University of California Berkeley Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California East Bay Municipal Utility District Oral History Series Walter R. McLean FROM PARDEE TO BUCKHORN: WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING AND WATER POLICY IN THE EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT, 1927-1991 With an Introduction by James V. Zeno Interviews Conducted by Ann Lage in 1991 Copyright 1993 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well -placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the Nation. Oral history is a modern research technique involving an interviewee and an informed interviewer in spontaneous conversation. The taped record is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The resulting manuscript is typed in final form, indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ************************************ All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Walter R. McLean dated May 21, 1991. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with Walter R. McLean requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Walter R. McLean, "From Pardee to Buckhorn: Water Resources Engineering and Water Policy in the East Bay Municipal Utility District, 1927-1991," an oral history conducted in 1991 by Ann Lage , Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1993. Copy no . I Oakland Tribune 2/11/01 MCLEAN WALTER R. MCLEAN, passed away peace fully at home on Thursday, February 8, 2001 sur rounded by family, friends and devoted care- givers. He was 97. Bom in Boderick, California on July 16, 1903,'he jad been a resident df San Le andro since 1932. H reached a milestone few achieve, he spent 53 years working for EBMUD. During forty of those years he was a supervising engineer in volved in major projects that brought water to the Bay Area. He served another 12 years on the Dis trict's Board of Directors. One of his early chal lenges was working on the Pardee Dam where there now is a McLean Conference Hafl com memorating his contributions. He often. spoke of his affection for the District saying that "he dkln't know any place with such fine people." After re tiring he continued his career as a consultant. Mr. McLean left school at an early age to sup port his widowed mother but as an aduft, con tinued his education at the University of California Berkeley. Over his long career he earned the es teem of his peers in the American Society of En gineers, American Public Work Association, East Bay Engineers Club, and was awarded a lifetime membership in the American Water Works Asso ciation. Besides his work, "Mac" had other passions in his life. During the. years his 3 sons were growing up, he was involved in many projects for the Boy Scouts of America anf their summer camp. In addition, Mr. McLean was active in San Leandro City affairs participating in the planning of the San Leandro Marina. Walter is survived by his daughters Phyllis Click and Claudette Rogers, his sons Bruce McLean and James McLean. He also had 10 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren. He was predeceased by Ins son Donald,, killed during WWII, his son pick and his wives Margaret and Ula Three loving caretakers brought joy and comfort to his test years; Adona Celestial, Eliza beth Gab, and Jose Luzurgia. His last night on this earth was spent listening to some of his fa vorite music, singing, and eating a bowl of Icecream. He will be sorely missed by his numerous friends, colleagues, hunting buddies, community members, and extensive family. Friends are invited to call at Santos Robinson Mortuary, 160 Estudillo Ave., San Leandro be tween 4:00 and 8:00 PM Monday, February 12. Services are scheduled for 11 AM. Tuesday, February 13 at First Presbyterian Church of San Leandro, 180 EstudSo Ave. Interment wiH be pri vate in Sacramento. Contributions can be made in his memory to the Boy Scouts of America SANTOS-ROBINSON MORTUARY SAN LEANDRO, CA. 510-4834123 Walter R. McLean, 1990 Photograph by Bordanaro & Zarcone Cataloging information McLEAN, Walter R. (b. 1903) Water resources engineer From Pardee to Buckhorn: Water Resources Engineering and Water Policy in the East Bay Municipal Utility District. 1927-1991. 1993, ix, 330 pp. Pioneer San Francisco family; youth in Sacramento, California; work conditions and construction techniques for H. M. Byllesby Company's El Dorado Hydroelectric Project, 1923-1927; civil engineer and projects manager for East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) , 1927-1968: building Pardee Dam, Mokelumne Aqueducts, Bay Area water works, supervising construction of sewage disposal facilities, recreation areas, dam and aqueduct projects of 1950s- 1960s; recollections of supervisors, coworkers, management policies at EBMUD; member, EBMUD board of directors, 1979-1990: water supply policies, water conservation projects, internal policies, board and district management; designing a Honduran shrimp farm and other work as a consulting engineer, 1970s-1980s. Introduction by James V. Zeno. Interviewed 1991 by Ann Lage for the East Bay Municipal Utility District Oral History Series. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. TABLE OF CONTENTS --Walter R. McLean INTRODUCTION --by James V. Zeno i INTERVIEW HISTORY- -by Ann Lage ill BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION vlll PROLOGUE: THOUGHTS DURING A RAINSTORM IN A DROUGHT YEAR 1 Water Supply and Water Quality 1 Rationale for Building Buckhorn Reservoir: Mitigating a Failure of the Aqueducts 4 Potential Failure of the Tunnels 7 Buckhorn as an Emergency Facility 9 I FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE IN SACRAMENTO 11 Scottish Roots: The Maclean Clan 11 Mother's Family in Early California 12 McLean Family History 13 Parents' Marriage and Father's Early Death 17 Mother's Work and Terminal Illness 18 Recollections of Youth and Family in Sacramento 24 II ON-THE-JOB TRAINING: FROM DELIVERY BOY TO ENGINEER, 1915-1924 27 Dropping Out of School in Seventh Grade to Support Family 27 With the State Highway Commission, 1917-1923 28 1921 Survey Party in Lassen County 29 Life in Construction Camps: Tents, Meals, Baths, Dances 30 Return to Sacramento: Night School and Marriage to Margaret Sherman 35 Instrument Man on El Dorado Hydroelectric Project, 1923 36 Investigating Echo Lake Dam, 1924 38 Plum and Alder Creek Siphons: Dealing with Migrating Deer 41 III A CLOSER LOOK AT WATER PROJECTS OF THE EARLY TWENTIES 44 The El Dorado Project: Penstock, Surge Tank, Wood Stove Pipeline for a High-Head Power Plant 44 The Caples Lake Dam: Unique Gunite Core Construction 48 Wood- Fired Steam Shovels 52 Wages, Hours, Food on a Round -the -Clock Project 54 Keeping the Men on the Job: Camp Followers and Good Food 56 Preliminary Work on the California Water Project, 1924-1925 60 Investigations of the Middle Fork of the Feather River, 1925-1927 61 Survey Parties in Remote Countryside 63 Frenchie the Cook and His Replacement 66 1927 Survey of Grizzly Valley 67 PG&E Purchase of H. M. Byllesby Company's California Interests 67 IV FIRST JOB WITH EASTBAY MUD: THE MOKELUMNE AQUEDUCT AND PARDEE DAM, 1927-1930 69 Inspecting Concrete Vork on the Aqueduct 69 Transfer to Pardee Dam 71 Accident at Dedication for the Aqueduct 72 Personnel at Pardee : From Photographer to Concrete Technologist to Gold Diggers 73 Mining and Hauling Aggregate for Concrete 75 The High Line 78 Atkinson Construction Company, Contractors on the Pardee Job 78 Drilling and Shooting 80 Dangers and Deaths of Workers 81 Pardee as the Guinea Pig for Other Big Dams 84 Recalling Early District Managers and Supervisors 87 Day Laborers : Changes in Work from Pardee to Boulder 90 Organizing by Railroad Divisions and Schedules 93 Influence of Supervisors Macdonald, Longwell, and Edmonston 94 Family Living in the Construction Camp 97 Mishap and Potential Disaster, April 1930 99 Layoff and Rehire at EBMUD 100 V THE DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II ERAS AT EAST BAY MUD 103 Building a Supply Line to Serve San Francisco, 1932 103 Construction of the Orinda Filter Plant, 1934 104 Further Thoughts on the Design and Construction of the Orinda Filter Plant 107 Rush Job on Pipeline to Crockett Sugar Refinery, 1935 111 Using Work Projects Administration Workers in Pipeline Construction 113 Wartime Service with the District 115 Son's Service in Army Air Force and Death 118 Wartime Precautions 120 Increased Use of Outside Contractors during Postwar Years 121 VI CONSTRUCTING THE SEWAGE DISPOSAL FACILITIES, 1945-1952 123 Raw Sewage Discharge along East Bay Shore 123 Staffing Special District 1 126 Determining Outfall Location with Float Studies of Bay Currents 128 Locating Sewer Line Interceptors 130 Problems with Sandfill under the Eastshore Freeway: Breastboarding the Headworks 131 Treatment Plant and Pumping Plants 132 Installing the Outfall Sewer Line and Connecting the Interceptors 133 VII GROWTH AND EXPANSION, 1950s-1960s 135 Planning for Growth: the 1958 Bond Issue 135 Population Growth, Annexations, New Pipelines 137 Need for Additional Water Supply 140 An Aside on Slide Rules and Calculators 143 Building the Pardee Recreation Area 145 Managing Recreation on Reservoirs: Sanitary Considerations 146 Feasibility Study of the Middle Bar Project, 1950s 148 Rejection of Plan for a High Dam at Middle Bar 151 The High Dan at Camanche 153 Geological Problems with the Site 153 Efforts to Prevent Dam Failure, 1966 154 The Decision to Build Camanche 155 Serious Fear of A Failure of the Dam 156 Digging Relief Wells and Slurry Trench 157 Wearing Two Hats: Special Projects and Field Engineering 164 Storm Damage at Briones Dam, 1962 166 Working with the State Division of Dam Inspection 168 VIII CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES ON AQUEDUCTS AND TUNNELS, 1950s-1960s 170 Cost -Saving Innovations on the Third Mokelumne Aqueduct 170 Using the Single Fillet Weld 170 Reducing the Number of Pressure Relief Valves 172 River and Freeway Crossings, Third Aqueduct 174 Avoiding Lawsuits with Accurate Written and Photographic Records 175 Building the Second Lafayette Tunnel: Experimenting with New Technology 179 Assessing Liquidated Damages on the Lafayette Tunnel 181 Neighbor Relations in Relocation of Lafayette Aqueduct 182 Successful Use of Boring Machine and Laser Technology 184 IX POSTWAR CHANGES IN DISTRICT MANAGEMENT AND POLICIES 186 Recalling General Manager and Chief Engineer John Longwell, 1934-1949 186 New Leadership under General Manager John McFarland, 1950-1968 187 From an Engineering-Oriented to a Business-Oriented Management 190 Rewards of Working for the District 192 Relations with Board Members 194 Board Decisions on the Middle Bar Project 195 Need for More Water Projects in California 196 X THE WORK OF A CONSULTING ENGINEER 199 Retirement from East Bay MUD, 1968 199 Expert Witness for Kaiser Steel in 1969 Lawsuit 200 Testifying for the Bureau of Reclamation, 1969-1970 204 Thoughts on Being an Expert Witness 206 The Case of the Leaky Sewer Line, Bethel Island 208 Designing a Honduran Shrimp Farm 212 Troubleshooting on a Pipeline in Ghana 219 Consulting on BART's Market Street Tunnel 221 Cathodic Protection, Under-Bay Cables, and Ships' Anchors 222 XI EBMUD BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 1979-1990 224 Running for the Board 224 The Contracting-Out Issue 229 Representing Ward Constituency on the Board 232 Back- Flow Devices for Veils 232 Stand on Buckhorn Dam and Elevation Charges 235 The Proper Role of the Board vis a vis Staff 238 