
looking, you know, not what’s being done this
week or next week, but a month or two months
down the line. He was thinking ahead all the
time, how to make things work, make sure that
it went the way you wanted it to go.
Asked to Have Breakfast with the Contractor’s
Superintendent at Yellowtail
And as a result of that, he, in his planning,
he asked me to have breakfast with their crew.
He had breakfast with them at their mess hall,
the contractor’s mess hall. Every morning,
breakfast was, like, five-thirty. He asked me to
join them for breakfast, but, you know, the
Bureau’s a part of this, you’ve got to know what
we’re going to do, so that’s what I did for a
year. Missed a time or two. Overslept, I don’t
know what. Was maybe mad at him a time or
two.

“He and his cook brought trays of scrambled

eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, whatever–two

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 80

trays, to [my] wife and I, said, ‘You son of a

bitch, if you can’t get out of bed, why, we’ll
bring you breakfast.’”
He and his cook brought trays of scrambled
eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, whatever–two
trays, to [my] wife and I, said, “You son of a
bitch, if you can’t get out of bed, why, we’ll
bring you breakfast.” (laughter) He was a
character.

“As far as having a good bid, contractor

making money, good relations, excellent
relations all through the job, from the people
both in the Bureau and the contractor’s people,
went real well. . . .”
As far as having a good bid, contractor
making money, good relations, excellent
relations all through the job, from the people
both in the Bureau and the contractor’s people,
went real well. They made money, moved on to
the next job. Phil left a little bit early, for Libby
Dam. Libby Dam was in Idaho, Corps of
Engineers job.

Storey: Way up north.

Duck: Way up north. He was there maybe a year. I

was up and visiting. He asked me to come up
and visit it, the site, the project, fairly early on.
And then he had a heart attack, a pretty severe
heart attack. The doctor told him to quit, and he
just dropped everything. This old M-K
manager, been there for years, tough as they
come, quit. They had a home in Billings on the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 81

golf course there, I forget what they called it.

Anyway, he was on the seventh fairway in
Billings. He convalesced, whatever, and then
got talked into managing that club. At the same
time, he either acquired, or already had, I can’t
remember which, a place in Palm Springs.
Anyway, he died, within the last two years,
down at Palm Springs.

Storey: Well, he lived a while then.

Duck: Oh, he lived for a long time after they told him
to quit. It would’ve been ‘64.

Storey: I think Libby’s in Montana, though, rather than

in Idaho.

Duck: Right. Libby’s in Montana. You’re right.

Storey: I’ve visited up–well, but that isn’t very relevant

to our discussion.

“. . . it was a big tug-of-war between the Corps

of Engineers and the Bureau, about who was
going to build Libby, and, of course, when it
comes to those struggles, the Corps always
won. . . .”
Duck: Well, it was a big tug-of-war between the Corps
of Engineers and the Bureau, about who was
going to build Libby, and, of course, when it
comes to those struggles, the Corps always
won. But if it had been a Bureau job, it would
have been a different type structure. Libby, I
think, turned out to be a heavy gravity arch.
Same way with Dworshak. Dworshak would

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 82

have been–there was a struggle about who was

going to do Dworshak.

Storey: I think that’s an earth dam, isn’t it?

Duck: That’s what?

Storey: I think that’s an earth dam, isn’t it, or a rock

dam?

Duck: It’s a concrete gravity dam.

Storey: Is it? Maybe I’m thinking of a different one,

then.

Duck: Might be, but Dworshak was a gravity dam.

Storey: Now, you moved up to Montana in August, did

you?

Duck: Moved up there in January.

Storey: In January of ‘68, then?

Duck: January of ‘64.

Storey: That’s Flaming Gorge, right?

Duck: Flaming Gorge–I showed up there in June of

‘59. June of ‘59 to January of ‘64, to August of
‘67, over to Coulee.

Storey: Okay. Now, when you moved up to Yellowtail

then, in January of ‘64, did Reclamation pay all
your moving expenses? How did that work in
those days?

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 83

Moving from Flaming Gorge to Yellowtail

Duck: If I remember right, they’d reimburse you for
11,000 pounds. It was on a per-pound basis.
As long as you stayed under 11,000 pounds,
they’d move you.

Storey: What about housing?

Duck: Housing? There was government housing at

Yellowtail. Not the same–I don’t know. Have
you ever seen Flaming Gorge?

Storey: No, I’ve not been to Flaming Gorge.

Duck: Well, Gene Walton & Company negotiated a

heck of a deal on the housing at Flaming Gorge.
Now, if I go back today, they look like
crackerboxes. They aren’t that impressive. But
taking it back to that point in time, they’re
brick. They’re really quite nice, appearance and
all. Of course, they were new then, too. I keep
talking about key people, but anyway, there
were thirty of them, or something like that,
houses for the upper level people. There were
some frame houses for people down the line,
supervisory people. And then trailers and transa
houses.

Storey: And now we’re talking about Flaming Gorge?

Duck: Flaming Gorge. And then as far as Yellowtail

was concerned, there were fewer of them,
probably, but Roscoe, Mary–Roscoe’s wife
always had a significant part of what was going
on, too, let me tell you. (laughter) Mary

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 84

Granger was something else, but great gal. But

they wanted a basement. Therefore, they traded
off some of the finishing–not brick, they were
framed, some kind of siding, asbestos siding, or
something like that. About three different
colors–white, green, pink, or something like
that. But they were nice houses, from the
standpoint of living on a construction project.

As far as I know, that probably was the

last of the– I think you can attribute a lot of it to
Floyd Dominy, his influence of being able to
get those kinds of quarters on construction
projects. Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge,
Yellowtail– the camps on those projects were
great.

Storey: Was there any shock involved in moving from

northern–I guess it’s northern Colorado or
southern Wyoming–to Montana? That time of
year, especially.

Duck: Well, yeah, we hit Billings, and then, you know,

it isn’t that common for it to be that cold in
Billings, but we made Billings, pulled into a
motel. Of course, we had engine heaters tank-
type heaters on everything we drove, coming
out of Utah, because weather could get pretty
severe there, too. For the most part, it was
pretty good, but it could be.

Anyway, the night we pulled into Billings,

on our way to Fort Smith, or the Yellowtail site,
twenty below zero, one of the reasons that I
pulled in there was because they had
headbolt–so-called headbolt heater outlets. Of

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 85

course, I unloaded the car, and we got squared

around the room, plugged that heater in, and
promptly tripped everything out. No lights. I
had, I think, a 1,500- or 2,000-watt heater. I
was driving a Mercury at that time, a ‘57
Mercury. Anyway, I kept knocking the–they
finally asked me to unplug my heater, so I did.

But then on over, and it’s like all those.

You move into the project, and the next day,
either that day or the next day, you’re on the
job.

Storey: What stage was Yellowtail at when you arrived

in January of ‘64?

Excavation Had Been Completed When Arrived

at Yellowtail
Duck: Just ready to start concrete. Excavation was
pretty well complete.

Storey: So the keyway was–

Duck: Keyway was completed, yeah.

Storey: And the sides into the canyon, there, as I recall,

had been excavated, also?

Duck: Yeah.

Storey: So you were ready to pour the concrete?

Ready to Start Placing Concrete at Yellowtail

Duck: Ready to start concrete, yeah. I started to say,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

86

they ran it a little bit differently. Lyle Cardin,

who came over from Anchor Dam, Owl Creek
Project, I think was the name of it. But there
was a little concrete arch dam associated with
that project, and he and Clint Matheny and
some others came over from that.

How Work Was Divided among the Shifts at

Yellowtail
Lyle and I alternated swing shift and day
shift, and then the crews would rotate on to
graveyard, without one of us being there. One
or the other at that time was GS-11, supervisory
inspectors, would carry over onto graveyard
shift. Graveyard shift, for the most part, was
simply placing concrete. The day shift, swing
shift, you were building forms, putting in
embedded materials. You had the other crafts
working, but usually not on graveyard. It was
just strictly placing concrete.

So, anyway, that was the way we operated

for a year. It seems to me like it was about a
year. Clint Matheny was the Field Engineer on
that project, again coming from the region.
Roscoe’s Field Engineer–I don’t know whether
he’d met him before. He’d certainly never
worked for him before.

And if I can reconstruct it right, I think

Jim Seary in Morrow Point either passed away
or got into trouble of some kind. I can’t really
put it together in my head which it was. But he
either got into difficulties, or maybe he got sick,
I can’t remember which. But, anyway, they

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 87

asked if Roscoe could spare Matheny to go to

Morrow Point and take the construction
engineer job at Morrow Point. When they
moved Matheny over to Morrow Point, then
Roscoe promoted me into the Field Engineer
job there. So I had gone then from coming on
the project to a 12. I can’t remember where I
got to 13, and then he promoted me to a 14
when Matheny left.

Became a GS-14, and Later a GS-15, at Grand

Coulee
And when I went to Coulee, it was GS-14, I
believe. Later on, got to 15 at Coulee.

Storey: Did the work at Yellowtail differ substantially

from the work at Flaming Gorge?

Duck: Not that different. The structures and all are

really similar. Yellowtail is like 20 to 25 feet
higher. Flaming Gorge is just right at 500 feet,
and if I recall, Yellowtail is 525. Just scaled up
a little bit there. Little more energy associated
with the Yellowtail powerplant than at Flaming
Gorge, but the projects were really similar.

Storey: If I recall, the Yellowtail powerplant is sort of a

smallish, medium-size plant?

Duck: Yeah, I think three units, something like that,

yeah.

Storey: Are there any particular construction issues with

powerplants that are of note?

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 88

Duck: Those were, at that point in time, pretty

straightforward. Really nothing that isn’t–you
wouldn’t consider routine, construction-type
problems. Yellowtail, probably the stability.
There was a right abutment.

“Of course, Yellowtail is in a limestone

formation, therefore always a question of, you
know, one, is the reservoir going to hold
water?”
O f course, Yellowtail is in a limestone formation,
therefore always a question of, you know, one,
is the reservoir going to hold water? You can
study the hell out of them, but until you’ve
filled a reservoir, you really don’t know. Your
best guess is that it’s going to. But that was a
question.

“And then that Upper Madison limestone, and a

tremendous amount of grouting done,
tremendous amount of foundation treatment,
tremendous quantities of grout pumped into
that foundation. . . .”
And then that Upper Madison limestone,
and a tremendous amount of grouting done,
tremendous amount of foundation treatment,
tremendous quantities of grout pumped into that
foundation. Grouting tunnels, extending out
into the abutments, in an effort to–both grouting
and drainage provided.

“Long tunnels, strictly for foundation treatment.

. . .”

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 89

Long tunnels, strictly for foundation treatment.

That’s basically the upper portion in the
Madison, and then the Amsden formation.
Well, this Amsden formation is pretty much
mud, and the stability of that stuff, when it got
wet, on the right abutment, was always a
problem, a potential problem. We were
continually dealing with slides from that.

“Yellowtail was another cableway system. . . .”

And that’s where the tail towers for the
cableway system–again, Yellowtail was another
cableway system. But I’d say foundation
treatment was–

END SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

Storey: This is tape two of an interview by Brit Storey,

with Donald [Don] J. Duck, on February the
12th, 1996.

And foundation treatment was different at

Yellowtail. More extensive?

“Large quantities of grout, and large numbers

of drain holes, to provide for foundation
stability. . . .”
Duck: Large quantities of grout, and large numbers of
drain holes, to provide for foundation stability.
If you go to Yellowtail today–I don’t know
whether you’ve– have you ever been there,
Brit?

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 90

Storey: Yes, I’ve been to Yellowtail.

Duck: Have you seen the so-called downstream

springs?

Storey: No, I was there in the middle of the winter in

January.

Duck: Springs would still be there.

Storey: I wouldn’t have noticed them.

“About a half mile downstream from the dam,

as the reservoir filled, these springs began to
show up . . .”
Duck: About a half mile downstream from the dam, as
the reservoir filled, these springs began to show
up, and, of course, I was left there. Roscoe was
gone. Mark Wellington Emerald Marcus, was
the Office Engineer, and he was left in charge
of the project, and, of course, I was responsible
for the field. Drilled long horizontal holes,
trying to reach these springs.

“. . . the cement grout was just coming straight

through. . . .”
Pumped bayrite, cottonseed hulls, woodchips,
chopped-up tires, and never really significantly
reduced–tried to get something to bridge cement
grout, because the cement grout was just
coming straight through. We drilled vertical
holes from the grouting tunnels; drilled
horizontal holes from the portal of the spillway
tunnel. Never did stop the– reduced the leakage

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 91

around the spillway outlet portal a little bit, but

the springs downstream, never really touched
them.

“. . . there’s about a hundred second-feet,

which is a significant amount of water, that’s
coming out of that left abutment. . .”
And there’s about a hundred second-feet, which
is a significant amount of water, that’s coming
out of that left abutment, about a half mile
downstream from the dam. Got the afterbay
there, didn’t make any difference. The water
isn’t really lost, except it doesn’t go through the
[hydropower] units.

Storey: You were saying earlier, with limestone–will it

hold water? Why is that?

Duck: Solutioning. You know, you’ve heard of all the

big limestone caves. Limestone is water
soluble. Over a period of time, you really don’t
know what’s connected, or if it’s connected to
anything.

Anchor Dam Had a Problem with Seepage into

Sinkholes
Storey: So you’re always concerned about what’s going
to happen. I think Anchor Dam had a problem
with this kind of thing, maybe.

Duck: You brought it up, therefore–yeah, Anchor Dam

never held water. Saw it up for sidewalks.
They’ve spent a little money–they spent a lot of
money, I think, initially, trying to figure out

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 92

whether, you know, you could blanket the

reservoir, they’ve tried a number of different
things, but my understanding was, they never
did find a water table at Anchor. And some of
those things are a little–you know, that’s one of
the things you look for.

“If there isn’t any water table, why, you may

have a potential problem—karst limestone. . . .”
If there isn’t any water table, why, you may
have a potential problem—karstic [karst]
limestone.

There is nothing unusual about dealing

with limestone karst on a regular basis. You’re
looking for engineering solutions, and, as an
engineer, that’s what you do. You solve
problems. And so it’s an international thing. It
isn’t restricted to Yellowtail-type projects.

Storey: Once you were promoted to Field Engineer,

were you still supervising a shift?

Duck: For the most part, no. You know, you had the
other supervisory inspectors that were moved
into those positions, and so forth. The day shift
thing, for me, was– Phil Soukup had his craft
superintendents, his superintendents for the
concrete, or excavation, or the powerplant
superintendents, and so forth, but he dealt with
me a heck of a lot of the time, and then I dealt
with his supervisory people. He had his finger
or thumb on everything that was going on, knew
what was going on. He’d be out there in the
middle of the night. It wasn’t unusual to see

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 93

Phil on the job at three o’clock in the morning.

And, you know, my part of it was similar to his.
I was out there all the time, and with our people
all the time, and getting feedback on what they
saw that he may have thought he had the rose-
colored glasses on, and I brought him back to
earth a few times.

How Duties Changed When Moved from

Inspection Supervisor to Field Engineer
Storey: Well, had your role changed between being a
supervisor, and being an inspection supervisor,
and being field engineer, in terms of the way
you worked?

Duck: Yeah, you take over some of the responsibility

for the mechanical, electrical, all the activities
that are going on in the field. And, again, not,
you know, that much different, just a different
level of responsibility for it. But you’re looking
at kind of the same thing, but also looking at the
planning, the construction planning. Thought it
was a lot harder.

As Principal Inspector Your Focus Is the Daily

Activity as Opposed to Planning for Future
Needs
As principal inspector, you know, you
were looking at the activity going on today, and
not so much what’s next week or next month,
and how you get into that with the easiest
approach to it.

Storey: What kind of staff would you have had at

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 94

Yellowtail?

Duck: As Field Engineer?

Storey: Well, how about how much staff on a shift

when you were principal supervisor and then
how about–

Duck: It still runs the same from, you know, six or

seven on the dam, to three or four in the
powerplant, probably, in the tunnel, grouting.
Maybe a total of twenty people, something like
that.

As Principal Inspector Supervised up to 20

People; as Field Engineer Supervised up to 120
People
Storey: And then when you became Field Engineer?

Duck: Up to 120, or something like that.

Storey: So that was quite a government camp out there,

I guess.

Duck: Sure.

Storey: Then there was an Office Engineer with the

staff.

Duck: Yes.

Staffing for the Office Engineer

Storey: What kind of staff in there? Do you have any
recollection?

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 95

Duck: Just off the top of my head, I’d say twenty-five,

thirty-engineers, technicians. Depended on
what you were developing in the Bureau. A lot
of the lift drawings and so forth were done by
the Bureau at Flaming Gorge and at Yellowtail,
they were done by the contractor, and checked
by the Bureau. When you get into that sort of
thing, you’ve still got the same amount of staff
about. If you’re going to do it, it takes so much.
If you’re going to check it, it takes so much.
But, I would say, you know, the twenty to thirty
people in the office engineering group was
probably pretty close.

Storey: Did we run into any unusual field problems at

Yellowtail, that you recall, other than the
springs a half mile downstream?

Duck: You know, that’s expected. There wasn’t

anything unusual about that. We knew we were
going to have to deal with it. Yellowtail
involved a number of other things, too–railroad
relocations, bridges in the upper end of the
reservoir, a transmission facility. But, you
know, from my perspective, I can’t think of
anything that was unexpected or that unusual at
Yellowtail.

Storey: When did Mr. Granger leave? How long before

construction ended does a person like that move
on?

Staff Were Watching Libby and the Third

Powerhouse to See What Project Would Go
Next

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 96

Duck: As quick as he can get out of there. (laughter)

Well, we were all watching Libby first, how
that was going to go, whether it would go Corps
or Bureau. But then Coulee came into the
picture, the Coulee Third Powerplant, and there
were a lot of things that had to fall in place for
Coulee to go. The Canadian agreement for
power that was provided out of Grand Coulee
Third Powerplant, those things were being
negotiated. And, of course, the funding, and the
decision on what was going to be the size of the
units, all these things were going on at that
time.