Hiring Jerry Gilbert as General Manager, 1981 240 General Managers from Davis to Gilbert: A Firsthand Assessment 243 Regrets about Abandonment of High Middle Bar Dam 247 Gilbert's Role in Tightening a Lax Adminstration 250 Urgent Need for Understanding of California's Unique Vater Problems and Needs 252 XII BOARD POLICY ISSUES: WATER SUPPLY AND DEMAND, AND OTHERS 258 Water Conservation and the Rate Structure 258 Limitations and Successes of Water Conservation 259 District Water Recycling Projects 262 The Charged Issue of Supplying New Development Outside District Service Areas 266 Using Water District Policy to Control Growth 268 The Tri -Valley Sewer Connection 271 Limits to Controlling Growth in the Bay Area 274 Proposed Merger with Contra Costa Water District 275 The Wet Weather Project 278 More on the Need for Middle Bar Dam and Buckhorn Reservoir 281 Problems with the South Spillway of Pardee Dam 283 Other Issues: Fluoridation, Watershed Rangers, Watershed Protection 285 Fishing and Boating on District Reservoirs 289 Problems with Recreation at Camanche Reservoir 290 XIII BOARD ISSUES: PERSONNEL AND OTHER INTERNAL POLICIES 292 Instituting Affirmative Action Policies 292 District Employment of Minorities 294 Difficulties of Bonding Minority Contractors 295 Comparable Worth 297 A Controversial Contract Award Decision 297 Value and Problems of Public Involvement in Board Policy 299 Neighborhood Objections to Building Buckhorn Dam 299 Objections to Adeline Yard and Lafayette Maintenance Center 302 Costs of the EIR Process 305 The Long Overdue Administration Building in Oakland's Chinatown 306 Sandy Skaggs as EBMUD Board President 311 The Board's Role in Labor Negotiations 313 The Board's Responsibility to the Public 315 TAPE GUIDE 322 INDEX 324 INTRODUCTION- -by James V. Zeno Walter R. McLean ranks as one of the nation's foremost civil engineers specializing in water resources development. His distinguished career embraces fifty- three years of dedicated service to the East Bay Municipal Utility District, plus fifteen years as a consultant to water related projects in the United States, South America, and Africa. McLean's forty-one years on the engineering staff of EBMUD spanned the period 1927-1986, during which most of the foundation facilities of the water district were created. Among the projects bearing the McLean touch are the Pardee Dam; the First and Third Mokelumne Aqueducts; Upper San Leandro Reservoir and filter plant; Briones Dam; and the Lafayette Tunnel and Aqueduct. Indeed, as manager of both the Field Engineering Division and the Special Projects Construction Division, he was associated with or responsible for studies, design, construction, and development of all water and waste water facilities. McLean faced mandatory retirement at age sixty- five from EBMUD in 1968. However, after completing his EBMUD employee status, McLean was neither "retired nor tired," as the reader will learn from this oral history treatise of the McLean Water Era. So, in 1969, McLean embarked on another career- -this time in the private sector. He joined the civil engineering consulting firm Goslinger/McLean Associates, Inc., under the presidency of his son, Robert J. McLean. From 1969 to 1991, his time was fully occupied on water projects on state and national levels plus participation in numerous volunteer events in the Bay Area. He returned to EBMUD in the capacity of a public servant in 1979 after his election at the polls to the water district's board of directors. He was re-elected by the people twice and served three four- year terms. Combined with his forty-one years as a civil engineer district executive, this role as public servant rounded out his fifty- three years of service expertise to EBMUD. As a Registered Professional Engineer (in California, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon) McLean gained the high esteem of his professional peers. His other water resources membership credentials include: Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers (Life Member) Consulting Engineers Association of California 11 Society of American Military Engineers Past President, American Public Works Association (Life Member, Samuel Greeley Award) American Water Works Association (Life Member) California Water Resources Association East Bay Engineers Club Engineers Club of San Francisco United States Committee on Large Dams McLean's volunteer civil activities includes: board of directors, San Francisco Bay Area Council, Boy Scouts of America (presently, chairman of Properties Committee); Silver Beaver Award, Boy Scouts of America; Arthur Greulich Award, Camp Fire Girls of America; Society of California Pioneers; California Alumni Association, UC Berkeley; Commonwealth Club; Chairman of the San Leandro Shoreline Commission, whose feasibility studies led to creation of San Leandro Marina and Tony Lema Golf Course. McLean resides in San Leandro with his wife, Lila, where his other community services include: chairman, Board of Appeals; Cherry Festival board of directors; California Waterfowl Association; Ducks Unlimited; and numerous other organizations. McLean still is an Izaak Walton devotee --his main hobby is hunting, and he is active in the administration of the Rich Island Duck Club and belongs to the Black Point Pheasant Club. Walter Reginald McLean truly exemplifies the adage, get a job done, give it to a busy man!" 'If you want to James V. Zeno Public Relations Consultant March 1993 San Leandro, California iii INTERVIEW HISTORY- -by Ann Lage Walter R. McLean's career in water resources engineering in California spans nearly three-quarters of a century. Fifty- three of those years were devoted to service to the East Bay Municipal Utility District [EBMUD] : from 1927 to 1968 as a civil engineer working on or managing a vast array of district projects, and, following his retirement, as a member of the district's board of directors from 1979- 1991. Shortly after Mr. McLean left the EBMUD board of directors, the district asked the Regional Oral History Office to conduct his oral history. Mr. McLean was an ideal candidate for an oral history memoir. At age eighty-eight, he had a remarkable memory and a raconteur's ease with the spoken word, recalling vividly his coworkers and details of dam, aqueduct, and tunnel construction from more than sixty years earlier. At our initial session on a rare rainy day during an extended drought, $ " M 161 McLean: This Is upstream, on the reservoir side. And this is why we had to drain the reservoir in order to get in there and work on it. We had to completely drain the reservoir. Lage: And the main dam, you didn't do anything on the reservoir side? McLean: No. We couldn't get into it because there was water there. But the dike was dry because, you see, the base of the dikes are higher than the base of the dam. Lage: What do you call--? McLean: This was a slurry trench in which you use bentonite. It's a very fine clay material mixed with water. I guess it's about fifty percent water, fifty percent clay. But the specific gravity of it is much heavier than water. It comes from down in the southern California area, in the Bakersfield area, where they have big fields of this bentonite. It's a very fine colloidal clay. This was mixed in a plant on site. In some places we had to go down one hundred feet or more with a dragline. You keep the trench full of slurry at all times. It's heavy enough to support the trench sides. We had a trench that was about six to eight feet wide. We used a large dragline. This dragbucket was about sixty inches wide. In order to keep the sides from slopping in we had to dig this material out, and we'd cast that material to one side up on the upstream face. We'd cast the excavated material out, and we kept the trench constantly full of slurry at all times, up to the surface . In order to stop that seepage through the base of the dam we had to plug it on the upstream face. That meant that we had to drain all the water out of the reservoir- -all that we could- -so that we could get to the upstream toe of the dike. And then we installed this slurry trench. Lage: The slurry is impervious to the water? McLean: Yes. Once it solidifies, then it is impervious; it's just like you installed a concrete cutoff wall. This is common practice in dams where sometimes they're founded on gravel. And fact is, had this been done at the time the dike was constructed, we would have never had the problem. We knew this aquifer existed. I wouldn't say Bechtel ignored it, but they virtually ignored it and said it wasn't necessary to put in a cutoff wall. We had to waste about 400,000 acre feet of water, and at a cost of even $10 an acre foot that would be $4 million. Lage: Even though you had pointed it out? 162 McLean: Yes. We knew about it. Berney Gordon, who was our geologist, knew that this aquifer existed. Lage: I would think you'd have more control over your contractor, to tell them, "What are you doing about the aquifer?" McLean: Well, no. When you have a contract, you have to specify that you're going to do these things. The contractor doesn't know anything about it. In other words, he does what the plans and specification show, and if you don't show a cut-off in your specifications, he doesn't put it in his costs. Lage: So the district should have put it in? McLean: The district should have indicated a cutoff wall. We should have done this, because we knew there were problems. And it should have been provided for in the original contract. We did not. We went ahead and let the reservoir fill up, and then when the reservoir was nearly full, we recognized that we had problems at the main dam and at dike number one. Then this required remedial measures, which we had to do and do them damn fast, because we were very concerned about failures . Lage: You must have been kind of upset with the failure of the district to follow through on things that your first investigation had brought up. McLean: I wouldn't say that you could blame Bechtel, but I think they overlooked a serious problem which could have been taken care of during the construction. Lage: But it wasn't in their specifications, either? McLean: No, it wasn't. And they didn't think it was serious. But we lost a whole reservoir of storage by having to drain, and we had to drain very rapidly. We opened up everything. Nobody knew about it except the district. Lage: Somebody must have noticed all that water coming down the river. McLean: Well, I don't know. Lage : Nothing came up about it? McLean: I don't know whether they did or not, but we were seriously concerned. I don't recall the exact dates that took place, but it was in the early sixties. 163 McLean: Camanche was completed in '64, so this must have occurred in '65 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean : Lage: McLean: or '66. By the time it got filled up? Along in there. I'm wondering if I got anything in my diaries about it. Let me see. [pause] [laughter] August, 1966. Yes. [reads from diary] "Met with Burns and Morrison Knudsen and Harnett in regard to the slurry trench and extra cost. Harnett told Burns that he could not Justify any additional costs at this time but would do so if such costs were justified." Who were Harnett and Burns? Burns was the superintendent for Morrison Knudsen, and Harnett was the chief engineer of the district. "Met with Burns and Wilson of Well, here we are, right here: M.