Roscoe Granger Had Been Promised the Third

Powerhouse Project When it Was Authorized
and Funded
But Roscoe had been assured that when Coulee
Third Powerplant, when it was authorized and
funded–and I can’t remember whether it was
funded when he moved over there or not, but I
would say that he left–let’s see. I left
Yellowtail in about August of ‘67, and he had
been gone maybe nine months or something like
that, prior to my leaving.

Storey: He’d gone over to Grand Coulee to start work

there?

Duck: Yes.

Storey: So it had been authorized at that point?

“. . . well, it had been authorized, I’m sure. I’m

not sure that it had been funded. And there’s a

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 97

big difference. . . .”
Duck: I’m not sure–well, it had been authorized, I’m
sure. I’m not sure that it had been funded. And
there’s a big difference. You know, there was a
Construction Engineer on Yellowtail in 1947.

Storey: There was?

Duck: And Roscoe moved over there in ‘63.

Storey: A little before you did.

Duck: A little before I did, yeah. But there had been a

Construction Engineer selected, on the site, for
building Yellowtail, in 1947.

Storey: Well, I know Ken Vernon was real hot to build

that when he was Regional Director from ‘47 to
‘53. Who was the Regional Director while you
guys were building Yellowtail?

Duck: Harold Aldrich was–and Bruce Johnson8 may

have been there. Was Bruce Johnson there
when Harold was Assistant?

Harold Aldrich and Bruce Johnson

Storey: Well, we can find out easily enough.
[Referring to documentation] Bruce Johnson
was ‘60 to May of ‘64, then Harold Aldrich
until ‘72.

8. Bruce Johnson was regional director May 1960

and was succeeded by Harold Aldrich in May 1964.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 98

Duck: Okay, that had to be right. I was right in the

transition, because I went in there in ‘64, and
Harold assumed responsibility for the Regional
Director job.

Storey: Did you have a lot of contact with him?

Duck: I had quite a bit with Harold Aldrich, not Bruce

Johnson.

Storey: How would the Regional Director relate to the

construction project? How did you relate to
him?

Duck: You know, Roscoe–or the Construction

Engineer– obviously more. I had, you know,
really pretty limited contact with him in relation
to anything that I was doing, the work.

Regional Director Responsibilities for

Construction Projects
The regional directors then were responsible for
some administrative services, and getting the
project authorization, getting the funding.
Those are extremely important functions that
were performed by the regions, you know,
everything from land acquisition to dealing with
the politicians.

For the most part– and I think I can speak

for the Roscoe Grangers or any of the
construction engineers–they may have had an
increasing role in it maybe later on, but when
we moved into a construction project, that’s

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 99

what it was all about. Somebody else was

taking care of the money, making sure the
funding was there, the administrative part of it,
relations with Interior, coordination with other
agencies, and so forth. We had our part of it, if
it was field-related.

Issues with the Bureau of Indian Affairs while

building the access road for Yellowtail Dam
Interesting story with Roscoe and the BIA
[Bureau of Indian Affairs] at Yellowtail. We
were paving the construction access road, really
the access road between Hardin, St. Xavier,
wherever you want to call it, on the project end
of this thing–paving a road out there. BIA
pulled a motor grader in and dug it up and
pushed it out. It was on their right-of-way.
Those kind of things caused a lot of heartburn.
That was the relationship between the Bureau
and the BIA, at that time–Bureau of Indian
Affairs and the Bureau of Reclamation. Didn’t
get along too well, if you understand my–I
forget what it was, half mile or other, something
like that. We laid it down, they dug it out.
Made a hell of a lot of sense, right?

Storey: Yeah, it did.

Duck: You know, it was like twenty feet of right-of-

way or something. Harold Aldrich, when I
left–and I’d call it casual contact–of course, we
had Dominy–you know, we built that A-frame
guest house. That was a big deal at Yellowtail,
but it was primarily for Dominy to come out.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 100

And, of course, if Dominy was around, Harold

was around. They both were a couple of
goddamned characters, just pure and simple. I
like both of them. They’re both great guys.
But, you know, that casual contact, what I’d call
casual contact, with Harold.

Harold Aldrich Tried to Convince Him to Stay

on as Regional Engineer
But when I was leaving Yellowtail, he
really tried to persuade me to stay on as
regional engineer in Billings. To placate him, I
sure as hell didn’t want to irritate Harold
Aldrich too much, so, you know, I kind of
played the game, but I had no intention of ever
going to a regional engineer job.

“I was on to the next big construction project.

That’s what I wanted to do. . . .”
I was on to the next big construction project. That’s
what I wanted to do.

Dominy Promised Grand Coulee to Roscoe

Granger
Storey: You said earlier that Mr. Granger had been
assured that he would have Grand Coulee. Who
could give that assurance?

Duck: Floyd Dominy.

Storey: Floyd Dominy?

Duck: Floyd Dominy, yeah.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 101

Storey: Oh, okay. Not the Chief Engineer?

Duck: No. Certainly, the Chief Engineer– you know,

Dominy, and Bellport had agreed on that, I
think it was Bellport.

Storey: Yeah, I think it would have been at that time.

Duck: Yeah. Dominy and Bellport and Bloodgood,

those guys, you know, they were all on the same
page. They were all on the same page. Some
weren’t with Dominy.

Storey: If you think back, were there any particular

reasons you didn’t want to be the regional
engineer in Billings?

“You know, I didn’t even consider it [regional

engineer] much of a job. The big construction
projects were where I was headed. . . .”
Duck: Well, yeah, there’s a lot of reasons. You know,
I didn’t even consider it much of a job. The big
construction Projects were where I was headed.
And, at that time, there were a lot of them on
the board. You know, not the Grand Coulee,
not the Coulee Third Powerplant, not maybe
that scope.

“. . . there were a lot of . . . projects that were

being thought about, in the planning stage . . .
And it looked to me like, you know, there was
no end to it. And that’s what I wanted to do. . .
.”
But there were a lot of other projects that were

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 102

being though about, in the planning stage, and

so forth. And it looked to me like, you know,
there was no end to it. And that’s what I
wanted to do. I still have the urge every five or
six years, looking over the horizon. Where
should I be going?

Storey: You mentioned earlier that one of the things

that had to be settled was the size of the units in
the Third Powerhouse. Do you remember what
you were hearing in the field at that time, about
the discussions that were going on, about that?

Duck: What I was hearing was that they were going to

be the big units. The decision was made. Now,
who are we going to drag, kicking and
screaming? You know, I had nothing to do with
it, whether they were going with the big units.
Roscoe had nothing really to do with it. That’s
so far out of our background to really have
anything to say about it. The only thing was
that we knew, I knew, and, of course, I’d had
the exposure to installing units, and the
problems with getting them into commission,
starting up, that sort of thing, with not state-of-
the-art stuff, the regular, routine, you would
consider, units, and so forth.

Obviously, when you start pushing the

state of the art, the most of anything, anyplace
in the world–and the Bureau did an awful lot of
that–conservative, you bet. The top engineering
organization in the world, come to this sort
of–you know, from these water resources
projects. I don’t give a damn whether it’s dams
or power or what it was, the Bureau was the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 103

best, and I’ll talk about that a little more, a little

later. But you know that when you start
pushing the state of the art, you’re going to have
problems. There’s going to be things that
happen that you have to deal with, but that’s
what we’re there for.

“. . . you know that when you start pushing the

state of the art, you’re going to have problems.
. . .”
But as far as having anything–as far as I
was concerned, when I started hearing, and kept
hearing, about going from the twelve units
down to six 600- megawatt units, and then it
turned out to be three 600s and three seven
something. I can’t remember exactly what it
was.

“. . . 600 megawatt, plus turbine generating

units, and the scale of everything going up, you
know, for that size unit, we were going to have
problems of one kind of another . . .”
But anyway, 600 megawatt, plus turbine
generating units, and the scale of everything
going up, you know, for that size unit, we were
going to have problems of one kind of another,
and it ain’t gonna to be solved in fifteen
minutes. It’s going to take years to work
through.

Storey: But you knew from talks with Mr. Granger that
you were going to be over there? Is that what
I’m understanding?

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 104

Duck: Yeah. Yeah, there was no doubt that that’s

where I was going.

Storey: And you went, August of ‘67.

Duck: August of ‘67.

Storey: What was the stage of construction when you

got there, or was there a stage of construction?

The Third Powerhouse Was Being Contracted

at the Time of Arrival on the Project
Duck: There really wasn’t anything–you know, it was
getting under contract.

Preliminary Site Clearing Had Begun, but No

Construction Contract Work
There was some preliminary stuff, like getting
houses relocated, getting things moved out of
the take line, getting prepared, doing the
planning for what, at least, our perspective, on
what the contractor might do, what he might
want to use for areas, and getting all that
preliminary work done. But there wasn’t a
construction contract underway then.

“We had the switchyards to move– without

taking them out of service . . .”
We had the switchyards to move–without
taking them out of service– to rebuild, or build,
and then remove existing switchyards. One on
the right abutment was in the way of the
forebay, for a forebay dam. That had to be

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 105

taken out before we could start the forebay

construction.

“Had to remove the end of the dam, and there

was a significant amount of planning that went
into that. . . .”
Had to remove the end of the dam, and there
was a significant amount of planning that went
into that.

Storey: You talked about blowing it up, I think, last

time. Wasn’t it you?

Duck: Well, I think I was talking about–

Storey: Tunneling, maybe.

Duck: Maybe somebody else mentioned blowing it up,

but we were driving under the switchyard
relocation and the switchyard construction
work.

Drove a Tunnel Through the Dam to Provide

Cable Access to the New Switchyard
There needed to be cable access driven within
the dam, and a tunnel, an incline tunnel for
cableways to that new switchyard. Big
switchyard, big structure.

Laying Oil-insulated Cable up a Substantial

Change of Elevation to the New Switchyard Had
Not Been Done Before
Everything was scaled up kind of, there at

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 106

Coulee, and pushing again the state of the art

for the type of oil pipe, the insulated cable,
high-voltage cable systems that hadn’t been
done. Lay them out horizontal, that’s one thing.
That change in elevation there at Coulee was
something else. That hadn’t been done before.

Storey: I understand those stretched.

Duck: Creep down, you know–

Storey: And they had problems.

Duck: Cycle, and it keeps creeping down the hill, and

so forth. Ultimately replaced them again.

“Again, those kind of things. Designers think

they’ve got it figured out, and you go build
them, and then you modify them if it doesn’t
work. Nothing unusual about it, as far as I’m
concerned. . . .”
Again, those kind of things. Designers think
they’ve got it figured out, and you go build
them, and then you modify them if it doesn’t
work. Nothing unusual about it, as far as I’m
concerned.

Storey: Is that typical of engineering?

Duck: Oh, I think so.

Storey: You know, one of my favorite questions

is–well, you know, I’m just a
historian–engineers are supposed to do it right
the first time.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 107

Duck: And you fully expect to. You fully expect to. It
doesn’t always work.

Storey: Doesn’t always work.

Duck: Doesn’t always work.

Storey: Last time you mentioned some of the

coordination problems with the office there at
Grand Coulee.

Duck: Yeah, that started out pretty shaky. Ultimately

got worked out. Everybody keyed up. As a
matter of fact, I believe when they awarded the
prime contract for Grand Coulee Third
Powerplant, it was $110 million, I believe that
was the largest civil works contract that had
been awarded by the government up to that
point in time.9

Third Powerhouse at Grand Coulee Was a Joint

Venture of Vinnell, Dravo, Lockheed, and
Mannix
And that, again, was a joint venture–Vinnell,
Dravo, Lockheed, and Mannix,10 Mannix being
the Canadian contractor, and they had about 10

9. Others have stated that it was the largest

Reclamation contract up to that time.
10. Vinnell Corporation of Alhambra, California;
Dravo Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;
Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company of
Seattle; and Mannix Construction Company of Calgary,
Alberta, Canada.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 108

percent of the project. The rest of it was split

amongst the other three. Interesting to note that
not one of the three–I’m not sure what the status
of Mannix is–is in the heavy construction
business today. But at that point in time, that, I
think, the largest civil works construction
project that had been awarded, and sponsored
by Vinnell.

Storey: How do you spell that last one?

Duck: V-I-N-N-E-L-L, I believe. Vinnell.

Storey: How did that work?

“. . . Vinnell, went through, if I’m not mistaken,

three managers in less than a year . . “
Duck: Coulee was another one of those projects post
my view of how Yellowtail was. Grand Coulee,
sponsored by Vinnell, went through, if I’m not
mistaken, three managers in less than a year,
were into the third manager in less than a year.

“Everything got behind real quick. . . .”

Everything got behind real quick. We thought
that they selected the wrong support system,
using whirly cranes with a materials deck. In
between there were three decks. Once the
decision is made, and this is what you build, for
supporting the project or accomplishing the
project–

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 109

END SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

Storey: You were talking about the fact that their

support facilities might have been ill-chosen.

Duck: Jumping ahead, the project got behind schedule.

Actually, this is going back quite a few years,
but Ellis Armstrong, Commissioner at that point
in time, came out.

Serious Problems Because of Political

Commitments for Completion of the Project
You know, there was an administration/
departmental commitment that this facility was
going on the line on X date, and nothing is
going to change that. Well, from day one, I
knew, and Roscoe knew, that we were dead if
we didn’t–you know, everything had to go just
like clockwork, and we never saw a project go
like clockwork.

Anyway, a year into the project, or

thereabouts, and according to what I was
saying, at that time, and I was Roscoe’s Field
Engineer, he didn’t really rely on Howard Fink,
anybody else. It was me. He was relying on me
the whole way to keep him out of trouble.
Well, what I had decided, we were losing a day
every day we weren’t working on the job. That
was my conclusion. Every day that this
contractor, these people, are working on this
project, we’re a day behind, and that takes some
doing to get there. And, again, the politics got
involved in it, and, you know, I didn’t give a

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

110

damn about the politics. What I cared about

was what was going to come down on our head.

So Ellis Armstrong came out, and Ellis

and I traveled the project together. We’re
standing on the top of the existing Grand
Coulee Dam, looking at construction, and I’ll
never forget it. I said, “Ellis, we’re a year
behind, and we’re getting farther behind every
day. A year behind. And from where I sit, you
know, there’s no way we’re going to make it up,
no way that we’re not going to lose another
year.”

He reached over, patted me on the

shoulder, and he says, “You’ll figure out a way
to make it up.” And, of course, I didn’t say any
more to Ellis, but went back, talked Roscoe into
signing a letter to Bellport, telling him that we
were a year behind, not only a year behind, but
it didn’t look good for not losing another year.

Well, I think what happened, and I don’t

know this for certain, but I think Roscoe told it
to me pretty straight, Bellport got the letter,
called up Armstrong, told him what the letter
said, and the letter went in the wastebasket, you
know, weren’t going to acknowledge to
anybody that that project was slipping.

Well, in addition to everything, a hell of

lot of things going on, 50 million yards of
excavation, and cutting the end of that dam, and
getting it all done without killing a lot of
people. We finally got to the point where–and I
can’t remember how it reached this point, at any

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 111

rate, we finally sent a cure notice to the

contractor, “Tell us how you’re going to fix it.”
And this had to be worked through, and time
had gone by. A significant amount of time had
gone by before we could push it to this point.

Cure Notice Sent to Contractor

Anyway, sent a notice to the contractor to tell us
how we had it sized up, how they expected to
cure the problem, or that we were placing them
in default.

Well, that resulted in a series of meetings

between the field, the Denver office, and, at that
time, I got to be the–as I told those contractors,
that whole group, and we had them all, sitting
up here in what was called the Brown Room, at
that time, on the fourteenth floor. It was a hell
of a bunch of people, had the lawyers,
everybody’s lawyer. I made a presentation, and
laid out just exactly the way I saw it, what had
happened, and where we were, and what it was
going to take. One, I had it laid out from what
it would have taken from the day they moved in
on the job to have stayed on schedule.

There was a lot of discussion at that time

about critical path. We had included a critical
path analysis in the specifications, and that was
kind of on the front edge of–although not
completely on the front edge of that technology,
but planning technology. But what it was going
to take to get it back on track. The contractor
alleged that they were using the critical path.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

112

Contractor Was Using Two Rather than Three

Shifts
Well, they were using the critical path on a two-
shift basis. They weren’t even including the
three shifts, and I knew that, right or wrong.

We pushed them right to the edge of–we

had them convinced we were going to place that
group of contractors, given their reputation at
that point in time, which wouldn’t mean
anything now, they’re nonexistent now, but
Dravo and Mannix, Lockheed was, you know,
just there. They were having their shipbuilding
problems. Doug Baker was working for
Lockheed at this time. Doug had gone from
Project Manager at Flaming Gorge, he went to
M-K from Kiewit. So I had him out of Boise on
Yellowtail. He was now with Lockheed on
Grand Coulee. So, you know, I kept seeing
Doug Baker. But as I say, Mannix was a
skookum outfit at that time– Canadian. Pretty
good people, pretty straight. They didn’t want
this on their record, that they had been in
default on that project.

“. . . a good part of them came from the West

Coast. They called a lunch recess at ten
o’clock in the morning, Denver time. . . .”
And Dravo sure as hell didn’t want their
reputation [injured]– anyway, they called a
lunch recess, and a good part of them came
from the West Coast. They called a lunch
recess at ten o’clock in the morning, Denver
time.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 113

Sponsorship Shifted from Vinnell to Dravo

What they came back with or what ultimately
we got was a change in sponsorship. Dravo
took over the sponsorship–

Storey: From Mannix?

Duck: From Vinnell, who had had three managers on

that project in a short period of time. Dravo
agreed–their proposal was, as part of their cure
for the problem, was to bring Dravo in as
sponsor and put their own Project Manager in,
which was project [manager] number either four
or five, that we’d had at that point in time, when
Ellis was telling me, “No, you figure out a way
to make it up.”