& K. in regard to slurry trench." Who are M. & K.? Morrison Knudsen was a large contracting firm with headquarters in Boise, Idaho. They had the contract on the repairs. "In office until ten, went to Camanche and was there all day until 4:30. Went to Pardee and stayed overnight. At 7:00 A.M. went to Camanche. At Camanche all day with Bill Burns and Bob Woodruff. Back to Oakland at 5:00 P.M." So we were really concerned about Camanche . How long a drive is it up to Camanche? Oh, about an hour and a half, two hours, something like that. This all took place in 1966. I have some more notes here. "Met with Dave Dayton and Orin Harder in regard to going to Duncan Lake to see the slurry trench." Slurry trenches in those days were new. Duncan Lake, I believe, was in Canada. They had a large dam there that was founded on gravel. I sent these fellows there, the two of them, to learn how slurry trenches were constructed. Because the slurry trench wasn't a common way of dealing with it? That's right. This was something very new. I'm sure that if I looked through this diary enough I'd also find the date for the relief wells. I think this all took place about the same time. We were apparently working on the slurry trench in August. Let me 164 see if I can go on here and see. Ve had a lot going on in those days. Lage: Those were busy times, the fifties and sixties. McLean: They were, yes. [looking at dairy] Apparently I had discussions on this as early as June of 1966: "Met with Dave Dayton, Jim Goodman, and Dick Hale to discuss Camanche slurry trench." Wearing Two Hats: Special Prelects and Field Engineering Lage: During those years, the sixties, you were manager of the Field Engineering Division? McLean: I guess so. I don't know when I changed from one to the other, you know. I was wearing a couple of hats. 1 was manager of the Special Projects Construction Division as well as running the Field Engineering Division. Lage : You kind of went back and forth? McLean: I kind of went back and forth. We had the Lafayette tunnel under construction. George Loorz and Ces Murphy were on the Lafayette tunnel. Lage: What are Special Projects? McLean: Well, the Special Projects was the unit that covered all of the construction of the facilities under the $252 million bond issue. Lage: So that related to the bond issue, and then the Field Engineering Division took care of everything else? McLean: The Field Engineering covered the contracts within the local section. In other words, while a lot of this was going on 1 also had contracts going for installation of pipes, like this pipeline out on Garrard Boulevard in Richmond. That was handled under the Field Engineering section. The local construction was handled out of the local budget. But the Special Project Construction Division was formed as a separate unit to handle all of the construction under the bond issue. It was organized immediately after the approval of the bond issue in June of 1958. Mr. Macdonald at that time was appointed manager of Special Projects. In August of that year, although I still carried the title of head of the Field 165 Engineering Division- -manager or whatever it was- -I was also put in charge of the design of the Third Mokelumne Aqueduct. I put together a crew- -I guess I was called "supervising engineer" --to design the Third Mokelumne Aqueduct. I came, then, under the Special Projects Construction Division, and a fellow by the name of Bob Tillison, who had been my assistant, took over more or less the duties in the Field Engineering Division. Well, I continued in that capacity. As we got into the design of the line, then of course we got into the construction phase. Along with that, a lot of other operations came into being: Briones Dam, Camanche Dam, and all these other facilities- -the Lafayette Aqueduct, the Lafayette Tunnel, the Walnut Creek Tunnel. Lage : These were all Special Projects? McLean: All these facilities came under Special Projects. Mr. Macdonald retired about 1960. No, not '60. Let's see. Lage: You became manager of the Field Engineering in '59. McLean: That's right. Lage: You were assistant manager under him in '58. So maybe he retired in '59. McLean: That is correct, yes. You've got it there. So that is correct. When he retired, I took over the Special Projects division, and I continued basically in that capacity until 1968, when I retired. In other words, during that time I was kind of wearing two hats, as supervising engineer of Field Engineering and, until we completed all the construction, as manager of the Special Projects Construction Division. I took that over and more or less continued for nine years until I retired in '68. All of these repairs- -that is, the relief wells on the dam, the slurry trench, and all this other work- -came during the period that I was manager of the Special Projects Construction Division. Lage: So you were more or less in charge? McLean: Of all that, yes. 166 Storm Damage at Briones Dam. 1962 Lage: Were there any problems on the other projects of a similar nature? McLean: No, we had no problems. Well, let's see. I'll have to remember the year. It was in '62 that we had the tremendous rain in October. Ve had a tremendous storm. [looks through documents] This was while Briones Dam was under construction. It flooded Briones Dam and also went down through the Lafayette Aqueduct near Pleasant Hill Road. It flooded out several homes there. Here it is, right here: "October 13, 1962. Severe storm. Roads flooded. Briones Dam topped by storm water." Lage : So the storm made the dam overflow? McLean: Oh, yes. "Went to Briones to check on storm damage and at the Lafayette Aqueduct. At Briones with Phil Rutledge, consulting engineer and spent all day on problems from the storm. Met with Joe DeCosta at the office." It rained so hard. It was over the weekend: "Starting on Thursday, October 11. Overcast.. Showers in A.M. High winds during the day." And I went to Stockton on that day. "Discussed Bixler Pumping Plant and the use of natural gas for the Melones Pumping Plant. Went to Woodward Island to meet Jarvis Gates." And then on Friday we had a heavy storm. "Very heavy storm. Al talked to both Joe New and Hugo Hanson in A.M. in regard to conditions after the big storm." Then on Saturday, October 13, all the roads were flooded. I remember that very clearly. You couldn't get anyplace. "Briones topped by storm water. Called New, Hanson, and DeCosta"- -this was on Sunday. I apparently got them together. Then I had a staff meeting. "Went to Briones to check on the storm damage at Lafayette Aqueduct," and again on Tuesday. Mr. Rutledge was our consulting engineer on the dam, and he was from New York. I had gotten in touch with him over the weekend and told him that he'd better come out. So I got him, and I spent the whole day with him out at Briones out on the problems . Lage: Because it actually did damage to the dam? McLean: The dam was only about half completed; we were still working on it. We didn't finish that until '64. When the storm occurred, it overflowed the top of the dam. It filled the reservoir and went over the top of the dam. So we were concerned about the erosion that occurred on the top of the dam. This is why I asked Mr. Rutledge to come. So that was one of the problems we had on the Briones dam, but that wasn't too serious. The main problem that we had on 167 Camanche, as I mentioned, was the fact that we were very much concerned about the seepage under the dam. Seepage occurs. In other words, you have seepage in all dams --that is, drainage; let's not call it seepage. You get drainage out of every dam. All dams drain. You have drainage facilities, and the reason for that is to relieve the pressure under the dam. This is what caused the failure of the St. Francis Dam in the Los Angeles area. This was a very famous failure. That was a concrete -arched dam. It was built by Bill Mulholland, who was responsible for the Los Angeles water system. Lage: Was this on the Los Angeles River? McLean: No, it wasn't on the Los Angeles River. It was on a small stream north of Los Angeles, in some drainage canyon. But it was a concrete -arched dam, and this is different. When you get a failure of a concrete dam, you get a complete collapse. That is, the whole structure just collapses. The wall of water that went down the canyon was 250 or 300 feet high, and it just washed the canyon clean. I forget how many people were killed, but there were homes along this canyon. There were forty or fifty people killed and homes destroyed. After the investigations and conclusions, they determined that the failure had been uplift pressure because of an increase of seepage. They began to get seepage around the abutments. The seepage increased, and they became worried. They tried to drain the reservoir behind the dam, but they were unable to drain it fast enough. In the center of the dam on the upstream face there was a water level recorder. These are usually clock or electrically operated, and they record the water level for every minute or hour of the day. What they finally discerned was that one of the main blocks on the dam remained intact. That is, when the dam failed, it left this one section standing. I think I have a picture of it somewhere. They recovered the water level recorder and noticed that just prior to the failure of the dam there had been a sudden rise in the water level of the reservoir. Immediately, this told them that this center block had tipped upstream. Lage: So it appeared like a sudden rise? McLean: Yes. This appeared to be a sudden rise. The block had tipped upstream, and by tipping upstream, the water level recorded this as a rise in the lake level. Well, that was impossible. You couldn't get a sudden, instantaneous rise in the water level of a tremendous large lake like that. That's impossible, because it was in a comparably small drainage basin. So this is how they 168 knew that the dam had tipped. This whole block had tipped upstream, and then the dam collapsed around it. The whole dam collapsed, and there were pieces scattered everywhere. There were big blocks of the dam all over the area. Some of them were even washed partially downstream. This is what created the State Division of Dam Inspection. I believe it was 1929. Since then, every dam built within the state of California has to be reviewed; not only the plans, specifications, and design, but the construction of the dam itself comes under the inspection of a state dam inspector. Working with the State Division of Dam Inspection Lage: So that's an office that you've had to work with over the years. McLean: That's right. Lage: Is that difficult, to work with them? McLean: No. We have found them to be very knowledgeable. But they want to know everything. When we had the overtopping of the Briones Dam, I immediately called them, and they came to the job site. I didn't notice their name in my diary, but you call them immediately anytime you have a problem or anytime you're doing something that may require them to look at it, as on Briones Dam, where we had quite a few problems in the south abutment. We ran into a lot of weak material in there in which we had to over- excavate and do a lot of extra work. Immediately when this occurred, I got in touch with the man who was assigned to Briones. I would immediately call him, or my resident engineer out there would call him. I would' meet him out on the Job, and we would decide right there on the job what had to be done, how much had to be excavated, or what we had to do. We had some abutment problems out on Briones, particularly the south abutment, where we had to do a lot more excavating than we normally would have done. We also had some problems on the spillway that I had to get them to review. You have to be in touch with those people all the time. When you're building dams, not only do they come down regularly of their own accord, but if you have any problems, you call them. That was the same thing that we had at Camanche Dam and also on dike one. When we had to put in those relief wells --well, both on the relief wells and on the slurry trench we had to submit 169 plans, details, to the state as to what we were going to do in regard to these problems that we had on both the dike and the dam. Lage : And do you find that the people in the state office are knowledgeable? McLean: Oh, yes. Most everyone that I ever called on in the State Division of Dam Inspection was very capable. As long as you keep them informed, as long as you let them know what's going on and keep them up to date on all the work, they're very cooperative. They'll come down and spend the entire day with you on the project. 