Dravo brought a guy in by the name of

John Heckert to manage the project, and from
then on, John was struggling to maintain no
worse than where they were, which was a
difficult thing to do. John and I got along great.
John and Roscoe got along great. These other
guys were flakes. One of them that Vinnell
brought in didn’t stay two weeks, and he had
come off of one of the other–not John Day, but
one of the other Corps dams. The last manager
that they had was a crazy son of a bitch that
they brought in from John Day. His company
car was a brand new Ford Thunderbird.
(laughter)

Storey: These were projects further on down the

Columbia that they were drawing upon?

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 114

Duck: Yeah.

Storey: So Vinnell had experience with these?

Decline of the Heavy Construction Industry

Duck: Vinnell had a lot of experience with it. It is
symptomatic of what I see happening, and has
happened, and was happening to the
construction industry, to the major construction
contractors. You know, old man Vinnell, he
had a guy with him that I don’t remember his
name, but when Vinnell died and he handed the
management of that company to his successor,
everything went all right. When his successor
passed out of the picture–I think he also died
just within a couple of years–if I remember
right, the CEO was an accountant, and when
they passed out of that whole history, that
lineage of construction people and major
projects, and give it to someone that’s looking
simply at the dollars and cents, and don’t even
know enough about the business to tell when
somebody’s lying to them, they begin to fall
apart. That happened in a heck of a hurry to
Vinnell.

Doug Baker, again, worked some years

with Vinnell, and I can’t tell you, I just haven’t
had enough interest to look back at where and
when Doug was with Vinnell, but he was with
them quite a while, but left, I’m sure, at the time
that the old man died.

But if you look at Atkinson, M-K, and

look at what has happened to these major

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 115

players, look at the six companies that built

Hoover Dam, the only one that really is still out
there, in name, doing the same thing–I’m not
sure there is any. I was going to say Bechtel,
but Bechtel is not in the construction business
anymore. The company is there, and they are
involved in a lot of different things, but Bechtel
Construction, as, you know, Steve Bechtel, in
their involvement with Hoover Dam,
Atkinson’s involvement with Hoover Dam, of
course, Atkinson lost their heavy construction
people. The last CEO of Atkinson that I knew
well came out of the manufacturing group in
Minnesota.

You can just go through the [list]–Utah, I

don’t know where they are today. Look at
Kaiser. Doug Baker was with Kaiser down in
Guri, in South America. And I, later on, had
him down there, with Harza. The major
construction players are few and far between.
The oldtimers are gone.

Storey: Did you make up the time?

Duck: No. I forget how late we were. Would have to

go back and look. Of course, I wasn’t there,
you know, when it all shook out. And that’s
another story, too.

Storey: One which we’d best not start today. (laughter)

Duck: Whatever you say.

Storey: Were you involved when they did remove the

end of the dam and everything? Why don’t you

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 116

tell me about that. Or is there something before

that we should talk about?

Duck: I don’t think so. I don’t think the sequence

makes much difference.

Storey: You’ve talked about moving the switchyard,

and that kind of thing.

Howard Latham Became Reclamation’s Safety

Officer
Duck: That was a major effort in itself. One of the
things, for safety reasons–and at this point in
time, Howard Latham was the Chief Safety
Officer. Barney Bellport had brought him into
Denver. He backed Howard Latham. We’d all
scream and rant and rave and cuss, but if
Howard said that was the way it was going to
be, old Barney backed him. And Roscoe was
smart enough not to take him on, anyway. But
that was the beginning of– and going back to
Flaming Gorge, that was where that safety
program really got started.

Storey: You were talking about Howard Latham

starting a safety program. Is that what I was
hearing?

Howard Latham Affected the Construction

Program for the Third Powerhouse
Duck: Yeah, seriously getting a safety program
initiated. Howard was obnoxious as they come,
but if he wrote you up, Barney was going to

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 117

come down on your head. There wasn’t any

arguing with Latham. Well, how that relates to
Coulee is, Howard, because of all the
extraneous electricity, all the transmission lines,
all the proximity of the switchyards and so
forth, mandated that all the blasting be done
with non-electric delays. That meant you
couldn’t even use a single cap to initiate a
system. Everything had to be primacord, prima
dets, cut fuses, caps. Everything was non-
electric, which made it a little bit unusual, but
that’s the way it was. We didn’t use an electric
blasting cap on that job.

The specifications required taking down the

concrete in the dam in five foot lifts
But the specifications required that those
last four or five blocks–and the fifth would have
been just a wedge-shaped piece of concrete,
next to the abutment–that they all be taken
down, or that the blocks be taken down in, like,
five-foot lifts. Very limited amount of blasting
powder and so forth per blast. Everything
monitored for vibration. Maximum
accelerations specified and so forth. And, you
know, that’s a long, arduous process, and you’re
still blasting on the dam.

“. . . they proposed that we just knock the rock

out from under . . . those blocks, and tip them
into the forebay area. . . .”
Contractor approached me–well, the

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

118

contractor I might have mentioned early on, Bill

Grimes, who was what I considered to be,
without the education, without anything, a real
blasting expert. He was a technician, but he’d
been around. That’s what he’d been doing for
years and years and years. Well, they
approached me with the proposal that we shoot
the rock out from under the–the base of the
blocks were exposed, the work area was
protected by a set of cellular coffer dams,
retaining the reservoir. Cellular coffer dam
built around these blocks that were to be
removed, and they proposed that we just knock
the rock out from under the bottom of those
blocks, and tip them into the forebay area.

Looking at it and thinking about it, I

decided it could be done, and we set about to do
it that way. That end block wasn’t that
significant, but there were two full blocks and a
piece of a block that were, you know, they were
up there in the air 50, 75 feet. Anyway, what
we set out to do was just drill under them and
kick the wedge-shaped piece out from under
them, roll the whole section into the forebay.
And then without affecting the main structure,
you could drill them secondary blast, shoot
them into sizes, you know, pieces that could be
handled. And that’s what we did. It was
spectacular.

I got myself in, again–I was always into

some kind of debacle, but the region got word
of what we were going to do, and got all
prepared to send photographers out. We had a
project photographer and all. Going to send

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 119

people out to watch, from the region. Roscoe

called me in and asked me about it, and I said,
“If they come out, we don’t do it. We aren’t
going to do it with a lot of spectators.”

“. . . I have a hell of a lot of confidence, but I

had a hell of a lot more confidence then than I
do today. . . .”
You know, I have a hell of a lot of confidence,
but I had a hell of a lot more confidence then
than I do today. (laughter) The older you get,
the more conservative.

But everything went off without a hitch.

The picture of the largest block that we rolled
out of there was on the cover of Civil
Engineering magazine. That’s the one you see
around the Bureau. It may be gone now. I
don’t know. Yeah, it got done. And it didn’t
get done without a lot of spectators. There’s
just no way that you can keep that quiet. The
last piece of a block, cut a slot in, an isolation
slot, first, and had all that done, from the crest,
right down to the rock foundation, so that these
pieces that we were rolling off were separated.
I forget whether it was a ten-foot slot or
something like that, but the end was isolated.

Storey: Well, I’d like to continue on, but we’re a few

minutes overtime, actually. So I’d like to ask if
you’re willing for the information on these
cassettes, and the resulting transcripts, to be
used by researchers.

Duck: Sure.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 120

Storey: Good. Thank you very much.

Duck: You bet.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 12, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

Storey: This is Brit Storey, Senior Historian of the

Bureau of Reclamation, interviewing Donald
[Don] J. Duck, on February the 20th, 1996, at
about nine in the morning, in Building 67, on
the Denver Federal Center. This is tape one.

Viewed the Third Powerhouse as a Straight-

forward Heavy Construction Job
Mr. Duck, last time, we were talking
about your work at Third Powerhouse in Grand
Coulee, and you had already talked about
toppling the segment of the dam and that kind
of thing, but we hadn’t done some of the
preliminary stuff, like putting in the coffer dam,
I think it’s called, and the kinds of things you
had to watch for when you were dealing with an
existing dam there. Could you talk about those
for me, please?

Duck: It, from my perspective, seemed to be a straight-

forward heavy construction job. The cellular
coffer dam, of course, that involves underwater
work. The downstream coffer dam, add the
excavation for the foundation of that coffer dam
required underground work. And that material,
the clay, extremely tough to dig. Tried a lot of
different methods. For the most part, cleaned it
up with drag lines, which is not the best, but we

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 121

managed to get a foundation constructed. Of

course, the upstream coffer dam required
underwater blasting. But, there wasn’t anything
really unusual about the difficulty of the work.
That’s what we do.

Storey: What about removing the end of the dam and

then building the new segment there? What
kinds of things had to be watched out for, taken
care of, if you will?

Duck: Well, the specifications required–in talking

about removing the end of the dam, an isolation
slot between the dam that was to remain, and
that that was to be removed. A slot was cut
from the crest of the dam to the rock
foundation, and then the intent was to, in small
blasts, five-foot lifts, remove the remainder of
the existing dam. In the interest of speeding the
whole process up and not having to do that
more or less, meticulous, careful blasting, just
remove the blocks as a unit.

Then with secondary blasting, down in the

forebay, bust up the large pieces into smaller
pieces and haul them out.

Storey: Well, you make it sound so simple. They cut a

slot from the crest to the bedrock. How did
they do that?

Duck: Drilled close center holes, small charges,

everything monitored with accelerometers, so
that we had control, knew the vibration that was
acceptable, and what we were getting, actually.
I guess one of the things that–couple of things

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

122

that were of interest, would be of interest, that

we learned about, with the units running in the
right powerplant, when these major blasts for
excavation in the forebay–and they were large
shots; I don’t remember how many ton of
powder we were using in the blast, but they
were big–brought a lot of rock excavation to be
accomplished there.

Had to Shut down Some Units in the

Powerplants Before Blasting
While the vibrations recorded in the
powerplant were acceptable, they were
magnified through the rotating parts of the
units, therefore we’d trip numbers of the units
off line when we’d blast. Therefore, the
procedure was developed that we’d shut those
units down before we blasted, or you trip them
out. The blasting of the cableway tunnels
within the dam, of course, there are a number of
elevators in that dam. I don’t remember exactly
how many.

“. . . the first blast in the interior of the dam for

these tunnels that were being driven, we blew
the elevator doors off, and they went clear to
the pit. . . .”
But anyway, the first blast in the interior of the
dam for these tunnels that were being driven,
we blew the elevator doors off, and they went
clear to the pit. So we modified. The thing that
worked, we tried baffles, still knocked the
elevator doors off. The procedure that was
developed was to open the elevator doors and

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 123

take the car to the bottom, block the elevator

doors, and therefore that concussion was
acceptable.

Storey: That’s interesting.

Duck: Yeah, it was interesting the first time around.

(laughter)

Storey: I was down at Hoover last week, touring, and

they were talking about having trouble with
putting in that new access tunnel for the new
elevators, because they didn’t want to
imbalance the generators, and now I’m
beginning to understand. So there’s a
mechanism in there, in effect, that tells it, “Hey,
you’re unbalanced, and you’ve got to quit going
around.” A governor of some sort?

Duck: Trip it out, yeah. Trip the units out of service.

They have the limits in which they’ll operate,
and if they get a vibration, or a disk, you know,
something that’s out of the acceptable range,
they shut down.

Storey: Something that is out of the acceptable range,

yeah.

Duck: Yeah, right, yeah. They shut down.

Storey: How long were you there?

Duck: From August of 1967 until August of 1972.

Storey: So this was your longest construction job, I’m

thinking.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 124

Duck: Yes.

Storey: How close to complete were you at that time?

The Civil Works Were near Completion When

He Left, but the Units Still Had to Be Installed in
the Third Powerhouse
Duck: Not that close. The civil works were near
completion, and unit installation under way,
switchyards relocated. But even at that point,
with the unit installation, that’s a major part.
Well, that’s the purpose of the whole thing, you
know, is to have these units that produce
electricity. That’s what it boiled down to there.
Really wasn’t any irrigation component or flood
control component, really. It was strictly a
power project.

There was still work being done on the

forebay dam, still work being done on the
powerhouse. I can’t remember exactly where
we were, without going back and looking.

“I left there kind of unexpectedly, as far as I

was concerned. . . .”
I left there kind of unexpectedly, as far as
I was concerned. Talking a little bit earlier
about the training, and, as I recall–

Storey: Before we turned on the tape, yeah. Go ahead.

Duck: Before we turned on the tape, yeah. Ed

Sullivan, at some point in time, became regional
director, out of Boise. At any rate, he–

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 125

Storey: Ed Sullivan was director from ‘72 to ‘74.

Ed Sullivan, the Regional Director in Boise,

Talked to Him about Career Goals
Duck: Yeah. So toward the end of–well, he must have
come in just before I left there. But he came out
and talked to me for–I can’t remember what the
reason was and who else he might have been
talking to, but I remember him talking to me
about what my career goals were. At that point
in time, I said, “My goal is to make tomorrow.”
I said, “If you’re asking me do I have
aspirations to become a Chief Engineer of the
Bureau of Reclamation, the answer is no. I
expect to be a construction engineer, and I
expect to wind up where I wind up. As far as
goal setting, no, I haven’t set any goals.”

Well, in June of–and, you know–there

were other things going on in the Bureau.
Bellport was leaving.

Chief Engineer’s Title Changed When Ellis

Armstrong Became Commissioner
Arthur, who was his assistant, was expected,
maybe, to assume the so-called Chief Engineer
role, although they changed the title at that
point in time to Director of Design and
Construction, I think. When Ellis Armstrong
became Commissioner, that change in titles for
the Chief Engineer took place.

Asked to Attend an Engineering Conference at

Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 126

But in June of ‘72, Ralph Gullett, who

headed up the Construction Division here in
Denver, called me, and for some reason wanted
me to attend an engineering conference at the
Asilomar Conference Ground out in Pacific
Grove, California, which I did. I think what had
happened, somebody had to cancel out, and
Ralph wanted me to attend in whoever was
supposed to be there, in their stead. I don’t
know whether you know anything about the
Asilomar Conference Grounds or not.

Storey: No. I just know they’re there, and that they’re

supposed to be very nice.

Duck: They are that. No telephones, no TV, no radio,

unless you bring a radio, that sort of thing. I
didn’t find a telephone on the conference
grounds. In other words, if you wanted to call
out, you had to leave the conference grounds,
go to a pay phone on a side street some place.

Called by Assistant Commissioner Bill Keating

and Asked to Fly to Washington, D.C.
But while I was there, I got a call from
Bill Keating, who was the Assistant
Commissioner under Armstrong at that time.
The way it worked is, I got the incoming call, or
they took the incoming call on the conference
grounds, but I couldn’t return it from the
conference grounds. Anyway, I had a call that
Bill Keating wanted to talk to me as soon as
possible. You had to know Keating. He was
another character.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 127

Told He Was Being Considered for the Position

of Deputy Director of Design and Construction
Anyway, I found a pay telephone off on
one of the side streets of the Asilomar grounds,
and I got hold of Keating, and he said, “Duck, I
got a hell of a shock for you. You’re being
considered for the Deputy Director of Design
and Construction, and I want you in
Washington, like tomorrow, like now.”

And I said, “Hell, how am I going to get

out of here? Are you going to make hotel
reservations, etc., etc.?” Anyway, I changed my
plans right quick. I think it was the next day,
anyway, I had a chance to walk around on the
beach at the campground, and think about what
the hell, you know, and my conclusion was that
I was just one on a list of candidates that were
being considered, and I was about half-irritated
that I was going to be jerked back to
Washington, D.C., all for nothing. I don’t give
a damn about it anyway. But the ego thing gets
into it, too. It was an interesting feeling.

At that point in my career, I was, what,

forty-one years old. Yeah. That I was being
considered for that job–anyway, I went back to
D.C., and the Assistant Commissioners, Don
Anderson, Keating, as kind of a curious thing to
me, were treating me like it was a done deal. I
kept saying, “Who in the hell else are they
looking at? Who’s on the short list?” Couldn’t
get anything. You know, they were just treating
it like it was a–which it could be, at that point in
time.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 128

Later on, the–it wouldn’t have been

possible to just reach in and pick somebody
without competing it, without some appearance
of a competition going on. Today, it couldn’t
be done, I’m sure. But nevertheless–and on the
way back from Washington, I had another
meeting that I’d been scheduled for for a long
time, and this would’ve been the early part of
August, with the underground construction
group, and I presented a paper on the blasting
that we’d been doing, the non-electric blasting,
that whole excavation blasting program at
Grand Coulee.

Storey: Where was this you gave the paper?

Duck: In Chicago, Palmer House. Underground

construction. U.S. Tunneling and Technology
was the group that had asked me to present this
paper.

Arthur Asked Him When He Would Be Able to

Move to Denver
Anyway, Harold [Arthur] came through there,
too, and, of course, I don’t remember exactly
what he said, but, you know, when can I move?
It was a done deal. And that’s what Armstrong
told me before I left Washington, as well. The
only thing he’d cautioned me about was that
this certainly didn’t mean that I was going to
become Chief Engineer. It would be decided at
that time, which I thought, “Well, it makes
sense, you know.

Storey: But it’s not the tradition of Reclamation. The

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 129

Assistant, I believe, had always become the

Chief Engineer.

Duck: Yeah, yeah. (laughter)

Storey: Ellis told me he was trying to change the way

the Denver office functioned, so he was
thinking differently, I think.

Duck: He did. There are some pluses and minuses that

go along with that. You know, I agree that–but
on balance, I don’t think it worked that bad.

Storey: The former system, you mean?

Ellis Armstrong Disrupted the Denver Office

with His Shake up
Duck: The former system. There was a hell of a lot of
disruption that occurred, you know, that was
created by Ellis, and the shaking up of the
Denver office. You look at things the way they
shook out, the way they happened. Part of
what–the Teton [Dam] thing, you keep coming
back, or those of us that lived through it, you
keep coming back to Teton, and the significance
of that on the Bureau program. But, you know,
in flying around with a bunch of congressional
subcommittee staffers at some point in time
after Teton failed, when “Bizz” Johnson11 and

11. Harold Terry (Bizz) Johnson served as president

of the American River Development League from 1945
to 1949; member of the California state senate 1949-
(continued...)