1 always had a very fine relationship with those people. I don't recall the names of those I worked with, but those who were assigned to both the Briones Dam and Camanche Dam I found extremely cooperative. We had a very fine relationship with them. 170 VIII CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES ON AQUEDUCTS AND TUNNELS. 1950s- 1960s Cost-Saving Innovations on the Third Mokelmnne Aoueduct Using the Single Fillet Veld Lage: Is there anything special to tell about the building of the third aqueduct? You were in charge of that. McLean: Yes. Lage: Did it vary significantly from the first two? McLean: No. Ve had Morrison and Knudsen on one portion of it. I forget the other contractors now. Lage: Was the design much different? McLean: Well, there were a couple of things that we developed in the design stage of the pipeline. Early on, the American Water Works Association [AWWA] specifications for large diameter steel pipelines normally required what we call a lap Joint. And then they required a full fillet weld on the outside and a full fillet weld on the inside. Well, just stop and think. When you have 82 miles of pipeline --let's multiply that times 5280 feet. So the actual length of that pipeline is 432,960 feet. Now, each section of pipe is 40 feet in length, so you divide that by 40. That means on that pipeline we had 20,000 single welds. The cost of those welds is probably within the neighborhood of --let's see: a welder in those days was getting about sixty dollars a day, and he would normally do about three joints a day. That means each joint that he would do would be $20 or $25 per joint; well, let's say $30 per 171 Joint, when you consider material. You've got to consider equipment, not only his wages. So it runs probably about $50 per Joint. All right, let's multiply that by 50. That means you're talking about $541,000 to weld one Joint on each section of that pipeline. The standard from the American Water Works Association called for welding both the inside and the outside Joint. So we decided to run some tests, because in a project as big as this, every time you can save anything it is good business. Oh, and I forgot: in addition to this, when you weld on the outside, in your trench you have to have what is known as the bell hole. f* McLean: In order for a welder to get underneath the pipe to weld the outside joint, you've got to dig what we call a bell hole; you have to dig a trench deeper underneath the pipe, and you have to dig it wider on the sides. Lage: So for each weld you have to dig a bell hole? McLean: For each forty feet you have to go in and do this. It requires a special bucket, a special piece of equipment that you come along with after the trench has been dug, and you go in with this special bucket and dig a bell hole. Well, this adds more cost, probably another half a million dollars or more to an overall operation like that. So Bill Trahern and myself --Bill was my supervisor- -got our heads together and said, "Well, gee whiz. We ought to look into this," knowing that generally in welding a single fillet weld develops the full strength of your plate. If you have a half -inch plate, a half -inch fillet weld will develop the full strength of that. We began to think the old AWWA specifications were archaic, and we wanted to do something about this. Furthermore, if you were able to weld a single fillet weld on the inside of the pipe, the welders could work in all kinds of weather. On the outside, if it were raining, your bell hole would be full of water and have to be pumped out. Inside the pipe, the welder could work continuously, winter and summer. So we carried out some experiments, and we found that a single inside weld was sufficient. We did not have to dig bell holes. The result of it is, I would guess, that we saved millions of dollars by being able to use a single inside weld. 172 Lage : Did you have to get that passed through various levels of inspectors, or was that an internal decision? McLean: That was done entirely in-house. The decision was between Joe DeCosta, Bill Trahern, and myself. And believe it or not, the new AVWA standard is now a single fillet weld. Reducing the Number of Pressure Relief Valves McLean: The other thing that we did- -and this is something very interesting, but I'm getting into technical stuff here which you can digest as best you can. Normally where a large aqueduct or pipeline goes up and down hills, you have to have air and pressure relief valves, not only to fill the line but also to drain the line. The purpose of these is to prevent your line from collapsing when you begin to drain it; the relief valve lets air into the pipeline. When you're filling, it lets the air out of the pipeline until the pipeline is completely filled with water. In other words, when you have a high place on a pipeline, like this, [begins to draw] we'll say that your pipeline comes up and goes down like this, which is quite common. Why, at this high point, you have a valve in here, and then you have an air relief valve . Well, the old theory of collapsing was based upon a complete failure of a pipeline with a sudden rush of water out of it that required in some cases, like on the number one aqueduct, as many as five or more of these air valves in order to prevent the line from collapsing. Fact is, historically on the ten- foot diameter of the Los Angeles Aqueduct coming from the Owens Valley, and I don't remember the name of this big siphon, but it was a riveted steel pipeline, and I think they had a flood that came down this canyon and washed a portion of the aqueduct out. The result was that several hundred feet of the Los Angeles Aqueduct collapsed flat, because there was not enough air valve capacity to take care of it. From that was developed criteria for future pipelines as to the number of air valves you have to use to prevent a collapse. And, very interesting, on this pipeline that I'm talking about, the way they brought it back into shape again was to repair the place where it had washed out and put the water back in, and the pipeline came back into shape again. Lage: And could be used. McLean: This is historical and has been written up in a lot of textbooks- - the failure of one of the big siphons on the Los Angeles Aqueduct. 173 And from that was developed this theory of the collapse of pipelines, large diameter aqueducts- -of steel lines, particularlyand the number of air valves that you have to have. Well, on the number one and the number two aqueducts we had followed this theory. Ve had what we called big valve houses, and they were all along the pipeline. We have batteries of these air valves in there for filling the line and for draining the line. We decided to run some experiments on that. (1 thought I had the article here by the mechanical staff on our district.) [looks through documents] Lage: Was this again you and Bill Trahern who got the idea? McLean: Yes. Here it is: "Crushing Strength of Steel Pipe Lined and Coated with Cement Mortar." This was done by Leslie Paul 1 in our mechanical division. See, it says right here, "The first experiments were performed on a 49 -inch ID [inside diameter] steel pipe, wall thickness one-quarter inch..." Anyway, they went through the procedure on this, and we learned from this experiment by Leslie Paul. This paper was presented in October of '51. Then later we ran tests in '58 on the 87 -inch pipe. Anyway, here are the statements they made. This is the conclusion: [reads] "1. The experiments on the 49 -inch -diameter pipe indicate the dependability of the von Mises formula as applied to collapse from external pressure of large -diameter bare steel pipe with closed ends. 2. Customary thicknesses of Portland cement mortar three-quarter inch for coatings and one -half inch for lining strengthen the 36 -inch- diameter bare steel pipe against collapse from external pressure by at least 600 percent. 3. Vacuum valves can largely be omitted in the installation of large - diameter bare steel pipe if the pipe is lined and mortar-coated with good portland cement mortar." Lage: You were able to eliminate the valves? McLean: You can't eliminate them, no, but you can reduce the number of them. And by reducing the number of valves you reduce the time of filling, and if you had a failure and a sudden draining, your pipe would not collapse. Based upon that theory we were able to reduce by nearly three-quarters the number of air valves that were used on the pipeline, which was a tremendous saving. The innovations on the third aqueduct, not only on the design but also the construction, saved a tremendous amount of money. *. Leslie Paul and Owen Edie, "Crushing Strength of Steel Pipe Lined and Coated with Cement Mortar," from Journal of American Water Works Association. Vol. 44 #6, June 1952. 174 River and Freeway Crossings. Third Aqueduct [Interview 6: May 21, 1991 ]ff Lage : Last time we were talking about the construction of a third aqueduct, and you told about three cost-saving innovations- - reducing the number of pressure release valves, eliminating the second weld, and determining the proper thickness of the steel pipe. We hadn't talked about river and freeway crossings and if there were any particular problems associated with that. McLean: In reference to the third aqueduct, the logistics of it required such an enormous quantity of steel that we had to divide it up into a number of contracts in order to permit the construction to go ahead within the time frame that we wanted it to be done. This would permit the fabrication at different locations and the steel supply to come from different places, and that's the reason we divided it up into five sections. There was section four, which extended from the east portal of the Walnut Creek Tunnel to Indian Slough. That was all buried pipe. Then there was unit three, which was about ten miles across the peat land. That was all the elevated section. Unit two, which was thirty-three miles in length, extended from Holt to the town of Wallis, with the exception of the elevated section in the river crossing. Unit one was five miles in length, from the east end of unit two to the west portal of the Pardee Tunnel. That was the most rugged section; that was a section they had to do a lot of blasting on because of the rock. That was really the toughest section. The pipe for units one, three, and four, for about forty- eight miles was fabricated by Consolidated Western Steel Company in South San Francisco. C.K.F.M. Grover Company had a plant near Lockford, and they furnished the pipe for unit two- -the thirty- three miles- -and then the section for the river crossing. All of that latter part, which is about thirty- three miles, plus the river crossings were all fabricated at the plant in Lockford. Lage: The river and freeway crossings --were they a special problem? McLean: Well, yes. They presented a problem in that we had to go through the levees , and they required a coffer dam system where we could breach the levees; we had to breach these large levees on Woodward Island and the Orwood tract. There were two levees on Woodward Island, one on the east and one on the west. And then also the San Joaquin River crossing. 175 At the San Joaquin River crossing, when we constructed the third aqueduct, we also had to put in new crossings for the number one and the number two aqueducts. At that time the Corps of Engineers was planning on dredging the San Joaquin River deeper to provide for- -I think it was a forty- foot depth or a forty- five- foot depth for the channel. So we had to lower both the number one and the number two at that crossing. One of the things which was unique was the eight miles or more of the elevated section that crossed Orwood and across Woodward Island, and also the elevated section on the upper Jones tract. That pipe was fabricated by Consolidated Western Steel in San Francisco, and they fabricated in the plant in eighty- foot sections. They delivered it to the job in the eighty-foot sections and installed it on the steel bents. After it was installed and tested, they lined the inside by what was known as the centerline process. It's actually a mortar lining that is spun in place. The reason for it was that a forty-foot length of these mortar-lined sections weighed about forty tons- -about a ton per lineal foot. Well, if they had lined all of the elevated sections the eighty- foot sections would have been too heavy to handle on a highway. Lage: A ton a foot! That's very heavy. McLean: Yes. Oh, that pipe was heavy. They had a special dolly made to haul an eighty- foot section on the highway, and the pipe was actually laid in eighty- foot sections. After it was in place and tested for hydrostatic pressure, they went in and lined the inside by the Cen-Vi-Ro method. I think I've got it described in here, [looks through documents] Then the outside was sandblasted and coated with a red lead and with one coat of aluminum. Avoiding Lawsuits with Accurate Written and Photographic Records Lage: You had written this paper? McLean: Yes. Lage: Is it common that the engineers write up the project for publication? McLean: Yes, particularly on large projects. I don't know if it's standard, but I used to require a project report of all of my project engineers when they finished the job. We always had lots of photographs. I furnished every one of my project engineers 176 with a camera, and we used to buy film by the gross. I told them over and over and over again, "Take pictures; take pictures of anything on the Job. Every day, take pictures." I don't mean to digress, but we've had a couple of lawsuits which were very interesting. I've always attributed the fact that the lawsuits were won to the photographs that were taken on the job. One of them was on the upper Jones tract. The Zuckerman warehouse was right near the Middle River crossing. Zuckerman had this warehouse where he used to prepare his asparagus for shipping to market, and it was adjacent to our right-of-way. It was during the asparagus season, and he claimed that during the period of time when we were building the number three aqueduct he could not get access to his warehouse and therefore claimed substantial damage by not being able to meet the first asparagus going to the market. Well, it happened that we had pictures of this particular time that he was talking about, where trucks were at the warehouse loading the asparagus. When we presented this to the attorneys, they dropped the lawsuit. I had the same thing happen on the waste water project, along the south interceptor on Wood Street. One thing that I had done on all the buildings that were along this street, because we had a very large trench to put in the south interceptor, was to set what I call bench marks. Bench marks are reference points for elevation. Many, many times when you're building a large project, you get lawsuits claiming "settlement of building" because of the operations. So one of the first things I did was to have the survey crew put reference points on all the buildings so that we could check periodically. If there were cracks in the building, we photographed those cracks; so if a complaint came in and said, "Well, our building has been damaged because of these operations, and we can show you a crack," I can show you a picture of that crack that was taken on such and such a day, long before we ever started operations. Anyway, we had set all these reference points, and in addition to that we went through and took photographs all the way along the interceptor location. We took photographs of buildings; we took photographs of cracks in the buildings. We had a substantial file of photographs. Then I had Ralph Aiken, an engineer, assigned to this work. He knew what to look for. He would go out periodically over the job and take photographs. As the job began to near its end, the first thing we know we got a lawsuit from a market on Wood Street. I forget the cross street, but it was around Fourteenth or Sixteenth or maybe Twelfth. This fellow claimed that during the Christmas season, when he needed turkeys, chickens, and hams in his market, he 177 couldn't get deliveries because his entrance was blocked by the contractor's operation, and therefore he lost his entire Christmas trade by not being able to get the turkeys into his market. So we went through our photographs, and here we find a photograph, taken a few days before Christmas, of a truck backed up to his market, unloading the turkeys and produce into his market. Well, that fellow tried three times. He got different lawyers; he tried three times to get damages against the district. The attorneys refused to take it. They said, "Look, here are photographs of this place of yours , and here ' s the date and everything. How are going to refute that? You can't." Lage : Who alerted you to document things in this way? McLean: This was passed down to me from the good fellows I worked with, Bob Edmonston and John Longwell. They were my educators. I've always revered them, you might say, because I think they really were Just fantastic engineers. That was passed on. After I was in charge of all this work, the things that I did- -well, first of all, both Bob and John Longwell required that I write a report. The first job that I was on was with Bob Edmonston. Then when I went up to the Middle Fork of the Feather River on the investigations up there with Ben Painter, I had charge of all the field parties, and I had to write reports and send them to the head office of the Byllesby Company. Lage: So this is before your work with East Bay MUD? McLean: Yes. That's long before East Bay MUD. I had to send them monthly reports- -what I was doing and what we were finding out. When I later became in charge of things, I insisted that my project engineers write reports. I found one thing that I blame on the colleges. I think the colleges had been very derelict in graduating engineers and not preparing them so that they could write good project reports --that is, articulate clearly so that other people can understand. This is one of the most difficult things, to my estimation. Now, I had some good engineers, and those fellows who wrote good reports have gone on to bigger jobs. Don Paff was one. He is now chief of operations for the Bureau [of Reclamation] on the Central Valley Project. Don was one of my proteges, you might say. Hugo Hanson was another one, and Charlie Spink was another one. Charlie Spink has had a terrific position with the Bechtel Company. And Joe Jenno. Those fellows have all gone on to top jobs. Not only were they good engineers, but they could write good reports. Others I had, 1 would read their reports, and it was terrible. They didn't know how to really describe the project so 178 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: that you could understand it. They knew what the project was, and they could write about it, but it didn't mean a thing. Did you work with those people to improve their writing? Yes. I would go through the report very carefully, edit it, and then I'd send it back to them. There were some times, I bet you, that I sent reports back three or four times . I know they used to think that 1 was an s.o.b.. But I said, "Look, if you're going to write a report that goes in the files, it's going to be there, and it has to be so that somebody can understand it twenty- five and thirty years from now." Did Mr. Longwell put emphasis on good reports also? Yes, very much so. Bob Edmonston was a terrific writer. He wrote most of the early reports for the California Water Project. I worked for him for a couple of years before I came to work for the district. I always admired Bob. He was extremely articulate. When it'd come to writing reports, he turned out volumes and volumes . Did you model your reports on his? it? ' Is that how you learned to do McLean: Yes, very much so. I learned a lot from Bob; I learned a tremendous amount from him. And I learned a lot from John Longwell. Bob used to tell me, "Mac, if you don't learn anything else, learn how to write a good report." You know, all the time that I was with the district, we never had one lawsuit. I attribute that to the fact that before we started a project we went through and documented it carefully with photographs, reference points, and everything else. The result was that we never had any problems . Lage: So lawsuits were on your mind, even though society wasn't being as litigation-conscious as they are now? McLean: That's right. We were not looking for litigation; we were trying to prevent anything. As I said, I had this Ralph Aiken, who went out and took photographs- -weekly , daily. This saved us millions of dollars in lawsuits. Then when the project was finished, my project engineers wrote the reports. And they're in the file. Lage: And are all the photographs preserved as well? McLean: All the photographs, I'm sure. What they've done with them, I don't know. But we had all the photographs and reports in there, and the address of the buildings and so on. On one of the 179 buildings, as 1 recall, they did file a claim, alleging that they had settlement of the building. It was on Wood Street, and it belonged to a trucking company. They had built the perimeter walls of the building that were well supported on a good foundation. Then they had filled inside the building with earth. There had been a slight settlement in the floor, but that was due to the fact that it was their own fill that they had put in, not settlement due to construction of the south interceptor. Building the Second Lafayette Tunnel Technology^/ Experimenting with New Lage: You mentioned that you thought of a problem that came up. McLean: When were building the second Lafayette Tunnel, the contract was held by a joint venture between Stolte Construction Company and Fred Early, Jr., Construction Company. They had decided that in order to construct the tunnel they wanted to use one of the new boring machines . This is quite a common practice now for large diameter tunnels. They use enormous boring machines. It must have cost between fifty to one hundred thousand