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 130

[Manuel] Lujan,12 [Donald Holst] Clausen,13

California; [Steven D.] Symms14 from Idaho;
Hansen, Idaho, when those people and the
related subcommittees and their staff people–I
accompanied them on the airplane up there to
look at the site after it failed, which was kind of
a devastating thing, even today, to go look at it.
It was a hell of a thing.

Anyway, we spent the time on the project,

and then spent the evening in the motel, up until
the wee hours of the morning–one-, two
o’clock–and they grilled the hell out of me. I
can’t remember the staffers that were there.
They concluded, when we broke up, that I had
convinced that particular group of people that
Teton should be rebuilt. And I believed that. I
believe it today.

11. (...continued)
1959; member of the U.S. Congress 1959-1981; not
reelected in 1980; and died in Roseville, California in
1988.
12. Manuel Lujan, Jr., born in 1928, served New
Mexico in the U.S. Congress 1969-1989; Secretary of
the Interior 1989-1993; is a resident of Albuquerque.
13. Was a California representative to the U.S.
Congress 1963-1983, not reelected in 1982.
Subsequently served as director, special programs,
Federal Aviation Administration.
14. Born in 1938, Symms served in the U.S.
Congress 1973-1981 and than in the U.S. Senate 1981-
1993. Subsequently stayed in Washington, D.C., in
various lobbying capacities.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 131

“. . . dealing with those people is a high-risk

exposure anytime . . .”

“. . . it was my feeling that, really, the Bureau

got to the point where its confidence level
reached an over-confidence in whatever we
were doing . . .”
But what I said, what I believed, and said
it to that group of people, dealing with those
people is a high-risk exposure anytime, but I
told them it was my feeling that, really, the
Bureau got to the point where its confidence
level reached an overconfidence in whatever we
were doing, that we had that confidence level in
what we were doing, what we were engineering,
what we were building, that we got over-
confident. You can always look back on a
disaster like that and make some kind of a
conclusion like that. But the experience, the
fact that you had 300 dams, 300-plus dams
sitting out there, and not really had a failure,
Fontenelle, you know, that was another near-
disaster.

Fontenelle Was a Near-disaster

Felt Barney Bellport Should Have Highlighted

Fontanelle Dam Problems to Staff
I was always kind of irritated, really, at
Barney Bellport for not really making that
experience–not ramming it down everybody in
the field’s throat, you know, making everybody
look at what nearly happened at Fontenelle, but
for, really, the type of material and the size of

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 132

the ability to empty the reservoir was what

made the difference there.

Teton design didn’t require large outlets

But you come along with the Teton, and didn’t
require the large outlets, dealing with erodible
materials, all of the above. I knew about
Fontanelle–I was at Yellowtail at the time–but
didn’t register. You know, nobody really
briefed us on what was going on. I really feel
like everybody in the Bureau that dealt in the
field construction process probably should have
watched the Fontanelle movie and then had
drilled into them what the potentials are for
dealing with these hydraulic structures.

My experience in concrete dams, you

know, we had the little embankment dam, the
afterbay dam, at Yellowtail. But really, my
experience with concrete don’t have the same
kind of concerns about earth materials [as] with
concrete.

Storey: That you do with concrete dams.

Duck: Yeah, well, you deal with embankment,

embankments being earthfill, rockfill, central-
core, whatever.

“All of the studies that were done, the effort

that was put into what exactly happened at
Teton, nobody knows yet today. Everybody
has their ideas, but it simply isn’t possible to
tie down exactly what the hell happened there. .
. .”

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 133

All of the studies that were done, the effort that

was put into what exactly happened at Teton,
nobody knows yet today. Everybody has their
ideas, but it simply isn’t possible to tie down
exactly what the hell happened there. We know
it failed. That was my conclusion right out of
the–doesn’t really make that much difference,
the exact mechanism that it failed under. It
shouldn’t.

Storey: Where were you when it failed? Do you

remember?

Duck: Yeah. Hell, yes, I remember. Getting ahead a

little bit. Well, I came in to Denver in ‘72.

Storey: Do you want to go back and start there? That’s

fine.

Duck: I’ll get back to Teton pretty quick, because it

comes up pretty quick. When I saw Arthur in
Chicago, and he told me that I was his
candidate, and get ready to move, I went back
to Grand Coulee and made arrangements to
move to Denver.

Was at His Daughter’s High School Graduation

When Teton Dam Failed
You were asking about where I was. Our
daughter graduated from Columbine High
School in 1976, and in June of ‘76, on June the
6th, she was over here across the street in this
Jefferson County complex. That’s where the
graduation ceremony was.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 134

Storey: The sports stadium.

Duck: Yeah, right across the street. Right across

Kipling. We were over there. She graduated.
It was like ten o’clock in the morning. Teton
was already under–it was distressed at that point
in time. At least the abutments were leaking,
and so forth. Sat there through her graduation
ceremony. She went off with her friends, and
Dolores and I went over there to the Lakewood
Grill. I don’t know whether you know where
the Lakewood Grill is or not.

Storey: I’m not sure where that is.

Duck: And had lunch. Well, it’s over on Colfax. It’s a

hole-in-the-wall place. She came into Denver
with me from, I guess, Flaming Gorge and from
Yellowtail, to concrete school and to earth
school. We stayed over there on Colfax, around
one of the motels over there. So we got familiar
with this Lakewood Grill. Anyway, we went
back to the Lakewood Grill for lunch after this
ceremony, or the graduation ceremony, and got
home about four o’clock in the afternoon.

When I walked through the door, the

telephone was ringing, and Bill Groseclose was
on the phone. He said, “Have you been
watching any TV? There’s a dam failure up in
Idaho. Turn on the TV and tell me if that’s our
Teton Dam.”

I punched the TV on, and I said, “It sure

as hell is.”

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 135

When Teton Dam Failed, Harold Arthur Had

Recently Lost His Wife
Arthur had been trying to get hold of me,
and so I called Harold right quick. Harold had
gone through total hell up to that point in time.
I think his wife, Fran, was diagnosed with a
brain tumor in December–December of ‘75,
January of ‘76, about that time. Of course, she
went downhill in a hurry, and passed away in
April–I believe it was April–of ‘76. He was
pretty shook up about that. While it didn’t drag
out for that many months, it was tough on him.
It was tough on all of us. He spent a lot of time
in my office, every morning, talking about Fran.
He was really torn up. They got along great.
They were a great couple, and great friends of
Dolores and mine. Tore us all up. Anyway,
he’d gone through that, certainly hadn’t
recovered. He took some time off and drove
around. He was out in California a while and
up in Montana.

END SIDE 1, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

Storey: You were saying that after his wife’s death,

Harold had taken a few months off, and then I
guess he was back.

Duck: Yeah. He was back. Then when I got hold of

him, we agreed that he would–I didn’t know
where the airplanes were, but I knew we could
get one within a matter of hours. Anyway, we
agreed he’d take a team of engineers,
geologists, engineers, go to the site and start

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

136

battening down the hatches, getting ready to

answer a lot of questions about a lot of different
things, and that’s where it went.

“. . . his time was all spent on the Teton failure

activities . . .”

“. . . my time was spent trying to run what was

left of the Denver office, as well as dealing with
some of the Teton-related matters that were
being done here in Denver, dealing with the
media . . .”
From about that point in time, his time was all
spent on the Teton failure activities, with the
various review groups that were put together,
and my time was spent trying to run what was
left of the Denver office, as well as dealing with
some of the Teton-related matters that were
being done here in Denver, dealing with the
media and all the ramifications that go along
with that.

“We immediately set up a Teton room record

group, and tried to gather up every piece of
paper that was related to Teton in any way . . .”
We immediately set up a Teton room
record group, and tried to gather up every piece
of paper that was related to Teton in any way,
get it into a single place, and have it available
for the media to scrutinize, whatever, and
anybody else that had an interest in pursuing it,
for whatever purpose. Had the L.A. Times, a
couple of investigative reporters from the Times
there, I don’t know, a couple of weeks,

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 137

something like that. St. Louis Post Dispatch,

Time, Newsweek, as I recall.

“You know, we still had projects under

construction and projects on the drawing
board, and all of those things. . . .”
You know, we still had projects under
construction and projects on the drawing board,
and all of those things.

Harold Arthur Wanted Someone from the

Construction Side of Reclamation in His Office
in Denver
Anyway, it was a fun four years, almost
four years. I came in to Denver in August ‘72.
Got along great with Harold Arthur. He
wanted, or he told me that he wanted somebody
from the construction side of the house in that
position with him. His background, really, was
design, and he felt like he wanted somebody
with a construction background as an assistant.
Harold’s about as articulate an individual–he’s
as smart as anybody I ever knew. Interesting
combination. Interesting to work for him. But I
enjoyed it. It was a good four years. That, in
itself, was a change, to pick me out of that
construction group and bring me into this
Denver office.

Storey: Did you figure out why that happened?

Duck: Well, it was Harold’s choice, although a hell of

a bunch of people must have agreed with him. I
think that Bill Keating and Ellis Armstrong–I

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 138

think that they felt like his, Harold’s, natural

choice was going to be Jack Hilf. Buddies for
years. Embankment design. Did an awful lot of
traveling together. And I’m not sure but what
they weren’t so goddamned shocked by his
choice, that they were speechless. (laughter) I
think that they thought that he ought to go a
different direction, that someone from the
Denver office–and I think Harold outsmarted
them.

I didn’t think that Harold Arthur knew me

that well. I certainly didn’t know him that well.
He was Barney’s assistant. He was there when
I came in from the field. He was involved in
some meetings, if we had contractual problems
with construction or the contractors and so
forth. Harold was around, but he wasn’t that
visible, not with Barney there. Barney ran the
show. I never did ask Harold or talk to him
about it. But he told me in Chicago, he said,
“You were my first choice all along.” Never
sorted that out, how he put it together, because
we really didn’t have that much exposure. I’m
sure that Barney had something to do with it.
I’m sure that Roscoe [Granger] had something
to do with it, if anybody asked me. I’m not sure
Harold asked anybody.

Storey: And what did he want you to do? What did the
deputy do at that time?

Duck: Shared in everything that the director did.

Shared responsibility.

Storey: He didn’t say, “I want you to take care of this

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 139

field”?

Duck: No. Exposed to the whole thing. The way it

shook out was that for the most part, I dealt
with the construction problems, and there’s
always something to be dealt with. You know,
the amount of construction activity that was
going on in the Bureau at that time, potential for
problems of one kind of another, either
construction or contractual problems. I acted
for him when he was out of the office, and he
was out of the office a hell of a lot. He did a lot
of traveling. So there was never that division
really made. It shook out naturally that way. I
certainly didn’t get into the design-related
activities, although I had the responsibility for
all of that.

Dealt Mostly with Construction Problems

Storey: While you were out on construction, I’m sure
that you had a vision of what the Denver office
was and how you should relate to it. How did
that affect you in going into that job?

Duck: Well, I’m not sure that I had that personal

impression of what the Denver office was.
Others did. I heard some interesting things out
of other people about the Denver office. But
I’m sure a part of that was related to the
relationship between Granger and Bellport,
Granger and Bloodgood. I never really formed
the opinion. I never had an opinion about the
Denver office. People from the Denver office
dealt with us in a way that, you know, I always
looked at it as, “They’re coming to help us,” if

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

140

they were coming to the field.

The Ralph Gulletts. Gullett, for some

reason, took a liking to me at Yellowtail. He
visited Yellowtail because of the reduction in
the size of the dam and the thickness of the
dam, and there was already a contract awarded,
and there was going to be some adjustment
made for the reduced quantities of concrete that
the contractor was going to have, and so forth.
Ralph Gullett headed up the Construction
Division under Bloodgood, and, later, Bellport.
Barney had an assistant guy in design, by the
name of Bill Wolf, and Bill Wolf, a designer,
and, I think, powerplants.

Bill Wolf came out to see me at

Yellowtail. You know, I’d been through
Flaming Gorge and on into Yellowtail, and we
were finishing up Yellowtail, and he wanted me
to put together the criticism of the design. You
know, Barney sent him out–or Bloodgood. I
guess it was Barney. Anyway, sent him out,
and he asked me to put together the book on
what should be done differently, as far as design
is concerned, and the full gamut–concrete,
earth, excavation, mechanical, electrical,
grouting, whatever–which I did, with a great
deal of enthusiasm. You know, you always
have your ideas about what the designers are
doing.

Then he called me in to Denver with him,

and sat me down with each of the design groups
to go over the critique of that project which I’m
sure a lot of people in the field didn’t get that

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 141

opportunity, and why it came to me, I’m not

that sure. But nevertheless, it was a practice
that kind of got, I wouldn’t say formalized, but
got carried on through for a lot of years, calling
the construction engineers in to talk to the
designers about what might be improved and so
forth.

But I didn’t have a negative or neither

opinion, really, of the Denver office. The
laboratories were a significant part of a lot of
what went on, and a significant part of the
advancement in concrete technology and so
forth. Great group, and a great engineering
group. Had a hell a lot of respect for the
people. But I got exposed to–and maybe treated
differently–I don’t know. I’d say that the
Denver office really treated me well when I
came in here, too. You can imagine that here’s
this construction-type outsider sitting in that
office.

The Chain of Command Was Formal in Denver

Oh, they tested me a time or two, but it
was the way things were done in here that kind
of amused me, in a way. The so-called chain of
command, you know, at that point in time, was
pretty rigorously adhered to. Well, Christ, that
was so foreign to me. You know, if I wanted to
ask a question, it didn’t make any difference in
the field. I didn’t go to somebody’s boss, to go
down the line to get a question answered. I
knew I could get it answered right there on the
spot. Well, that kind of upset the apple cart in
here for a few days when I’d call individual

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 142

engineers up, ask them a simple question, and

wind up with hell from the whole line of
designers from the various–well, the
supervisors.

Storey: Any stories about how they “tested you”?

Duck: Not specifically. I can’t remember what I was

thinking about, what I would have been
thinking about. It’s more, again, this
recognition of the so-called chain of command
and the line of supervisors, that everybody’s
supervisor needed to know every question that
was asked. It was a rigorous process in signing
off on correspondence and that sort of thing.
But it’s a discipline that, I think, served it pretty
well.

But, specifically, you know, and break it

through, it didn’t bother you. It never changed
anything, but naturally, the people that were
still at Grand Coulee then had the direct line
into the Denver office, and that’s where this
testing, or testing wills, or whatever you would
call it, kind of took place. It was questions I
would answer from the Denver office that they
felt like should be referred, you know,
someplace else. All I felt about it, was it was
going to take time. No particular purpose in it,
whether it was dealing with encasement
concrete over the penstocks, whether grout
systems could be exited, whether the access to
the grout system could be done with one
catwalk system on the vertical upstream face of
the dam, or whether they had to come out the
downstream face, require another set of

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 143

scaffolding, and all that. I got into my

discussions with them over some of those kind
of things.

Quantities Contracting as Related to Removing

the End of the Dam at Grand Coulee
Storey: Let’s ask one more question about Grand
Coulee before I ask you the next question about
the Chief Engineer’s Office. You told me about
them toppling the end of the dam over and then
breaking it up in the forebay. If I understand
the way we do contracting, we normally do
quantities contracting. So I’m surmising that
they were bidding on the basis of the amount of
concrete they had to remove–cubic yards or
some such thing. And if they had to lower it in
five-foot lifts, the demolition process, did they
get a big windfall out of this? Did the
contractor get a big windfall out of this, or how
does that work out?

Duck: I would say they got a windfall out of it, but

certainly it reduced the–and both from the
Bureau, and, you know, oversight on the thing,
as well as this piddling monitoring of every
blast, but as far as looking at X number of
yards, it was a hell of a lot cheaper for them to
roll it into the dam forebay and secondary blast
it. But that’s just one of the tradeoffs that get
made.

The Contractor Made Some Money on the Dam

Removal, but There Are Lots of Tradeoffs in a
Large Project of this Type

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 144

There would be times when somebody

would be trying to get some kind of a rebate,
but just in the day-to-day process of building
those kind of projects, there were all kinds of
tradeoffs that get made. I asked the contractor
for a hell of a lot of things, a hell of a lot of
things, but things that could be done, you know,
to satisfy the quality requirements that, you
know, you could argue about whether it was
necessary or not. It was necessary as far as I
was concerned. But there wouldn’t have been a
significant amount of money involved in
savings, as far as the contractor was concerned.

It’s another one of those things. You had

the upstream cellular coffer dam. We’re
dealing with the foundation of the dam and so
forth. I’m not sure today that I would, you
know, let it be accomplished that way, because
you’re working more and more and more and
more toward a no-risk society. Nobody wants
to make a decision, to start with. As I said, it
was my decision on removing the end of the
dam that way. In fact, as I recall, never talked
to Granger about it, other than the fact that that
was what we were going to do. I looked at the
shot pattern under the corner of the dam, the
corner of the block, had them add some holes,
looked at the amount of powder and at the way
the shot was delayed, and approved it myself, so
that if anything happened, they weren’t going to
have to hunt for who in the hell had screwed it
up. But we’re working farther and farther and
farther away from that.

Storey: What kinds of issues came to Mr. Granger and

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 145

what kinds of issues came to you on the third

Coulee powerhouse? What was the boundary
between your responsibilities and authorities?

Responsibilities on the Third Powerhouse Job

Duck: Pretty fuzzy at that point in time. I pretty much
had responsibility for everything that was going
on in the field. From a politics, public
relations–and then there was a lot of that that
went on. You know, there was a little local
newspaper there. The established operations
and maintenance groups, it was a big group of
people that were certainly going to inherit the
whole thing when it was all over with. A lot of
that contact, as far as the policy was concerned
and the project was concerned–you know, one
of the other things that went on at the same time
was the excavation was accomplished for a so-
called fourth powerplant.

The Site Was Prepared for a Fourth

Powerhouse
There’s room for another six units,
depending on the size of the units and so forth,
and at the end of the forebay dam is a plugged
section. All that has to really be done is extend
the forebay dam, and take that plug out and put
the fourth powerplant in. Of course, at this
point in time, I suppose that’s never going to be
built. But instead of the taking of property and
going back to excavate for that forebay, instead
of doing that in two shots, it was done under the
Third Powerplant. So the excavation and the

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 146

taking of the property has already been

accomplished.

“I spent an awful lot of time on safety . . .”

But as far as the day-to-day activity in the
field, Roscoe left that pretty much strictly up to
me. I spent an awful lot of time on safety, and
in spite of that, had a number of fatalities there,
but a lot of what I was looking at, from my
perspective, was personal safety on that project.

Storey: And was there a Safety Officer also?

Duck: Oh, yeah, yeah, a couple of them. And the

coordination meetings. Of course, I’m going
back a lot of years. That effort that’s made to
coordinate between–get the Bureau and the
contractors and the multiple contractors, all on
the same page, coordinating between
contractors and the Bureau, was a major part of
my effort in the field. The day-to-day quality
control activity, that was left pretty much to
inspection staff. But making sure we were all
headed in the same damn direction was a big
part of it. That would cycle up and down,
depending on, you know, how critical one step
or one link in the process would be to hold up
the others, the other contractors.

The Common Excavation Was a Problem

Because the Contractor Chose to Use Highway-
type Trucks
Another interesting part of that project
was common excavation, actually out of the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 147

powerplant area, that downstream and

powerplant excavation, which was mostly
common. There was a little rock to be taken
under the Ball contract. But the contractor
elected to use Kenworth trucks, highway-type
equipment, and it was a poor decision. But they
had a subcontractor in California–Asbury
Contractors, that had subbed hauling of that
material, and using these trucks, and haul
through the fill.

Excavation from the Third Powerhouse Was

Placed Six Miles Downstream on the Right
Bank
They were six miles downstream from the dam,
and on the right bank was where that material
was deposited. Working through that clay, wet
winter, all kinds of weather, and trying to do it
with highway equipment was no mean task.

“Asbury went under with the last truckload of

material that they hauled out of there. . . .”
Asbury went under with the last truckload of
material that they hauled out of there.
Meantime, Ball made money on every load that
was hauled. Just one of those things that
happened. They subbed the work to Asbury,
who didn’t bid enough. But to their credit, they
hauled it all out of there. Years and years later,
got a settlement out of Kenworth. The number I
heard was $7 million, which, if it’s true, they
got partially well.

Storey: Did moving to Denver pose any personal

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 148

problems for you? I was ready to ask you

where the next big job was. (laughter)

Duck: Yeah, that was my intention. That’s where the

Bureau wanted me to go–my impression. So as
far as second thoughts about the next big
project, didn’t enter into it.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

Storey: This is tape two of an interview by Brit Storey

with Donald [Don] J. Duck, on February the
20th, 1996.

We were talking about any effects on your

personal life of moving to Denver from Grand
Coulee.

Moving to the Denver office “. . . was probably

the start of a stressful remaining career . . . I
was completely comfortable . . . on
construction projects, and . . . doing what I
wanted to do. . . .”
Duck: From Grand Coulee. You bet, I think that that
was probably the start of a stressful remaining
career, my whole working career. I was
completely comfortable with what I was doing
on construction projects, and pretty much doing
what I wanted to do. As I say, at about 42 years
of age, to come into this environment, and the
environment being what it had been for years
and years, elevated the stress level quite a bit.

Personal Issues with the Move to Denver

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 149

From a personal standpoint, went into

Coulee, bought a house, $14,000. On the move
to Denver, I told my wife, I said, “We can
afford $45,000.” Found a place out in Littleton
that was $67,500. Well, that started the stress.
Laid in bed every night for the thirty days we
were here, eyes skinned open, thinking, you
know, “Is this going to work or not?” And
that’s typical, kind of. You think you can
afford $45,000, go spend $67,000. She was
right. Worked out fine. That’s kind of on the
personal side.

I moved three horses, two cats, and a dog.

That, in itself, is kind of an experience. I
stopped in Drummond, Montana, and unloaded
the horses at the railroad stockyards there, right
in the middle of town. Spent the night. Next
stop was in Wyoming, just a roadside parking
area. Tied up to the fences and camped out with
my dog, two cats, and three horses. Got
everything moved without any bad experience
at all.

Wanted to Do Things Differently than Was the

Custom in the Denver Office
But then moving into this environment
was different. As I say, my inclination is to not
do things like they’d been accustomed to here in
the Denver office, and didn’t really have any
problems with that. I still did it pretty much my
way, and Harold supported me the whole way.
I think the engineering division heads, etc., all
accepted me. Ralph Gullett was one of the first

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 150

that told me he thought that was the greatest

thing that happened to the Denver office, which,
again, made me feel good.

Storey: Did you lateral over or was there a promotion

involved? How did that work?

Promoted to GS-16 after a Year in Denver

Duck: I got a GS-15 at Coulee, I believe, and I moved
laterally and got a promotion to the 16 probably
within the first year or two. I can’t remember
exactly.

Storey: And then did you go to SES while you were

here?

Went into the Senior Executive Service

Duck: Yes. That was a decision that you could make,
at that time, whether you wanted to enter the
Senior Executive Service or not. Agonized over
it a while, but elected to go into SES.

Storey: When was that?

Duck: When did the SES–would it have been ‘77, ‘78?

Storey: Well, I think the SES was created under the

[Jimmy] Carter Administration, so ‘77, ‘78.

Duck: ‘77, ‘78, I would say.

Storey: You went in then?

Duck: Yes.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 151

Storey: Because you were a 16, it was automatic? Is

that the deal?

Was Thinking of Leaving the Federal

Government
Duck: Yes. Well, didn’t have to. Could have retained
the 16. Wouldn’t have been a demotion
involved in it. I can’t remember what the
advantages or disadvantages were, but in doing
it, I must have decided there was more of a
potential advantage in joining the SES than
electing to stay out of it, although at that point
in time, I was really questioning how much
longer I was going to stay in government
service.

Believed the Civil Service Reform Act Opened

the Government to More Politicization
A number of things happened; you can
argue about whether they’re good or bad. From
my perspective, they were bad. The Civil
Service Reform Act, in itself, which created–I
think SES was created under the Civil Service
Reform Act. I didn’t view that as a positive
thing. Again, from my perspective with the
Bureau, more opportunity to politicize the
process, more opportunity for the political
appointees to get involved in the engineering.
Whether they believed it or not, they were
going to get involved. I didn’t view that as a
positive thing at all.

“Carter’s water project “hit list.” The

handwriting was on the wall, as far as I was

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 152

concerned. . . .”
Carter’s water project “hit list.” The
handwriting was on the wall, as far as I was
concerned. Doesn’t really make a lot of
difference which President you look at. The
idea and the practice, in those very active years
of dam building, the constituents, the water
users, the power users, the subcommittees of
Congress, and the Commissioner of
Reclamation, the so-called iron triangle, the
Bureaus. You don’t necessarily need to look at
just the Commissioner of Reclamation. But I
think I first heard “breaking the iron triangle”
under the [Richard M.] Nixon Administration.
But that effort to break up that successful
bringing-to-fruition projects that the
constituents, the people, the water users,
whether you’re talking agricultural or M&I,
whatever, anyway, the success with which those
projects had been accomplished over a long
period of years was going to come to an end.
While Nixon didn’t have anything to do with
the breaking of the so-called iron triangle, the
evolution of the process certainly did. Different
mentality of politicians. The NEPA [National
Environmental Policy Act] Act passed in, what,
‘72, I believe.

NEPA
Storey: ‘69. 1969.

Duck: It passed in ‘69?

Storey: Yes. There were a whole series of laws and acts

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 153

in there that were passed between about ‘66 and

‘75, or so. NEPA probably wasn’t really
catching hold until about ‘71, ‘72.

Design of the Third Powerhouse Exterior by

Marcel Breuer
Duck: ‘72 sticks in my mind for some reason. Grand
Coulee–and you’re right, ‘69, or prior to ‘72,
anyway–we had at Coulee, and I don’t
remember how it got established, but there was
an Environmental Review Board of that project.
As I recall, museum directors, I can’t remember
the individuals or where they came from, but
that type of interest, looking over the design of
that project, and also the design of the
powerplant was done by, as I recall, Marcel
Breuer,15 a New York architect, who
specifically was brought in to address making
that powerplant fit in with the existing
environment. Thus, that folded faceted
powerplant superstructure. Anyway, that
interest had to be prior to ‘72. It was going on
during that whole design process of Coulee.

A Bald Eagle Nesting Tree Was Affected by

Spoil from the Third Powerhouse
One other thing of note, and just an
observation. I mentioned the six miles of fill on
the right bank at Coulee along the Columbia
River. Included in that six miles was an old
cottonwood tree that was an eagle nesting tree.

15. Marcel Lajos Breuer was born May 21, 1902, in Hungary and
died in New York City on July 1, 1918.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 154

At that point in time, I could just envision, five

or six years later, you know, you’d never have
been able to do that. I think the
environmentalists would have been able to stop
that fill process because of that eagle nest. But
that construction work went on for, well, the
five years that I was there, and we were
essentially finished with the excavation, the fill
downstream. When the smoke cleared, we had
more trouble with the local, the people that
lived down there along the river, than we did
the eagle. The eagle just left–or the eagles.
Within that first year after the fill work was
completed, the eagles moved back in. They
were back there in that same tree.

When I visited the project, for whatever

reason, it would have been the mid-seventies
sometime, and I counted eighteen bald eagles in
the forebay there at Coulee. Of course, they
were feeding on kokanee salmon that were
coming through those units. But eighteen
eagles in there. And all the time I’d been there,
I never saw them.

Storey: That must have been pretty spectacular.

Duck: It was spectacular, yeah.

Storey: You were talking about why you were thinking

about leaving government, I think.

Thinking about Leaving Government

Duck: Well, I was beginning–you know, with Jimmy
Carter, with Teton, you know, the handwriting

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 155

was on the wall, as far as I was concerned.

Might be able to slow it down, but we sure
weren’t going to reverse it. I didn’t really relish
the idea of dealing with the people, and the
mentality that, you know, you’re going to have
to deal with. I was expected to have to make a
move.

Storey: You were expected?

Duck: I was expected, yeah.

Storey: Before we move more into Teton and expecting

to make a move, what kinds of issues did the
chief engineer and the deputy see? Or whatever
the title was–Assistant Commissioner for
Engineering and Research, or whatever. How
did those things get sorted out? Denver office
obviously does lots of things, makes lots of
decisions. Which ones had to go up to the
assistant commissioner and his deputy?

“I dealt an awful lot with contractual problems,

with contractors, and money problems, and
settling disputes on whatever project was out
there. . . .”
Duck: Well, all the major engineering decisions were
made in this office, in the office of the director/
deputy director. I dealt an awful lot with
contractual problems, with contractors, and
money problems, and settling disputes on
whatever project was out there.

“We had a lot of underground construction

going on, and . . . there are always problems

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

156

with underground construction. . . .”

We had a lot of underground construction going
on, and while underground construction isn’t
any worse than anything else, really, there are
always problems with underground
construction.

Contractors Were Losing Money

I think I mentioned early on that that
whole era after the mid-sixties, late sixties,
you’re dealing with the competition amongst
the construction contractors that resulted in, in
my view, probably too much competition. The
contractors were regularly losing large sums of
money, for one reason or another, some of
which can be attributed to them and some to
just the state of the construction industry, the
engineering industry.

“In my view, it was really a good time for

owners–purchasers of projects. . . .”
In my view, it was really a good time for
owners–purchasers of projects. Yeah, you had
the money problems to deal with, but as long as
the quality was maintained, because of the
influence of contractors taking large losses and
so forth, as long as you could maintain the
quality and sort out the money problems at the
end, whoever was buying the projects, whether
it was the Bureau or the Corps or any private,
public-private, owner-type organization, they
were benefitting by the competition in the
marketplace. But it did create those significant

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 157

and pretty regular problems that you had to deal

with. A lot of what I was doing was dealing
with those problems.

Third Powerhouse Was One of the Contract

Issues Handled in the Denver Office
Grand Coulee was just one of them that I
inherited kind of naturally. I mentioned earlier
that we threatened to place that joint venture in
default, which resulted in a change in project
management, project sponsorship. As a part of
that, we agreed to make an interim payment, at
that time pretty significant–I think $5 million–to
keep them going. But in the long run, the
claims had to be settled. As I recall, we settled
for something like 14-, $15 million. The
contractor still took an audited loss of $18
million.

“I mentioned that Vinnell, Dravo, Lockheed,

Mannix. None of them are in the heavy
construction business anymore. . . .”
I mentioned that Vinnell, Dravo, Lockheed,
Mannix. None of them are in the heavy
construction business anymore. Those kind of
things were going on all through those years of
the seventies and on into the eighties, as far as
that goes.

Storey: And you were sort of refereeing that from the

Denver office?

Duck: Right. Well, they were settled here. The

contractors were brought to Denver, and the

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 158

negotiations pretty much took place here. On

occasions, we–well, we went to the field as
well, and went to the project sites. Some of the
initial negotiations took place there.

In Process of Negotiating Claims with M-K

When Teton Dam Failed
We were in the process of negotiating claims on
Teton, which resulted in visits to Teton and
discussions with M-K [Morrison-Knudsen]
about what they had run into as far as their
problems were concerned. Never really brought
those negotiations to a conclusion with the
failure, of course.

At That Time about 90 Percent of Claims Were

Negotiated and 10 Percent Went to Litigation
At that point in time, I believe, our
settlement rate was something like 90 percent,
or nine out of ten were negotiated settlements,
as opposed to litigating. The 10 percent that we
litigated, we were winning about nine out of
ten. So our perspective was that we were being
pretty successful. The one or two exceptions
would be when contractors took such large
losses that the negotiation is kind of taken out
of their hands, the company’s at stake. They
either have to collect or they don’t [survive]. If
you can’t settle with them, those are the ones
we litigated. And we were pretty successful
with the litigation as well.

Storey: Tell me what happened after Teton, in

Reclamation, and what happened externally to

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 159

Reclamation.

“Bizz” Johnson
Duck: Well, at the time of the Teton failure, as I
indicated, I think, before, that we had the
“Bizz” Johnsons still in Congress. Manny
Lujan, Steve Symms from Idaho, Jim McClure,
people like that, that were interested in
development.

After Teton, I talked pretty regularly to

“Bizz” Johnson. I seldom called “Bizz”
Johnson; “Bizz” Johnson called me quite a bit at
that time. “Bizz” was pretty successful in
getting projects for his part of California. And
not only that, he had an interest in the other
states as well. That was the kind of
environment that was there during that period of
time.

Cecil Andrus and Keith Higginson

After the Failure of Teton Dam, Harold Arthur

Was Busy with Reviews of the Failure, and
Duck Was Doing Other Work of the Office
Well, with the failure at Teton, and
subsequent firing of [Harold] Arthur, and
[Cecil] Andrus moving into Interior, bringing
[Keith] Higginson from Idaho in as
Commissioner, I dealt with–like I say, Harold
was immersed with these people, the
independent panel, the Interior Review Group.
Tremendous amount of activity went on for a
long period of time, with the ultimate

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 160

publishing of the independent panel report, and

the Interior review report.

Harold Arthur Fired after the Failure of Teton

Can’t remember exactly how that fit, but the
end result was, Harold got fired by Andrus.

Bob Jansen Brought in from the California

Department of Water Resources to Run the
Office
Bob Jansen, who had been with the
California Department of Water Resources, and
was the Executive–I forget what his title
was–Executive Director, whatever, of the
independent panel–

Storey: On the Teton failure.

Duck: On the Teton failure. Of course, through that

activity, got acquainted with Jansen, who
Andrus had gotten Higginson appointed as
Commissioner. They brought in Higginson, and
Jansen had a good working relationship.
Higginson brought Jansen in as Director.

Review of Internal Procedures at Reclamation

Bob and I were of a different, you know,
totally different background, makeup, whatever,
but got along fine. He supported me and I
supported him. We ran at the same time the
other reviews were going on. I had concluded
that the best way to head off, or beat, the
conclusions, as far as the organization is

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 161

concerned, not what happened at Teton Dam,

but in order to–and then there were a number of
internal contracted–the Interior had contracted
with a group, TAMS, to review our internal
procedures.16

Decided He Wanted an Internal Review

I had decided, “The hell with it. We ought
to do our own internal review. We know better
about what we’re doing here, and what might be
done to strengthen the organization.” Which we
did. We did it in a fairly short period of time,
two or three months, and published a report,
with specific recommendations, some of which
were adopted and some of which weren’t. And
probably some of the most significant weren’t.
That’s the way it worked out. You asked a
specific question about–

Storey: I was asking about how Reclamation reacted

internally, and how people externally reacted to
the failure.

Duck: Well, again, the internal investigation was

carried out by a Bureau group, commissioned
by Higginson. We were authorized to carry it
out. We did that. TAMS took an outside look.
They had our review to work with. We had
completed that, and they had that review.
Didn’t come up significantly different than what

16. TAMS Consultants, Inc., was founded in 1942 as

TIPPETTS-ABBETT-McCARTHY-STRATTON, and
is now known globally as TAMS.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 162

our internal report had said. Two or three minor

things relating to geotechnical geology.
Depending on what happens, it’ll flop back and
forth. But that was really the only major
difference.

Reclamation’s Study Argued for Centralized

Design and Construction Responsibility in
Denver
The big thing that didn’t get implemented,
or carried out, was that argument for the central
responsibility for engineering and construction.
We were arguing, or we argued that–

END SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

Storey: –arguing that the Chief Engineer should have–

Duck: The Chief Engineer, the Denver office, should

have that responsibility. It shouldn’t be diluted.

Storey: For centralized design and construction?