dollars to put this machine together. It's a large rotary machine that actually bores the tunnel. Lage: Like a giant drill? McLean: It's like a giant drill, just like you were going to bore a hole in that wall. You have this machine with cutter heads. The muck that comes from this big rotating head is fed through a conveyor belt back into cars underneath this boring machine, and then those are hauled by an electric locomotive out to a dump. They decided that they could save considerable money over the old method of tunneling. The old method of driving a tunnel is to install wooden sets and then use spiling that you drive in behind the sets to support the walls and crown. It requires a lot of timber and a lot of men to do it. With a boring machine, you have fewer miners and operators. On a normal tunnel operation, you probably have twelve to fifteen men at the heading, and they're the fellows drilling, shooting, and mucking. They go in and drill a round of holes. They load these holes with dynamite, and they use electric detonators to detonate the dynamite. In a large tunnel where they shoot it with an electric battery, they shoot the center drill holes first, and then the 180 outside holes are shot so that the material all comes in to the center of the tunnel. Then they go in with a mucking machine and load the cars , and they ' re hauled out to the dump . You have men called powder monkeys, you have others who handle the drills, and then you have the muckers, the men who go in with the mucking machine and pick up the muck. So it takes at least fifteen men at the tunnel heading. When you use a boring machine that runs on the track, it only requires about half that number of men who work in the heading. With a boring machine you have an operator and an oiler. You don't do any shooting; you don't have to handle any powder, and you don't have electric detonators. And there is a difference in the rate of pay also. When you're in a tunnel like that where you have to handle explosives, you've got to have a special place to store your explosives. You've got to have what we call a powder monkey who heads the crew loading the drill holes. The pay rates for those fellows are much higher, and also your insurance for the fellows working in the tunnel is much higher because you're using explosives. Where with a drilling machine you don't have any of those risks. Lage: Was the drilling machine a new technology at the time? McLean: That was a new technology at that time, and few had been used. Today most major tunnels except large vehicular tunnels use boring machines. On tunnels for penstocks, for power houses and water tunnels, it's become universal to use the boring machine. Lage: But at that time it was something new? McLean: This was something new. This was an experiment. The contractor built this machine at a substantial cost. My guess is that it went between fifty to one hundred thousand dollars to build the machine. The machine had to be built first and put together in prototype. Then it had to be dismantled and brought to the tunnel and reassembled. It was put together at the entrance of the tunnel. It had to be transported in pieces. I think it was fabricated in southern California and brought to the Job by truck. On all contracts you have a time schedule in which the work is supposed to be started and completed. Then you have liquidated damages. If the contractor doesn't complete the job within a reasonable length of time, they're assessed so much per day. This is based upon need. Technically, you cannot have penalties unless you have bonuses. There is a difference between liquidated damages and penalties. On a contract, you set a date for completion, and if you set a penalty it will be a thousand dollars 181 a day if you don't complete the job within the time specified. That must be offset by a bonus. In other words, if the contractor completes it ahead of time, he turns a bonus. But with liquidated damages, which are common on most contracts, you have to be able to prove that it has cost you because of the delay. If you don't have a tunnel to put the water through, it costs you so much per day due to the inspectors, the engineers you have on the job, and the loss of that facility. Those are liquidated damages. The contractor decided to try the boring machine, and unfortunately the type of material they encountered in the tunnel did not permit the operation of this type of equipment. They were continuously getting cave-ins, and the machine would get stuck. To bore a hole, you've got to have a reasonably firm formation. The hole that you bore has to leave a neat hole that you can then shore behind the machine, with ribs to hold the ground until you can place your concrete lining. Well, it happened that the material was so soft that we were getting continual cave -ins. It jammed the machine, and the machine would be stuck. Then they'd have to back the machine out of the tunnel, go in and muck it out, and put the machine back in again. They worked on this for several months. They finally pulled the machine out of the tunnel and went ahead with the usual method of regular tunnel work- -that is, using sets, mucking, and blasting wherever it was necessary. This delayed the construction of the tunnel. Assessing Liquidated Damages on the Lafayette Tunnel Lage: It must have increased their costs. McLean: It increased their costs considerably. Under the terms of the contract we had to assess the liquidated damages. The liquidated damages, as I recall, were two million dollars or more. We withheld this money from the payments to the contractor. This brought a protest from the contractors, George Loorz and Fred Early. They felt they were being unduly penalized. We had some long discussions over the damages. I can remember one meeting where we had the district attorney, Harold Raines, Joe DeCosta, John McFarland, myself, and the contractors' representatives. We had a long session on the subject. I was the one who really had to make the final decision. 182 Lage : Was the final say that you had to give an estimate of what the damages were? I mean, there was no question that they didn't complete the work in time. McLean: They didn't complete the work within the scheduled time, but the real question was whether the district incurred any damages. The district was not ready to put water through the tunnel, so there was really no loss. Ve couldn't prove the liquidated damages. Lage: Was that the point of view you took towards it? McLean: Yes. I had to agree that there was no way that they should be assessed the liquidated damages. Of course, that was quite a shock to John McFarland, but I was the one who finally just said, "There's no way." In other words, the district is not ready to put water through the tunnel, so how can you assess liquidated damages when you can't prove that you have suffered a loss? Lage: Did your attorney agree with you? McLean: Yes. Harold Raines agreed. Lage: But McFarland--? McLean: McFarland was a little upset. Lage: He was looking for a little windfall for the district. McLean: Yes. If we had assessed the damages of two million dollars or more, we would have been in a lawsuit. In order to assess liquidated damages you have to prove that you have actually been damaged; they are actual damages. You have to prove that you've been damaged in that amount, and there was no way that we could prove it. Nelchbor Relations In Relocation of Lafavette Aaueductt Lage: What was the project I read about that involved tunneling that created a lot of upset among the neighbors because of the noise? Was it this same tunnel? It was in the East Bay MUD book. It was out in the Lafayette area. The tunneling caused so much noise that the neighbors Just had a fit. McLean: That was on the relocation on the Number One and the Number Two Lafayette Aqueducts. We had to relocate them because of the state freeway location. I can tell you about that because I was in 183 charge of the construction. In order to have a place where you can work, the contractor had to work at both the east and west portals . When you have tunneling operations , not only do you have to have trackage and a place to dump, but you also have to have large air compressors with sufficient capacity for your work. You also need a maintenance area for maintaining your equipment. When you're working on tunnels, you work twenty- four hours a day except Saturdays and Sundays. You work around the clock. It was in this residential area, and these compressors go continuously, and they are noisy. Lage: Twenty- four hours a day? McLean: Twenty- four hours a day. The only time off is Saturdays and Sundays. There are three shifts. One shift goes on at eight o'clock in the morning and works until four o'clock in the afternoon; the swing shift comes on at four o'clock in the afternoon and works until twelve midnight; then you have the graveyard shift that comes at midnight and works until eight o'clock in the morning. You've got a continuous operation- - compressors going, locomotives going in and out of the tunnel, and men working in and out of the tunnel. You also have men arriving and leaving each shift. Lage: And this was very close to homes? McLean: This was close to homes. I think there was one family right alongside the work area. We paid for them to live in an apartment while the tunnel was under construction. Also, there were a couple of other families we actually paid to take a two-week vacation. That was over at the east portal, near Pleasant Hill Road. Lage: Would you have gotten in the midst of that? McLean: Well, I got in the midst of the appeasement part, but I think it was Hart Eastman, who was the district secretary at that time, and the district's insurance carrier who appeased these people. I didn't get into all those details, but I knew that we'd had the complaints and that it was handled out of the secretary's department . Lage: So there was a lot besides engineering. Public relations. McLean: Yes. There are always problems, you know. Any construction job you get into, there's always appeasement of people, even when you're building pipelines. Tunnel operations --well, even Briones Dam was a twenty-four hour operation. Pardee was a twenty-four 184 operation. Camanche Dam was twenty- four hours. You have to work. You see, the cost of those projects is so large that it's only on pipelines and similar projects you work an eight-hour shift. Lage: You've got to keep your equipment going? McLean: You've got to keep your equipment in operation. You have such an enormous cost of equipment, manpower, and overhead that you have to operate around the clock. You can't just work an eight-hour shift. Lage: Unless you're using a boring machine. McLean: Yes, unless you're using a boring machine. Successful Use of Borine Machine and Laser Technology McLean: The contractor used a boring machine on the Lafayette relocation tunnel. John Artukovitch was the contractor, from Los Angeles. He had a boring machine, and they did an outstanding job. They bored a ten-foot diameter hole. That was very interesting, because we had two tunnels. One had to cross over the other. The state paid for that work, because the two Lafayette aqueducts had to be relocated to make room for the new freeway. That was near the Pleasant Hill Road intersection and Highway 24. The contractor used a boring machine, but here the foundation was much different. That machine bored an excellent tunnel. Then they put in the steel and placed the concrete. The 96- inch diameter pipe was laid on track and then concrete placed around the pipe. The problem with the two tunnels was that west of Pleasant Hill Road, the number one aqueduct is on one side, and the number two aqueduct is on the other. When you come west from the Walnut Creek Tunnel, the two aqueducts are on different sides, and in order to keep them in line so that number one goes into number one and number two goes into number two, they had to cross over each other at Pleasant Hill Road. John Artukovitch was awarded the contract. It was, as I recall, a three -and- one -half or four-million-dollar contract for the relocation. The state paid for that, because the freeway made it necessary. He elected to use a boring machine on that. That was in the mid-sixties- -' 66, '67. The boring machine was fabricated in Los Angeles, dismantled, and hauled up to the site. He bored both of those tunnels. 