Duck: Right. And the management of it.

Storey: Control.

Duck: Yeah. Of course, the other part, the conflicting

argument was that certain of these processes
should be moved to the region offices.

“It got to be a kind of a tug-of-war between the

regions then and the Denver office . . .”

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 163

It got to be a kind of a tug-of-war between the

regions then and the Denver office, with the
investigations that were done both internally
and externally, saying that they should be
centralized. That’s not the way it turned out.
I’d say that’s probably the major thing that
happened that resulted in where the Bureau is
today.

It’s eleven o’clock.

Storey: Is it? I have another minute or two, but that’s

fine. Why don’t we stop here. I’d like to ask
you again whether or not you’re willing for the
information contained on these tapes and
resulting transcripts to be used by researchers.

Duck: Sure.

Storey: Good. Thank you very much.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 20, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.

Storey: This is Brit Allan Storey, Senior Historian of

the Bureau of Reclamation, interviewing
Donald [Don] J. Duck, a former employee of
the Bureau of Reclamation, on February the
26th, 1996, at his home in Conifer, Colorado, at
about nine o’clock in the morning. This is tape
one.

Just a moment ago, we were talking about

the fact that you see two different Reclamations.
Could you talk about that for me, please?

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 164

The Development Part of Reclamation’s

Program Has Ended
Duck: I see that the development part of the
Reclamation program, which was what was
intended originally, or initially, with
Reclamation, was to bring water to the West.
That’s one thing, and that ended, as we were
talking, sometime late sixties, early seventies,
when the emphasis politically and, in fact,
changed to something other than development.
While everybody has their view about whether
that’s good or bad, I have my view. I don’t
think that the program had done everything that
could be done. I think there’s always going to
be water problems in the West.

Reclamation Has Very Deliberately Killed off the

Planning Process
Today we’re living on planning that was
done sixty-, sixty-five years ago, and when
Reclamation, in my view, very deliberately
started killing off the planning process, then that
program was done. And it’s changed to
something else. I’m not sure what.

Some Operation and Maintenance Has to Be

Done by Reclamation
Certainly there are those projects out there that
demand that some operation and maintenance
capability in Reclamation remain. With the
major projects, somebody has to have the
responsibility for it.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 165

“My opinion is that the [environmental] zealots

have gotten control of the program, and the
purpose is to make everything so expensive, or
costly, whatever, that you just don’t build
projects, you do studies. . . .”
The emphasis on the environment, I have
mixed emotions about that. I certainly
recognize the need for, and the interest in,
protecting the environment. My opinion is that
the zealots have gotten control of the program,
and the purpose is to make everything so
expensive, or costly, whatever, that you just
don’t build projects, you do studies. The
studies never end. I think I mentioned this
before. So that’s the two Reclamations that I
see, and how Reclamation fits into this
environmental emphasis that’s out there today,
I’m not sure. I’m not sure.

The Denver Office Before and after the Failure

of Teton Dam
Going back to a question that you asked
me a couple of different times, and I don’t think
I ever answered it, and I’m not sure I’ll answer
it now. You asked about how [Harold] Arthur
and I functioned in the Denver office at the time
I came in and, really, at the time he left. And
that was before Teton [Dam failure], after Teton
thing. It was entirely different after Teton. But
the Bureau was involved in a tremendous
number of things. We had numbers of
construction projects that were under
construction.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

166

Dealing with Auburn Dam and the Oroville

Earthquake
In addition to that, we were dealing with
things like Auburn Dam and the Oroville
earthquake, which, you know, there might have
been questions out there about the structure type
of the thin arch dam, all those things, but just
normal kinds of engineering questions from
outside, from inside, wherever. We were
dealing with that all the time, as well as the
ongoing design work, and we functioned from
the top. You know, instead of pushing
decisions down into the organization, at that
point in time, and as it had been for a long, long
time, we were involved in about everything that
was going on at the top. And that, from my
perspective, included the way we dealt with
contractors. The most effective way in getting
problems resolved was to get it out of the
project area, out of the project management, and
into some different level, and dealing with the
top-level CEOs of the construction companies.
That was the way it worked.

Yuma Desalting Plant

Prior to 1976, that’s the kind of things we
had going on. In addition, I think the Yuma
desalting plant was on the board at that time.
Lots of decisions being made about that
desalting plant. Reverse osmosis versus
something else. I don’t remember now. It was
certainly foreign to what we normally did. But
there’s a lot of things that weren’t normal that
we dealt with from an engineering standpoint.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 167

After 1976, after Teton failed, in addition

to, I think I said earlier, Harold dealing with the
reviews that were going on at the failure, with
the congressional subcommittees, committees of
Congress, and really more outside of the Denver
office, I was dealing with those things that came
to Denver. We, in addition, had mandated for
us, I suppose, I don’t remember, I don’t
remember now, but we did contract for a review
of all the major projects that were on the
board–in design.

We Contracted for Review of All Major

Contracts under Construction
We contracted for a review of every dam that
was under construction at that time. To my
recollection, it was maybe seven or eight
different dams. And I was involved in going to
the field to participate in the review.

The results of those reviews, as you might

guess, resulted in added so-called safety
considerations. Nobody ever reviews anything
without having a suggestion about what might
be done. It’s never-ending. At some point in
time, if you’re responsible for the design, you
draw the line, and say, “That’s it. We’re going
with that.”

Well, we had to make changes in ongoing

projects, whether it was with embankment
dams, additions of filters, of addition of
foundation protection, additional grouting. You
know, it goes on and on. These projects are
under construction. It was going to cost more

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

168

money, because there were changes under the

contract.

Auburn Dam
So that environment started from day one,
after the dam failed, until I left. It’s still going
on. Same way with the design process, outside
reviewers looking at what was being considered
and designed. Auburn, of course, fell in the
middle of this. We were dealing with the
earthquake problem before the dam failed.
After the dam failed, it just escalated. That was
further evidence, in a lot of critics’ minds,
anyway, that they’d picked the wrong structure
type, and it just evolved into the tremendous
amount of foundation work that was done at
Auburn, and, ultimately, losing the project. The
project failed to go forward. Anyway, that was
part of the environment in that post-‘76 year.

Robert Jansen Replaced Harold Arthur

Jansen came in in ‘77, when [Harold]
Arthur got fired. Cecil Andrus was the Interior
Secretary. Bob came out of–I mentioned this
before–DWR in California, and was the
Executive Director, whatever they called him,
for the independent panel. I accepted the fact
that I was not going to be the Director of Design
and Construction, or the Assistant
Commissioner, whatever the title was at that
time, but thought that we could work, I could
help him a hell of a lot, just by virtue of the fact
that he had some contact with Reclamation
people, because DWR was staffed by a lot of

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 169

old Reclamation people. And he knew

Reclamation. But I knew the organization and
the people both in the field and in the Denver
office.

I had mentioned this internal review that

[Keith] Higginson, who was Commissioner at
that time, had authorized. As I recall, it was
about a three-month study, which resulted in a
number of recommendations, volumes of
recommendations of changes in our procedures
and so forth, the obvious things that somebody
else was going to pick up. Whether they were
really that valid or necessary, I’m not sure, but
we intended to head off every one of the
criticisms that were apt to be out there. And we
did that and made it easy for Higginson to
adopt, because we put a second volume in that
had a signoff on each of the recommendations
by the Commissioner, accepted or rejected.

The end result of that was that he accepted

practically all of the recommendations that we
made, and then the Washington office–it’s a
fact that what we were recommending, you
know, it’s natural that they were going to be
opposed by a number of the Assistant
Commissioners in Washington.

Jansen and Higginson Disagreed over

Implementation of the Internal
Recommendations
Thinking back on it, I think probably Don
Anderson, who had the most objection to it,
because it was just a restating of the centralized

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

170

control of the engineering operations to Denver

and to the Director, the Assistant
Commissioner, whoever was there, you know,
signing off on who was going to be–who was
going to staff construction from a management
standpoint. The key people, I guess, would be
the way to put it, the centralized procurement or
construction contracting process. And this was
always– well, not always–but a kind of a tug-of-
war between the regions and the Denver office.

Anyway Bob Jansen supported everything

that we said needed to be done–emphasized.
Down the line, he and Higginson really got
crossways over whether these things were going
to be done or not. Higginson started backing
away because of the pressure he was getting
from the regional directors–some of the regional
directors–and some of the assistant
commissioners back in Washington.

The Work of the Denver Office Proceeded as

Reorganization Progressed
In the meantime, you had all this activity
going on that had to be taken care of. You
know, the work was going on, these efforts at
reorganization and all that really wound up in a
series of reorganizations, and kept on going
after I left in 1980.

Robert Jansen Moved into the Office of Dam

Safety
But he got set aside into so-called the Office of
Dam Safety, or whatever.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 171

Rod Vissia Brought in to Run Denver Office

At that point in time, Higginson– and you
know, I don’t know, but probably some of the
regional directors–pushed for bringing Rod
Vissia in, who was a Regional director up in
[Boise] Spokane, I guess, at that time.
Storey: In Boise.

Duck: Boise, yeah. Rod and I had worked together.

Considered him a friend, etc., etc. I sure as hell
did not consider him a candidate for the Chief
engineer job. Again, it changes everything.
And when that happened, I had already made up
my mind that probably I was going to leave
Reclamation, but when that was initiated, and
did, in fact, happen–I can’t remember–at any
rate, I made it known to Rod that I wanted out.

Position Abolished So He Could Retire Early

The end result of that was having them
abolish my position, making it possible for me
to leave the Federal Government at age fifty
with twenty-five years of service, with the four
years of military and twenty-one years of
Reclamation service.

Decentralization of the Contracting Process

There were, along the line, a number of
things that happened, like, I think under Jimmy
Carter, the Office of Procurement Policy was
established. This was coming down–the
decentralization of the procurement process to

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

172

the regions.

“My view was, we couldn’t even keep a fully

competent [procurement] staff in one location
in Denver, and then we were going to disperse
it to seven other . . . regions . . .”
My view was, we couldn’t even keep a fully
competent staff in one location in Denver, and
then we were going to disperse it to seven other,
five other, whatever the number of regions were
at that time. Make them responsible for it.
Well, my view was that you can put it out there,
but the job won’t get done. And again, it’s
related to political pressure, various owner
organizations or water user organizations.
More and more staff buy involves one way or
the other, with lawyers. It’s easier to litigate it.
Buying construction, in my opinion, was so
different from buying pencils or toilet seats or
hammers, and we’d already had the experience
of how effective procurement types are. The
idea was to get engineers out of the
procurement process, and that was so far into
what I thought ought to be done, it gets to be no
longer acceptable. That’s where I got.

Pacheco Tunnel
You were asking about Pacheco Tunnel.

Billy Martin
Some of these guys, believe me, regional
directors like Bill E. [pronounced “Billy”]
Martin, to a certain extent, Joe Hall–that’s kind

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 173

of tongue-in-cheek, in a way, but Bill E. and I

did a number of things together because of
where he was and what was going on. I think
Bill and I got that San Felipe Project out there
in California going, in the face of a lot of
opposition, as I recall, opposition in Interior.

Indexing Both the Costs and Authorization for

the San Felipe Division of the Central Valley
Project
In as few words as possible, we determined that
while the construction cost estimate was being
indexed, the authorized ceiling was not. When
that got before the right people, then the ceiling
got indexed as well. Still marginal, and we
pulled off some design changes that brought the
estimate in under the ceiling in that project.
That’s one of the last projects that I remember
that got started.

Storey: For the San Felipe?

Duck: San Felipe, yeah.

Storey: And I think it had something to do with the

tunnel. They were going to pump the water
very high, and then let it flow down and change
the approach.

Cost Reductions on the San Felipe Project

Duck: Change the pumping characteristics or the
location of the pumping station. I can’t
remember what, but the designers really–and it
was the design group there in Denver that came

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 174

up with an innovative way to reduce the cost,

pumping cost, on that project, which made the
difference, along with being able to index the
project authorized ceiling. Anyway, that was
one of the last, as I recall, certainly one of the
last that I saw before I left the Bureau.

Bill and I worked together on a lot of

different things, everything from construction
personnel. I enjoyed working with him from
the day I met him, I guess, and that was true of
a number of the regional directors, Bill more so
because of the kind of things that we were
involved in out there, including Auburn.

Auburn Dam Studies

Looking back on Auburn, that was an
incredible investigation that was carried out to
determine whether that foothills fault system
was, in fact, active or not. It had been judged to
be inactive until the Oroville earthquake, which
happened on the northern end. At one point in
time, I think they had every trench strut in the
state of California on that project. We drug
miles and miles and miles of trenches, trying to
determine the most recent activity. But that,
again, was one of those that just–spent a hell of
a lot of money on.

Storey: Auburn?

The First Pacheco Tunnel Had Serious

Difficulties, Including “Squeezing Ground”
Duck: Auburn, right. And did not get accomplished.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 175

Pacheco One, the first Pacheco tunnel, first part

of that tunneling system, you know, I don’t
recall it, but tremendous difficulties in driving
that, as I recall, squeezing ground, really the
steel sets and so forth failing in that tunnel.
Therefore, we were anticipating a lot of
difficulty. I can’t remember the year that
Pacheco One was driven. Do you recall
anybody having said?

Storey: No, I don’t recall that.

In Pacheco Two the Engineering Problems

Were Anticipated, and There Was Little
Difficulty
Duck: Anyway, it was done in two phases. Pacheco
Two, we were all geared up for all kinds of
problems, and, in fact, drove that tunnel with
very little difficulty. Had some contractors’
claims related to one thing or another with it.
As I recall, no problems as was experienced
with Pacheco One.

Storey: As I recall, they drove the initial part of the

tunnel when we were building San Luis.

Duck: Yes.

Storey: And then later they completed it.

Duck: Yes.

Storey: And that’s when the redesign came in, I guess.

Duck: Yes.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 176

Storey: Was in the second phase.

Duck: It really had nothing to do with the tunnel. Had

to do with the pumping station, although based
on the experience with Pacheco One, with the
design criteria and so forth, it was engineered to
avoid those kinds of problems. In fact, there
was squeezing ground there, but we just simply
didn’t have any problems with it.

Storey: The reason I asked that question was because

one of our guys had written a history of the San
Felipe Project. Your name had shown up, and
he said, “Oh, well, if you’re going to talk to
him, ask him this question.” So we have the
history of San Felipe.

Duck: Well, there again, just as a kind of a side thing,

and my involvement in it, you know, anybody
sitting on the other side can be critical of
whatever the hell I did, might not like it, but we
had, as I recall, some difference of opinion on
the project, and it really was more related
whether the contractor should be paid or not
paid for some, I think, additional sets. I don’t
recall exactly. But I got myself in between the
project people and the contractor, not the
Project Manager or Construction Engineer, but
some of his field people that had been with me
as far back as Yellowtail.

Anyway, you know, I just kind of said,

“This is the way it’s going to be,” and went
ahead. But absolutely no problems, engineering
problems, construction problems, with that part
of the tunnel, that part of the project. I think the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 177

rest of the project, significant pipeline

distribution and so forth, I think it went pretty
smoothly, if I recall. Of course, a lot of it was
done after I left the Bureau.

Storey: But Auburn was going hot and heavy while you
were there.

Duck: Oh, yeah. Auburn was going to be built. There

wasn’t anybody out there that could buck heads
with Reclamation on any damned engineering
judgment.

“. . . we sure handed them the hammer to beat

us about the head and ears with Teton. We
would have built Auburn, . . . but for Teton. . . .”
They could stand off and criticize, but up to
Teton–and I’ve said a million times, we sure
handed them the hammer to beat us about the
head and ears with Teton.

Had it Not Been for the Teton Dam Failure, We

Would Have Built Auburn Dam as a Thin-arch
Concrete Dam
We would have built Auburn, and it would have
been built a thin-arch concrete dam, longest,
highest, thinnest, whatever label you’d like to
put on it, but for Teton.

In all of that investigation, I participated

in meeting after meeting after meeting. In fact,
Woodward Clyde came to Harold Arthur with a
proposal–this was after the Oroville
earthquake–that for a $50,000 fee, they would

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 178

use a unique capability–

[Telephone rings] Excuse me. [Tape

recorder turned off]

Storey: Auburn, and all the–

Significant Work Was Completed on

Construction of Auburn Dam
Duck: Right. During this whole period of time while
we had the investigation going on, there were
construction contracts in place and significant
foundation treatment, concrete dental work.
Called it dental work, but if I recall, there was
something in excess of 200,000 yards of
concrete that was placed in that foundation
preparation work. But with the passing of
“Bizz” Johnson, for one thing, and the argument
over the structure type, of course, we convened
a–

END SIDE 1, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.

Storey: You were saying that on Auburn, they had a

board of consultants.

Duck: Board of consultants, which included both

concrete dam and the embankment or rockfill
dam experts. But the board was, I’d say,
weighted toward rockfill-type structures as
being a safer structure, less brittle, and so forth.
Those arguments can all be made by the
designers. But anyway, the opposition was
building. The support had kind of gone away,

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 179

and so Auburn didn’t get built yet.

Storey: Yeah, I know Mike Catino really wanted to

built Auburn.

Duck: Oh, Mike was another one of those guys that

just was an old–we were all Reclamation, you
know. It was in our blood. If you couldn’t get
it one way, you’d get it another. He was
another one of the real good guys in my
category of good guys. We fought long and
hard to get Auburn built.

Storey: You mentioned that you had these independent

studies of Reclamation dams in progress and all
of that. Even now at Reclamation there’s a
sense, “Hey, we’re the best dam builders in the
world.” Did that cause problems?

Even today “. . . we don’t know, exactly what

the failure mechanism was. . . .”
Duck: Well, problems–I’m not aware of any
profession, and I’ll take what I’m about to lead
into as a sub-profession, in my opinion, no way
a profession, and that’s journalism, or anything
related to the media. They’re the only sub-
profession that I know of that defends
adamantly their right to be wrong, and for the
sensationalism or whatever it is related to any
failure, any accident, there’s a need to place
blame.

“. . . you certainly felt a sense of responsibility

for everything that was going on, including
Teton. I sure as hell didn’t feel the need to take

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

180

any blame for it. It’s an engineered project.

Something didn’t work. . . .”
And in those jobs, whatever we’re doing, you
certainly felt a sense of responsibility for
everything that was going on, including Teton.
I sure as hell didn’t feel the need to take any
blame for it. It’s an engineered project.
Something didn’t work. Today, they don’t
know, we don’t know, exactly what the failure
mechanism was. I know, and I think everyone
knows, there are some things that could have
been done, probably should have been done,
that would have prevented it.

The Big Thompson River flood drew some

attention away from the failure of Teton Dam
But living with these media types for a
year or something like that, after that failure, I
had already lost a significant amount of respect
for those people. Lost a significant amount
more when we got all done with them, when
they disappeared, and eventually they
disappeared. In fact, interesting to me was that
there were nine to eleven people that lost their
lives in that Teton failure, and within a month, I
believe, the Big Thompson River flooded. At
the time that was going on, I was hauling hay
from Brighton, Colorado, and I sat out there
with the daughter. She was driving the pickup,
and I was picking up hay out of the field, and I
watched that cloud hang over that Big
Thompson Basin all afternoon.

Well, I’m sure you recall the–I think the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 181

final number was like 238 deaths that occurred

in that flood. Believe it or not, that took some
of the interest away from Teton. By any means,
take everything that was going on, as far as the
L.A. Times, St. Louis Post Dispatch, some of the
major news magazines, but at least it lifted the
local interest in Denver, took it away from
Teton.

“. . . there isn’t anything that’s going to dampen

that feeling, that ego, that goes along with
having been a part of some very successful
projects. . . .”
At any rate, I’m sure there are enough
people left that are close enough to, one way or
another, the history, the tradition, the
accomplishments of Reclamation, that there
isn’t anything that’s going to dampen that
feeling, that ego, that goes along with having
been a part of some very successful projects.
That’s true internationally, even more so. There
was a lot of interest in Teton, and Harold,
myself–of course, Harold was gone from the
Bureau. [Telephone rings. Tape recorder
turned off]

“That failure [at Teton Dam] did not impact and

affect the international reputation of the Bureau
at all. . . .”
That failure did not impact and affect the
international reputation of the Bureau at all.
There have been other, and with more loss of
life, more property damage, dam failures–
Malpasset, Vaiont, to name a couple, in Europe,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 182

that had to do with concrete arch dams.

“Failures are a part of the engineering

construction process. . . .”
Failures are a part of the engineering
construction process.

Talk at the National Society of Professional

Engineers on the Failure of Teton Dam
I recall having participated in a National
Society of Professional Engineers conference in
Denver, and this was after I had left the Bureau.
What they attempted to do was put some key
people who had been involved in projects that
had failed for one reason or another. Of course,
Teton was high on their list. They couldn’t get
anybody in the Bureau to talk about it.
Understandable. They had the Hyatt failure in
Kansas City.

Storey: Oh, that skywalk thing?

Duck: Skywalk thing. They also had, as a participant,

the reporter for the Kansas City Star–there were
a couple of them, I can’t remember. He was
a–what’s the award? Did he get a Pulitzer for
that? I believe. Anyway, the engineer involved
in that Hyatt, the design and construction, I
guess. That ultimately turned out to be, I guess,
a construction error that caused that failure.
And also the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago, the
collapse of the roof on that facility. Somebody
else, as I recall.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 183

The Tendency after a Disaster Is to Guard

Information
At any rate, everybody there, because of
restrictions placed on them by attorneys, turned
out, couldn’t really say anything, didn’t really
say anything. I ran through the whole Teton
failure bit with my ideas, what I had to say
about it, without any legal counsel or anything
else. I just did it. But it was interesting to me.
There were some lawyers involved. My bottom
line was that when these things happen, you
simply clam up. You don’t try to level with.
You’re going to get burned every time. Every
time you try to level with these people, it gets
either taken out of context, they don’t
understand it, or whatever.

Storey: This is the lawyers or the newspapers?

Duck: Newspapers. They had a couple of attorneys

there, too. Interestingly enough, the attorneys
that followed me, that was exactly their
position, as well. Given what’s involved, and it
gets back to the way Harold Arthur handled this
whole thing. While he was criticized outside,
inside, everything else, I think he did one hell of
a job of handling all that scrutiny post-Teton.
The couple of lawyers that were in this panel in
NSPE took the same position. Of course, the
reporters took exactly the other. “You ought to
be open. Tell us everything.”

The media want fast information and often

publish the wrong information on disasters

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 184

That particular story on that Hyatt failure,

that balcony failure, whatever it was, the
newspaper went to some college professors, and
they put it all together, and they put it together
quicker than the official review of what was
going on, and published it. They were proud as
hell of that. And it turned out all right. It
turned out to be probably true, what they came
up with. But nine times out of ten, it isn’t.

Believes the Media Is Most Interested in the

Initial Impact
They’ll publish it, and there will be some other
cause, some other related thing, unrelated thing,
and that never gets reported. What you see
initially sticks in your mind, and, of course,
that’s what they were advocating. They like to
make those headlines. At any rate, next
question–

Storey: You mentioned that they abolished your job,

and that meant, I guess, that you could retire
early?

Duck: Yes. Gave me the option–

Storey: Were you planning to actually retire when you

left?

Duck: Yes.

Storey: What happened then?

Let it Be Known at a USCOLD Meeting That He

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 185

Was Leaving Reclamation and Was

Approached by Three Companies
Duck: I had been talking to, really, three different
private companies. I had let it be known at one
of the USCOLD meetings, and if I remember
right, it was–

Storey: U.S. Council on Large Dams?

Duck: U.S. Committee on Large Dams.

Storey: Committee on Large Dams.

Duck: At a meeting in San Antonio, can’t remember

exactly the time of the year, but my guess, it
would’ve been March-, April timeframe. I’d
made up my mind at that time that I was
leaving, one way or the other. I forget what I
was–I had something I was presenting at that
meeting, and the way I presented it, everybody
knew that I was leaving the Bureau.

I was contacted by the principals in Harza

Engineering Company. At that time, it was M-
K-E–not M-K-E–it was IECO [phonetic]. Later
that was Morrison-Knudsen’s engineering arm,
based in San Francisco. And R. W. Beck, up in
Seattle. Jim Williamson, Dick Koenig
[phonetic], from IECO. Anyway, they picked
up that I’d made up my mind to leave. One way
or the other, these people were involved or their
companies were involved with some of the
review work that was going on, of construction
projects and design work that was being done in
Denver. We contracted with various companies

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

186

to look at certain projects. These people were

all involved, and I’d known them for years
anyway, one way or the other–through the
Bureau, through USCOLD, and through
ICOLD.

Anyway, all three of them contacted me

before I left San Antonio, and I started an
interview process. Both Harza Engineering
Company and R. W. Beck were privately held
companies. Beck was a partnership. Harza was
a corporation, international corporation, as well
as domestic. Of course, IECO was publicly
held. In going through the process, it appeared
to me–of course, probably Harza was closer to
what the Bureau did, and they had, of course, a
very significant international operation. They
had been involved in some major–and were at
the present time, or at that time, and still today–
involved in some major dams overseas–Iran,
Iraq, these desirable places. Probably as
significant as anything was their long-time,
long-term involvement with Guri Dam in
Venezuela–Guri, the raising of Guri, and then
the downstream projects, the Caroni projects.
They just were getting under way with
Yacyreta, Argentina. They had dams under
construction in Honduras, or power projects in
Honduras, in El Salvador. Incidentally, a great
time to be involved in El Salvador–mid-
eighties. (laughter)

Harza Was Doing Things Similar to

Reclamation’s Work
Anyway, talked to all of them. Had been

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 187

friends with all of them, and knew their people,

knew their organizations. It was just a matter of
making a choice of where I was going to go.

“Chose Harza . . . because . . . what I wanted

was to get out of that top management, get
back down to construction . . . what I liked to
do . . .”
Chose Harza, as I say, because the kind of work
they did was just exactly what they wanted [me
for], and what I wanted was to get out of that
top management, get back down to
construction, get back into what I liked to do,
what I really felt like I wanted to do. And they
were looking–and each one of them had their
place, to pick whatever, really, I wanted to do,
the head of the construction group, and
responsible for all the field construction
activity, the staffing, the coordination,
everything related to getting projects on the
line, in service, and signed off on.

Harza Offered an Opportunity to Participate in

Ownership of the Company
Harza–one, privately held. It was an
opportunity to participate in the ownership. R.
W. Beck was the same thing. Organized a little
differently, but the opportunity to participate in
the ownership. Difference with Beck was they
were much smaller. Their water resources
group, at that time, was up to maybe 125
people. Harza–again, pretty much all water
resources– was 600, 650, 700–different scale
organization-wise.

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

188

“. . . it looked to me like Harza had the most to

offer. . . .”
M-K. For one thing, San Francisco.
Didn’t have any great desire to move to
California. Seattle; you know, I knew the
Washington area, desirable place to live. But
from the standpoint of what was on the boards,
what was going on, it looked to me like Harza
had the most to offer. You could participate in
the ownership. You bought the stock in M-K,
and so forth. But even at that time, looking at
M-K management, the way they were structured
between Boise and San Francisco, it just looked
to me like Harza was the best choice for me. As
it turned out, I didn’t learn until I got to Harza
that things were not as they appeared to be, as I
guess maybe they never are. I don’t know.
Anyway, those private engineering companies
have accomplished a whale of a lot around the
world and domestically as well. They do it a
different way.

Harza Didn’t Have the Same Depth of Staffing

That Reclamation Had
The lack of resources that I mentioned before
was a stark contrast to what we had in the
Bureau. I think at the time I left, we had
something like 2,400 people in the field. That’s
a lot to draw from. Then there was like 1,400 in
the Denver office. Tremendous amount of
resources to draw on. But in looking at all of
the private companies that I am familiar with, or
were familiar with, the amount of expertise, the
amount of engineering guides, design,

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 189

construction, testing, that the private sector

relies on is incredible, and still is today.

The Private Sector Relied on Reclamation

Innovation and Knowledge
The private sector relied on the Bureau
and, to some extent, the Corps of Engineers,
although I didn’t observe as much of the Corps-
type data being used as I did the Bureau.

The Private Engineering Companies Had less

and Relied on Reclamation Standards
The Bureau was the international standard, and
it was amusing, amazing, and everything else,
to be from the Bureau and have this stuff quoted
back to me from a private engineering
company, you know, the top engineers, the
design people, that were relying on Bureau
standards. They do a lot of things with less
resources, but, in fact, they were relying on the
Bureau, and they could go to the Bureau at any
time as far as technical information was
concerned, and technical papers being presented
all the time that were sopped up by these
people, sitting on the outside, as I was then.

Used Reclamation to Recruit While at Harza

Well, I never gave up my contacts with
the Bureau. I was either on the phone or hiring
someone. That was my pool when I was with
Harza Engineering Company, for construction-
type inspection, supervision, what have you, in
the field. I’d find some Bureau either recent

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

190

retiree, some of them weren’t retired. Some of

them were just fed up, as I had got fed up.
Today, Harza Engineering Company’s Chief of
Construction is Steve Ziegler, that I brought out
of the contract administration group to help me
in Harza. He quit. He didn’t have enough years
to retire, but he resigned from the Bureau and is
still back there in Chicago. He was one of the
first that I brought in. But used all kinds of
personnel, field-type people. A good pool to
draw on.

Bath County Pump Storage Project

I don’t remember exactly the number of
people that were involved in the Bath County
Pump Storage Project.

Strontia Springs Dam

Domestically, one of the first things that I got
involved with was Strontia Springs Dam. Harza
Engineering Company did the design work for
Strontia Springs for the Denver Water Board.
For one reason or another, M-K had the
construction contract on that project. They bid
it like they were going to build it in a year. It
took them two years to build it, and the
associated problems that went–you know,
contract problems, construction problems, cost
overruns, went hand in hand with that. And I
was instrumental in getting that project
completed, claims settled, and in-service. But,
as I say, it was one of the things that I seem to
have some skill at, and by knowing everybody
that is involved, I could go as high in M-K as I

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 191

needed to go. M-K took a pretty significant

loss, supposedly.

Again, the way contractors can handle

equipment costs, those kind of things that you
don’t know for sure, but, again, at that point in
time, the Denver Water Board was made up by
a housewife, a couple of lawyers, a construction
type–can’t remember–you know, today they’re
all, I think, all lawyers and environmental types.
Jim Kenney, who was the construction type, in
fact, owned a construction company and had
been chairman or president of that board, was
not at the time, he’d passed that along to
somebody else, but, you know, if it hadn’t a
been for a Kenney type, who knew
construction–if it had just been a bunch of
lawyers, you’re never going to settle anything.

Lawyers and Political Types Tend to like

Litigation Which Drives up Cost and Takes
More Time
They would rather litigate it and let somebody
else decide. The political types tend to feel
more comfortable with the judicial system,
taking the problem out of their area, let
somebody else decide it– right, wrong,
indifferent. And, believe me, I believe that
they’ll come up with the wrong answer, at
increased cost, about any time.

M-K Had Major Claims for the Strontia Springs

Dam Project
Anyway, M-K had generated some $40-,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 192

$45 million worth of claims, as I recall. Maybe

it wasn’t that much. Something on the order of
magnitude. We settled it for $6 million, settled
those claims. Everybody signed off on it,
including the M-K lawyers. They got outside
representation. But nobody believed that they
could be settled, and M-K alleged later that they
were out of pocket $14 million.

Thinks M-K Might Have Been out of Pocket 8-10

Million Dollars on Strontia Springs
Well, I don’t believe the $14 million, but it was
some significant number, and I would guess
eight or ten anyway, that they were out of
pocket on that project, in part due to their own
management. Bid it to do it in a year, and then
failed to get started.
Xxx
END SIDE 2, TAPE 1. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.
BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.

Storey: This is tape two of an interview by Brit Storey,

with Donald [Don] J. Duck, on February the
26th, 1996.

Duck: The inclination would be to hand it to

somebody else and let them decide it. And
that’s the way so many things have gone these
days. At any rate, for some number of years, it
was– well, from 1980 to 1986, I was enjoying
what I was doing, except that international
travel gets to be a drag when its so much and all
over the world.

“. . . from 1980 to 1986, I was enjoying what I

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 193

was doing, except that international travel gets

to be a drag when its so much and all over the
world. . . .”
Storey: You were the Chief of Construction?

Duck: Construction, yeah, right.

Storey: For Harza?

Duck: Yeah, and, of course, they wanted me involved

in everything that was going on, whether it was
projects that they were trying to acquire–you
know, design work they were trying to acquire,
construction management work. And, I was
involved in everything. The first Thanksgiving
that I spent there, Earl Beck called me in on the
day before Thanksgiving, wanted me to go to
Honduras. They had a problem with a drop
shaft for a hydro project. So on Thanksgiving
morning, I boarded an airplane for Honduras.
That pretty much said it for the rest of my time
with Harza. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of
travel.

“So on Thanksgiving morning, I boarded an

airplane for Honduras. That pretty much said it
for the rest of my time with Harza. It was a lot
of fun. It was a lot of travel. . . .”
I spent a significant amount of time each
month, probably seemed like it was more, but at
least once a month I was down in El Salvador,
in the middle of that civil war that was going on
down there, in large part because you couldn’t
get really anybody that was competent, that was

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 194

crazy enough to go down there and stay. So I

was spending a week or two a month in El
Salvador at that time.

“. . . I was spending a week or two a month in El

Salvador at that time. . . .”
Bath County Pump Storage Project was a
major, major project for Virginia Power. Got
shut down, got tangled up with the whole
nuclear–the tremendous cost that power
companies who had gotten involved with
nuclear powerplants, the cost of shutting them
down, of walking away from them. That was
being absorbed at that time, which is the early
to mid-eighties. Therefore, this hydro project
got kind of tabled for a while, then started up
again in 1985, ‘84, along in there. Harza
wanted me involved in that project, and I’d
heard enough about it from friends in FERC,17
and back door, that that was one I just said,
“No, I’m not going to have anything to do with
that.”

Didn’t Want to Be Involved in the Bath County

Pump Storage Project for Virginia Power Which
Had Been Tabled Because of the Impact of
Nuclear Projects on Cash Flow
Some months went by, and they hit me
again. They were really having trouble with the
managers out there, with the Project Manager
for Virginia Power and our manager and all, so

17. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 195

I said, “What I would do, first of all, is for Dick

Harza, Earl Beck, John Veltrop, key people,
Chief Engineer, go out there and sit down at the
table with Virginia Power, and you say, ‘You
take your manager off, we’ll take our manager
off. We’ll start from scratch and see what
happens.’” And that’s, in effect, what they did.
Pissed a lot of people off, but then I got myself
involved in that project.

This was coming up in 1986, and what

happened to me there was exactly what had
happened to me in the Bureau, as far as I’m
concerned, from my view. They elected me
president in 1986, and the Bath County–about
that time, the wheels came off, as far as I was
concerned. The tunnels, three thousand foot
shafts, long, large-diameter tunnels, leaked.
[When we] started to water-up to get into the
testing program– To make a long story short,
the water pressure in the tunnel was higher
[than the rock strength would take.] –and, of
course, outside the tunnel. Not unreinforced
concrete line, but for whatever reason, the
design would have been for unlined tunnels. I
mean, that was the way it was viewed. The
lining was just a kind of a superficial thing; it
wasn’t watertight. The water pressure in the
tunnel exceeded the stress in the rock.
Therefore, when the water got out of the tunnel,
there wasn’t enough stress in the rock to retain
the water. Therefore, it could go forever.
Called hydro-fraction, [hydrotracking]
hydrospreading, whatever.

Elected President of Harza in 1986

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 196

Anyway, we went into a high pressure

grouting program that had never been really
done in this country before, that I’m aware of.
We were grouting up to 600 psi at the surface,
actually splitting the rock, injecting cement, and
sealing it up for a distance of 30-, 40 feet
around the tunnel.