185 He used a laser beam to keep the boring machine on line. When we came to the middle of the tunnel from each end, they came within inches of each other, which is good. When you're drilling tunnels from both ends, when you come within inches you are doing very well. To get a control point down through the tunnel, we bored a hole from the surface down to the tunnels where we could hang a plum line in order to make sure we were on alignment and at the same check elevations, because they were both inaccessible. Both tunnels came within a matter of inches of true alignment, which really was good for tunnel work. Lage: Are the terms Lafayette Tunnel and Lafayette Aqueduct interchangeable? McLean: The number one Lafayette Aqueduct is a 96-inch ID [in diameter] monolithic concrete structure that extends from the west portal of the number one Walnut Creek Tunnel to the east portal of the number one Lafayette Tunnel constructed in 1927. Lafayette Aqueduct number two is a 96 -inch ID reinforced concrete pipe that extends from the west portal of the number two Walnut Creek Tunnel to the east portal of the number two Lafayette Tunnel, constructed in 1962. The relocation tunnels were on both the number one and number two aqueducts near Pleasant Hill Road and were necessary to clear the right-of-way for Highway 24. Construction at Pardee Dam, 1929 At the construction site of the San Francisco Bay outfall sewer, 1950. Left to right: Walter McLean, R.C. Kennedy, and Otto Bohls from EBMUD; Tom Veatch, consulting engineer; project manager and project superintendent from Healy Tibbets Company. At the Orinda Filter Plant, 1967. Orinda Filter Plant Interior of Walnut Creek Pumping Plant The three aqueducts for delivering water from the Mokelumne River, looking east from Indian Slough where they cross the marshy delta peat lands. The original aquaduct, center, has riveted joints and wooden supports. The second and third aqueducts have welded joints and steel supports. The dining hall at Pardee , named in honor of Walter McLean in 1990. 186 IX POSTWAR CHANGES IN DISTRICT MANAGEMENT AND POLICIES Recalllnc General Manaser and Chief Enclneer John Loncwell 1934- 194900 Lage : Earlier you mentioned Mr. Longwell as sort of a mentor. Could you tell in a little more detail what kinds of things he passed on? Were you working closely with him? McLean: Yes, very much so, particularly during the early part in reference to the construction of the San Francisco pipeline, the Crockett line, the Orinda Filter Plant, and also the work on the waste water treatment plant. I was very close to John during all that time . Lage: He wasn't manager yet at that time? McLean: Yes. He became chief engineer and general manager after Mr. [Frank] Hanna left [April 1, 1934]. At the beginning he was the division engineer on the construction of the first Mokelumne Aqueduct. Lage: What kind of general principles or working style did you absorb from him? McLean: Well, he was an outstanding engineer. He had a very, very broad knowledge. He graduated from Cornell and went to work for the Bureau of Reclamation. He was on the Minnedota Project in Wyoming. At that time all of the top staff people --Arthur P. Davis, Frank Hanna, James Munn, John Longwell --left the Bureau of Reclamation to come with the East Bay MUD. Longwell came along, and he became the division engineer on the main section of the aqueduct between the Walnut Creek Tunnel and Pardee . That was his division. That was the entire aqueduct division. I became well Lage: 187 acquainted with him. The headquarters office for that was in a building in Stockton. When I went to work on October 4, 1927, John Longwell was the division engineer. When they closed that division office, it became the maintenance section. Then John Longwell moved down to Oakland, and Arthur P. Davis was our chief engineer and general manager. Arthur P. Davis left in the first part of the thirties when we had completed the aqueduct. I think it was about that time, 1929 or 1930, that Mr. Davis left and went to Russia. He took with him Lyman Wilbur from the design staff. He and Lyman went to Russia to build a big irrigation system in Turkistan in Russia. Mr. Hanna became chief engineer and general manager [1929], and Mr. Longwell was assistant chief engineer and assistant general manager. That was the time that I came in to work on the distribution system in 1931. Then when we started the waste water system project, Mr. Hanna had left, and Mr. Longwell became chief engineer and general manager. Robert Kennedy became assistant chief engineer and assistant general manager. And that was the last time those two titles were combined? Mclean: That's right. That is correct. New Leadership under General Manager John McFarland. 1950-1968 McLean: During that time --and I don't recall the exact date, but it was about the time we had really gotten into the waste water investigation with Special District 1 about 1945 or '46, just about the end of the war- -John McFarland came in [as head of the control division, 1947], and shortly after John Longwell resigned. When John Longwell left, John McFarland became general manager. Lage: Let's talk a little bit about that, because you indicated last time that the new management brought a lot of changes. McLean: That brought a number of changes. John McFarland came into the district. He was brought in by K. Leroy Hamman, who was chairman of the board at that time. His business was advertising. About that time, right after World War II, the district began to expand enormously. Lafayette, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Castro Valley, and all those areas were annexed to the district. There was a tremendous expansion going on. And at that time the district began to do a tremendous amount of contract work. 188 Lage: Vas this the time of changeover from working with district forces to contract work? McLean: That's right. There was a tremendous transition right after the war. There were numerous annexations and contract work, installation of pipes in many areas like Castro Valley and Pleasant Hill. Lage: So you Just couldn't handle it with district forces? ' McLean: There was such a demand that it couldn't be handled with district forces, so a lot of work was contracted at that time. This is when the district went over to a tremendous amount of contracting, even for the installation of steel tanks. We began to get into pre-stressed concrete tanks about that time. This all came about during that period of time. Prior to the war we had done a lot of work with the WPA, the Work Progress Administration. There were some large pipelines installed with WPA help. We installed one here in San Leandro, and then we built Pleasant Hill Reservoir with WPA. There were a lot of Jobs that we did with WPA. That ended right at the beginning of the war. Then there was very little work except work for the war industries and such as the shipyards. Right after the war is when Special District 1 was formed, and we got into the investigations of that. Then there also came a tremendous amount of annexation, and we had to start installing a lot of pipes in those areas. I don't know the reasonof course, you never know the reasons- -but K. Leroy Hamman decided to bring John McFarland aboard as an assistant to Mr. Longwell- -that is, to help Mr. Longwell out. Lage: And McFarland was a business manager, I understand. McLean: He was a business administrator; he was not an engineer. He came in, theoretically, to help Mr. Longwell, who was chief engineer and general manager. But eventually Mr. Longwell resigned; this must have been 1949. Lage: Its Name Was M.U.D. shows him resigning at the end of 1949. McLean: Well, that's when it was. Lage: McFarland came with the district in 1947. Do you remember the kinds of changes that occurred when McFarland--? McLean: I was in Special District 1. We had a $23 million bond issue to construct the waste water project. That was after Longwell had left. 189 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Did you ever talk to Longwell? Did he leave with some unhappiness? He must have been of retirement age. He was with us during the construction of the interceptors and the outfall sewer. Mr. Longwell left in 1949, before the waste water project was completed, but 1 worked with him very closely during the time before he left the district. He was very interested in looking at the construction. I guess his main love was construction. He liked to come out and go over the projects. I was not in close contact with current events, but 1 understand from what transpired at the main office that there was considerable turmoil during this transition period because a lot of new people came in with the district. Bill [William J.] Stephens was brought in to head Personnel, and then Tully Ferris came as an assistant to McFarland. There was a whole group of new people that John McFarland brought with him. Hart Eastman became secretary. Were they well received? position? How did they look at you, in your Well, actually it didn't affect me very much. I had a separate office for Special Project 1. They left us pretty well alone. Darrell Root and I worked close together, and we got along very well. Out in left field? Yes. What happened in the central office? I can't tell you too much, and this only came from Bill Trahern and Thaddeus Hague , the ones I had worked with there . There was considerable turmoil. First of all, when it came to signing drawings, you're supposed to have a chief engineer who is supposed to sign all the drawings. Well, nobody had been appointed chief engineer. When John Longwell left there was no chief engineer. They didn't replace him right away? No. They didn't designate anyone as chief engineer. The first thing we ran into when we started filing drawings with the state and others was who the chief engineer was. He was supposed to sign the drawings and put his stamp on them. All drawings and documents must be signed by a registered professional engineer. That's what I am; I'm a professional engineer. And you put your stamp on there. You also have a seal, and sometimes you use a 190 Lage: McLean: seal. Then you sign your name. This is the requirement by the state and federal government, and this shows that these planr have been approved either by a chief engineer or by a licensed professional engineer. After several months they finally appointed Bob Kennedy as chief engineer [October 1950]. So that quieted that turmoil down. Of course, I was pretty much out of this, because Darrell Root and I were running the waste water project, and they left us alone. They didn't bother us, because 1 had an office separate from the group, and Darrell