Had to Use High Pressure Grouting on the

Tunnels at Bath County Power Project
At any rate, at the same time they elected
me President, they made me take the Project
Manager job for Bath County. So, I was
dealing with trying to get Susitna18 under way.
We had the design work on Susitna in Alaska.

“At any rate, at the same time they elected me

President, they made me take the Project
Manager job for Bath County. . . .”

Trying to Keep the Susitna Project, a High Arch

Dam, Going
Storey: That’s a powerplant, a hydro plant?

18. The Susitna Project is a hydroelectric generation

project in Susitna, Alaska. Harza designed and
constructed what was then the highest rockfill dam in
North America. Source consulted on September 29,
2006:
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Har
za-Engineering-Company-Company-History.html

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 197

Duck: It was a high arch dam, with a power

component, yeah. It was really the downstream
dam, the first dam. Then the major storage
facility would have been a structure called
Watana [Dam], upstream from Devil’s Canyon.
At any rate, we were trying to keep that going,
we were doing the licensing work on that
project, flying the red-eye back from Anchorage
to Chicago. I logged, at that time, 100,000
miles in, I think it was 1986, on Piedmont
Airlines, in 750-mile increments. (laughter) At
the same time, hitting Venezuela, Argentina.
That was my life.

Anyway, we did put Bath County in

service. It was another one of these where we
had every so-called “expert” in the country on
the payroll, on Virginia Power, VEPCO’s
payroll. One or two that the Rate Commission
had managed to hire. But in that kind of
environment, fishbowl, every expert with some,
whatever suggestion there was–anyway, we
were spending at the rate of $12 million a
month on remedial grouting, and I wasn’t sure
who was paying for it. I knew if it was us, we
didn’t have the money. I can recall sitting in a
meeting at the project where all the Virginia
Power people, with their lawyers–and at that
time there were probably four or five lawyers.
In fact, the President of Virginia Power, at one
point in time in the first meeting, asked me
where my lawyer was. I said, “I don’t have
any.” I said, “In my opinion, if it gets to that,
we’re done anyway.”

Bath County Went into Service

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

198

On the Bath County Project “we were spending

at the rate of $12 million a month on remedial
grouting, and I wasn’t sure who was paying for
it. . . .”
And we got all those problems worked
out. It did not take really any litigation of any
kind against any of the parties–contractor,
engineer. Never even came into the picture.
From my perspective of what was going on all
around the world, all around the country, you
know, those kind of problems simply could not
have been solved but for the people, the
attitudes that were there with that group at that
time.

Worked out the Bath County Project Overruns

Without Litigation
Going back to Denver, the same way. If it
wasn’t for those people that were
involved–back to Denver, I can remember when
the whole thing got settled, I met with the
Denver Water Board in their typical city–you
know, beautiful conference room, or board
room, sitting there looking at this cast of
characters sitting up there, going to sit in
judgment of this whole thing. I went through
what should be done, and then heard one of
their outside counsel talk about what he thought
should be done. Dick Harza was sitting there
with me, as well as their Project Manager, and I
simply got up and said, “It’s obvious to me you
people want to litigate. Get me out of it. Go

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 199

litigate it.” And left the room. Dick Harza

about had a goddamn heart attack.

Settling the Strontia Springs Claims Without

Litigation
But I also went over to the Sheraton,
where I met with the contractor’s negotiating
team, and I said, “I just told the Water Board
that I’m out of it. I said, ‘You guys want to
litigate it, go litigate it.’” And what they
ultimately did was meet the next day and settled
it.

It was the same sort thing at Bath County,

making the decision what had to be done, going
ahead and get it done, and the owner taking
responsibility for it. And that, I’m sure, got us a
lot of criticism in the Bureau, because that was
exactly the way things were done. If you got to
absolute loggerheads, could not settle it, the
magnitude of the dollars got so great that it
couldn’t be settled, they were litigated. But if
you could settle, get on with the next one, that
was the way it was done.

Strontia Springs and Bath County were

similar–“making the decision what had to be
done, going ahead and get it done, and the
owner taking responsibility for it. . . .”

“If you got to absolute loggerheads, could not

settle it, the magnitude of the dollars got so
great that it couldn’t be settled, they were
litigated. . . .”

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 200

Storey: How long did you stay with Harza after you
were made President?

Duck: I was elected President in ‘86, chairman of the

board in ‘87, and left in ‘90. I promised
Dolores when we moved back to Chicago, we’d
be there for five years. Stayed ten.

Elected Chairman of the Board at Harza in 1987

Left Harza in 1990

I brought in, from outside–when I was
elected to Harza[‘s board], there were all kinds
of things I didn’t know about, and I’d been on
the board for two or three years. The company
was down $3 million in Algeria, a couple of
million dollars in Argentina. This is write-off-
type stuff.

When Elected President of Harza There Were

Losses and a Declining Workload to Deal with
Storey: This was when you became President?

Duck: Uh-huh. Those engineering costs had already

been incurred, had not been accepted, never
were. And the workload was declining. All the
water resources, the engineering owners, what
have you, that workload was declining from
what it had been, fifties, sixties. Fifties–the
overseas work, dam-building work, was going
at about the same rate it was in this country.
Early sixties, and so forth. But as you might
guess, or as anybody might guess–and I don’t

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 201

know what this has to do with the Bureau

history, this is more my history than it is Bureau
history–but the declining workload, the fact that
you had more senior people, as any
organization, when they start cutting back, they
seem to cut off at the bottom, and the higher-
paid senior people, whether they’re really
productive or producing at that time– certainly,
in their history, they had been productive
people, but a lot of complacency, a lot of
retired-on-the-job-type people.

Well, to make a long story short, over a

period of about a year, given the workload that
we had, the revenue flow, and so forth, bought
back into the company about 50 percent of the
stock in the company. Fifty percent of the
outstanding shares were in these people that I
was responsible for letting go. At the same
time, the candidates for key jobs, like the Chief
Engineer, there wasn’t one in Harza. Therefore,
I brought in a Bureau guy to be Chief Engineer
of Harza Engineering Company. That went
down pretty hard. As I say, this was ‘87, ‘88. I
was Chairman, President, CEO.

In the First Year Bought out 50 Percent of the

Ownership of Harza and Cut Overhead Staff
In ‘88, the same thing could be said for
marketing. In a private company like that,
there’s a tendency– more than a tendency–for
productive people to try to get on overhead
accounts. In other words, not have to be
billable, slip into the overhead. Had a hell of a
lot of that. And that’s a lot of where the cuts

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

202

were taking place, out of overhead. People that

were on billable project work and doing the job
were pretty safe. Not entirely. Depending on
how good a job they were doing, and so forth.

Anyway, the same thing came along with

the marketing group, with the head of the
marketing group, and a couple of other things.
I ran this thing as a dictator. There was no
question about it. Number one, you know that I
wasn’t brought into the presidency of that
company, or made Chairman of the Board, if
they’d have had anybody internally that they
felt was capable of dealing with the problems
that they had to deal with, which were self-
generated, company-generated, as far as I was
concerned.

At the same time [we] were acquiring the

Rocky Mountain Pump Storage Project for
Oglethorpe Power in Georgia. That was a
project that had been mothballed because of the
nuclear problems at Georgia Power. They had
started it, or had it on the drawing boards. The
project was licensed, but mothballed.
Oglethorpe took over the project, acquired the
license, and Harza–we got the contract for
doing the engineering work.

Rocky Mountain Pump Storage Project for

Oglethorpe Power in Georgia
At any rate, I created a hell of a lot of
enemies in that four years that I was CEO of the
company. Made a hell of a lot of friends, too.
But we were making money. The prospects, as

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 203

far as the international work, looked great.

From really the midpoint in my career with
Harza, I was saying, “It’s this way or I’m going
to Colorado.” And you can hold that club
[only] so long.

Made Enemies and Friends While CEO of Harza

In the latter part of 1989, 1990, I got into a
loggerhead with the company over, again,
bringing in outside people, replacing the Harza
career people, moving the office, and a couple
of other things. The result was, I resigned and
came to Colorado.

Resigned and Moved Back to Colorado

Storey: But there was a lot of drawing on Reclamation
staffing, while you were there.

Duck: Absolutely.

Storey: A lot of people think, “Well, I retired. Why

does he want to know about this?” It’s because
the ties to Reclamation just keep on going.

Duck: For sure. And some of the assignments were

dirty. Overseas–you know, Jordan and the
Latin countries. The environment’s not–Latin
America, Venezuela, Argentina, they’re
different, but it’s not like those Middle Eastern
countries. It’s not like China.

I was a member of the first so-called

Technical Exchange Group, whatever it was, in
1978, to go into mainland China. Would that

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 204

have been right? Yeah, that was the right time

frame. It was Higginson. Who was the
Assistant Secretary? Lawyer, Alaska, Bill. It
was an experience to be with that group in
China, looking at what the Chinese wanted, as
far as hydro. It was a hydropower delegation
that I participated with. Jack Morris, who was
in Corps of Engineers, was one of the
participants. Tennessee Valley Authority were
there to talk about transmission lines. It was
supposed to be a technical exchange. Didn’t
really turn out to be that way. But out of that,
Harza came up with the design work, assisting
the Chinese on a dam called Ertan, big hydro
project on the Yangtze River. And the
opportunities for water resource development,
water resources in China are just mind-
boggling, and they’re intending to proceed with
them. They do intend to develop their water
resources beyond where they are now, including
the Three Gorges Project.

Participated in the First Technical Exchange

Group Sent to China

Harza Worked the Ertan Project on the Yangtze

River
Storey: I think I have a few sort of clean-up questions
about Reclamation.

Duck: Okay.

Storey: One of them, you mentioned that Reclamation

killed off the planning process. Could you walk
me through that?

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 205

Duck: Well, I don’t remember. I think you can get

that from the Regional Directors better than me.
As far as the Denver office is concerned, it
functioned like, I think, a technical advisory
group. Overview, maybe, of planning that was
going on, and technical assistance, maybe, of
one kind or another. But I can remember some
specific– well, can’t remember specific–but
anyway, reorganizations within the regions, and
de-emphasizing, or what, you know, was the
appearance to me that the planning effort was
being de-emphasize, that planning staff were
being cut. Catino or Bill Martin didn’t talk
about that at all? It happened.

Decline of Planning at Reclamation

Storey: Was this while you were still out in the field or
while you were in Denver? When was this?

Duck: It would have been while I was in Denver.

Storey: During the seventies, then.

Duck: Anyway, it was apparent enough to me that

there was–I saw Warren Fairchild’s name in
there, I thought. Anyway, Warren was
responsible for something–not sure what. But
the rigorous planning, I forget what they even
called it, but anyway, they developed new
planning procedures, I think under Warren
Fairchild.

But then later on it was apparent to me

that they were killing off–the politicians, the
politics, wherever–the leadership was intending

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 206

to kill off the planning process. And when that

goes, everything else goes, as far as the
traditional activities of Reclamation.

Storey: I’m going to try and see Bill next month.

Duck: See Bill–

Storey: Bill Martin.

Duck: Yeah. Give him my regards. Some of the most

fun I had, given the time and what was going
on, was with Bill Martin.

Storey: During the seventies, while you were in the

Denver office?

Duck: Yeah, latter part of the seventies. Well, you

know, everybody rowing to beat hell with Teton
out there, and sinking the boat.

Storey: Tell me about Bill Keating. You mentioned

him. He was an Assistant Commissioner.

Duck: You know, he was an Assistant Commissioner.

I can’t remember what area. Bill was
outspoken. My contact with him had been
minimal. You know, all I knew was really a
position, and I didn’t really know any of those
positions. Got to be a little more familiar with
Don Anderson later on– administration.

Storey: And he’s my next question.

Duck: Oh, is that right? Keating and those people, you

know, had the contact with the congressional

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 207

staffers, and they were the liaison, really. But

Keating, first contact I’d had with him was a
telephone call out at Asilomar, and then, of
course, I saw him, talked to him when they had
me come into Washington. Given the time and
everything else, they put me up at the
Presidential Hotel. That was the only place that
they could find, and it was the biggest of the
fleabags that I ever stayed in there. You know,
it had a bare bulb and an extension cord running
under the rug. I didn’t know whether to go to
sleep or not that night.

Then later on, I had more contact with

Bill. I’d have to look back to see what his title
was, but in relation to things that were going on
at Grand Coulee, for the most part. Coulee was
a major, major project, and a politically
sensitive project at that point in time. Was that
a Hickel period or not?

Storey: Hickel?

Duck: Walter Hickel.

Storey: The Secretary of the Interior.

Duck: Secretary of the Interior. Now Governor of

Alaska.

Storey: Well, I keep all of these lists for this kind of

thing. Hickel, ‘69 to ‘70, is when he was
Secretary of the Interior.

Duck: Sure. That would have been the time frame.

About the same time as Ellis–

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 208

END SIDE 1, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.

BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.

Storey: Grand Coulee was a high-profile project.

Duck: Very high profile.

Storey: Hickel might have been involved, somehow

indirectly.

Duck: Indirectly, yeah. But then again, he wasn’t

around long enough to–

Storey: Almost two full years.

Duck: Yeah. Keating was, again, an outspoken, rough,

I think, “Get it done” type of person. That was
the way I remember him.

Storey: What about Don Anderson?

Duck: I think I mentioned he was a real opponent of

the centralized Denver office, or grew to get
that way, or whatever. He was a supporter of
the Regional Directors having more authority,
more control, responsible for a lot of years of
the congressional liaison with the various
staffers of the subcommittees and the
subcommittees themselves. Lived in that
environment for a long, long, long time. He had
his opinion.

Don Anderson opposed centralized Denver

office and supported regional directors
Storey: You mentioned earlier today that you knew a lot

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 209

of people in Reclamation, but when we were

talking in the previous interviews, I sort of had
the impression, at Yellowtail and at Coulee, and
so on, that that’s where you were. You weren’t
doing a lot of getting out and meeting people.
Was that an incorrect impression, or did you
meet people after you moved to Denver? What
were you referring to there?

Duck: Well, just given my career with Reclamation, I

came into contact with a heck of a lot of people.
You look at Flaming Gorge. It was a relatively
small group. When I moved to
Yellowtail–Granger brought me to Yellowtail.
I don’t believe that other than, I think, Don
Fillis was at Flaming Gorge, but that group
went all different ways. The young engineers
left the Bureau. I think Don went along later
with me to Yellowtail.

How He Met Many People

The only person besides Fillis, as I recall,
that had dam experience was a GS-7 technician
that came from Glen Canyon, and we built that
group out of what was there in the region, for
the most part. A couple of other key people
came from Glen Canyon. But technicians, like
Bill Grimes, as far as excavation, he went with
me to Yellowtail. Now, names of the–you
know, like a Jim Simmons, who was a
technician in the batch plant, the Dewey Erich,
some of the local people that were engineering
technicians, and so forth. I remember–in fact,
I’ve run into a couple of them when I visited
Flaming Gorge, out there, couple of years–well,

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

210

couple of years–‘91, I guess, was the last time I

over there. Keep threatening to go fishing at
Flaming Gorge. Don’t get there.

Then you got the group at Yellowtail and

the group of technicians that you assembled
from mostly the region. As I say, a couple–one
from Flaming Gorge, one from Glen Canyon.
And then hired a handful of young engineers,
new graduates, that went into similar to what I
did at Flaming Gorge. Let’s see. Bill Wyatt,
Ed Makoff [phonetic]. These guys are all
retired now, too. Lyle Cardin was at Anchor
Dam. And a couple that left the Bureau.
Young engineers or recent graduates. And that
group of technicians that are really the
backbone of an inspection program. You pretty
rapidly promote these young engineers into
supervisory positions, and they have a group of
technicians that will work them. At the same
time you meet, and are exposed to, all the
contractors’ people, especially in the
supervisory level, and down to the workmen
level, vibrator hands, carpenters, whatever.
You get to know these people.

Well, you had the Flaming Gorge group,

which was mostly Kiewit people, key people.
Yellowtail–you have the M-K people, and some
of the M-K people that were on the project–now
retired–but we followed each other all the rest
of our careers. Over at Grand Coulee, we took
some of the people from Yellowtail, brought
some of the people from Glen Canyon. Again,
took some of the key engineering people like
the Makoffs that I mentioned, the Wyatts, the

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

 211

Sommerdays–Sommerday, who was with me

for a long time with Harza, in the field. But that
cadre of engineering–you know, degreed
people, and then the technicians that were
pulled in from various projects. Again, Vinnell,
Dravo, Lockheed, and Mannix. Had the Vinnell
people that were originally sponsoring the
project. That group turned over. We had the
Dravo people, and you get to know those people
from the top part of the organization right down
to the common labor.

Storey: So you end up with a big pool of people.

Duck: Well, over that period of years, you get to know

tremendous numbers of Reclamation,
engineering, construction, and contractors’
construction people. And then, you know,
moving into Denver, you get acquainted with
that [group]–and certainly didn’t know
everybody, first name or anything else, but as I
say, I think there were maybe 1,400 people in
that office at that time. Plus all of the project
people then that I got acquainted with, had
maybe heard of or knew about. And at some
point in time, during that eight years that I was
in Denver, probably had something to do with
their assignments, with where they were going.
We had the responsibility for making sure that
construction projects were staffed with the right
kind of people. I think I said early on, it takes,
you know, the one guy, and then two, three,
four people that know what they’re doing, and
you can take it from there and do wonders.

Storey: Good. Well, I appreciate you spending all this

Oral history of Donald (Don) J. Duck

 212

time with me. I’d like to ask you again whether

you’re willing for the information on these
tapes and the resulting transcripts to be used–

Duck: Sure, if it doesn’t get me put in jail. (laughter)

Storey: I don’t think it will. (laughter) Thank you.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 2. FEBRUARY 26, 1996.

END INTERVIEWS.

Bureau of Reclamation History Program