had an office that was also completely separate. In fact, his office was in the old Fox Theatre at Nineteenth and Telegraph. We had the ground floor of that building, and that's where Darrell was located. I had an office that I had fixed up on the top floor above the old meter shop. We improvised an office there, and I had about fifteen men or more there. George Marr was my office engineer. Well, they didn't bother Darrell or me. All of the changes took place in the main office. They brought in Chick Adleman as head of all the maintenance operations. So a lot more employees. Well, they brought them at the top level, above everybody. From an Engineering-Oriented to a Business -Oriented Management Lage: Was it a loss of authority for the engineering side? McLean: Well, it was a completely new regime that came in. Lage: New people. McLean: They were new people. Lage: What were their new procedures? McLean: They were not knowledgeable at that time about the operations of the district, and there was a lot of resentment among some of the older employees. It took a long time for things to really settle down. They did retain Mr. Longwell as a consultant. Mr. Longwell then opened up an office in the Financial Center Building in Oakland. He opened a consulting office there and was retained as a consultant to the district for quite a long period of time. 191 When I got Into the Investigation of the Middle Bar Project, Mr. Longwell worked with me and Or in Harder. That was after we had finished the waste water project. Lage: The East Bay MUD book that you loaned me indicated that all this reorganization led to fewer management positions for engineers and more management positions for business personnel. McLean: They did. That is correct. Lage: Was that part of the hard feeling? McLean: I think that was a lot of the hard feeling, yes. See, when Arthur P. Davis, Mr. Hanna, and John Longwell were there, they were all engineers. When John McFarland came in, this transition was completely over to business oriented rather than engineering oriented. Lage: How did that affect the quality of the engineering that went on? McLean: I can tell you that they were badly disturbed over a long period of time. It took a long time for that to straighten out. I would say that during that period of time there was a lot of efficiency loss. It didn't bother me, because I had the waste water project, and nobody bothered me . Lage: When you came back from waste water did you notice some changes? McLean: When I came back from the waste water project I got into a different setup all together, where again I was left alone. I was on the Middle Bar Project; I did that working with Francis Blanchard and Orin Harder. Then I had the Pardee Recreation Area; that was my daily work. And then when the $252 million bond issue was passed, I was immediately put in charge of design of the third aqueduct. Lage: But did the kinds of changes that went on in the office affect the way you handled your budgets or the kind of people that were hired to work under you? McLean: Well, at that time John McFarland brought to the district the budget process, and he brought forth also the management procedures that are in use today. Really, it was a time that the district had to go through, but it was a tough situation, because previously the district had never really had salary schedules, management procedures, and all of these different things that were brought when McFarland came to the district. 192 He brought to the district the business procedures, whereas the engineers previously had been completely engineering oriented. Although there was a budget, all of the procedures and the policies that we got into, job descriptions and all that, didn't exist before McFarland. We had had titles for various positions, but when Tully Ferris, John McFarland and the others came in, they developed all the procedures which the district has carried on today. The district had entered a new era. Lage : Were you able to work under those new procedures when you came back from Special District 1? McLean: Certainly. We finally were able to work under them. The animosities, you might say, that developed when this group came in melted off into the background and were forgotten. Lage: Mr. McFarland was there until '68? McLean: That's correct. Lage: Was he well respected by that time, or was there still a kind of--? McLean: I think by that time he'd been pretty well accepted. He actually went over with Great Western in 1968. He didn't retire from the district; he resigned to accept the job with them. And John Harnett came in, who was colonel of the Army Corps of Engineers. [Harnett was chief engineer May 1965-September 1968 and was appointed general manager in September 1968.] Lage: And that was about the time you left also? McLean: I left the first of August of '68, yes. Rewards of Working for the District Lage: Is there anything else you want to add about what it was like to work for East Bay MUD? McLean: I was with the district during the greatest expansion period, from 1945-1968. Looking back on it, I think I was probably one of the most fortunate ones in the district, in that I had new challenges all the time. There was always something new that came up so that I had a new challenge to do this or to build that project, or to do something else. I look on my career with the district as probably one of the outstanding times in my professional career. 193 There were a couple times when I had the opportunity to consider a change of jobs. In fact, I was selected as one of two finalists for the job to head the construction of the State Vater Project- -that Is, not the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Project but the State Water Project. I went to the interviews, and I wasn't selected. I was one of two who were being considered for the top job with the state, under Harvey Banks. Lage: So you would have taken that if you'd gotten It? McLean: I think so. I think I would have taken that, because it was in a kind of slack period with the district. It was after we had finished the waste water project and before we had the $252 million bond issue. That was one time that I had thought of leaving the district, and I'm sure that had I been selected, why, I would have gone. That would have been a real challenge too, to be on the construction of the Oroville Dam, the canals, and the pumping plants. They finally selected someone who had been with the Bureau back in Washington. He had very little construction experience. Harvey Banks did his best to get me; Harvey wanted me because I had worked with him. Harvey was then head of the department, and he wanted me, but he was overruled, and I never did find out why. Then I had another opportunity. Mr. Greeley of Greeley and Hanson in Chicago had a couple of projects. They had a large project In Brazil in which they were going to design and construct all the facilities for Sao Paulo; it was a big waste water project for the entire city of Sao Paulo. He wanted me to go to that, and they made me a very fine offer to go down there on that project. First of all, I was to go down and do all of the investigations for it, and then they were to set up a design office in Sao Paulo. I would have been in charge of all the work. Lage: When was that? McLean: That was right after we finished the waste water project. That was after '52. Lage: That would have been a new turn for your career. McLean: That would have been a challenge, yes. They made me a very fine offer to go down there, including all expenses. Just about that time we were looking at this $252 million issue for the district. With that in sight, I stayed with the district. And I've never regretted it, because I think I've left a very fine legacy with the district, and certainly my friendships with everyone in the district have been outstanding. I finished a forty- one -year career with the district when I retired in 1968. 194 Lage: That's something of a record, I would say. McLean: I could have gone elsewhere, because I certainly had the opportunities. But when I look back, and then the period of time that I had on the board of the directors, they were all good. They were good years . Relations vith Board Members Lage : In your employee years , was an employee at your level affected by changes on the board? McLean: No. Lage: Were your aware of, or did you get to know any of the people on the board? McLean: 1 got to know all of them. Lage: How would you get to know them? Did they come around? McLean: Well, some of them used to come around, yes. And fact is, I had the opportunity in many cases of escorting them around the projects, you know. When we were building the aqueducts, there were times that we escorted them over the projects. Lage: Did you ever escort Dr. Pardee around? McLean: Very little. He usually came out with Herbie Nelson as his chauffeur. Dr. Pardee didn't come on the project very often. Lage: But he was a very active person? McLean: Yes, he was very active. Oh, yes, he was active for his age. My gosh, when he finally stepped down from the board, I think he was well along in his eighties. Then Bert Carrington, the director from Alameda, was a member of the board for thirty- two years. I got to know Bert very well. We used to have trips to Pardee when we were working on the aqueducts and Camanche Dam. Many times we'd take members of the board over the projects, and it was my pleasure to escort them on many of these trips and describe the projects to them. Particularly when we were building the aqueduct, I would take them through the steel plant and where they were installing the pipe. I got to know Bill McNevin very well and the others . 195 Lage: Anyone stand out as particularly--? McLean: Yes. Louis Breuner always stood out as a real businessman. One thing I can say about the board in those days, and even up to the time I was on the board, the presidents of the board, excepting this present board, were all good businessmen. They had the district at heart; that is, the district was their prime interest. I would say that in most cases the projects that we put before them to build and to provide the money for, they were one hundred percent behind the staff. I don't know of any project other than the Middle Bar Project that was rejected. Lage: That was an unusual case? McLean: Yes, it was. Board Decisions on the Middle Bar Prolect Lage: It was the same time that you were having the reorganization in the district. Was there an interplay there between the new staff and the decision on Middle Bar? McLean: I don't know. We worked on this very strenuously. I worked on it for over a year. Of course, we didn't get into the design of the project, but we looked at the feasibility of the project, and the feasibility of the project was good. Cost effective, it was good. We recognized that we were going to inundate the electropower plant. The electropower plant was old, and PG&E was not against the removal of the plant. There were ways to compensate them, and all they were interested in was due compensation, basically for the destruction of the power house and loss of power revenue. Louis Breuner, for some reason or other- -and I am not sure of this- -did not want to tangle with PG&E on this issue. He didn't want to either compensate PG&E or go through the process to build the project. Lage: But he was the dominant figure? McLean: He was president of the board at that time. John Longwell was our consultant on that project, and Longwell was very much in favor of the Middle Bar Project. The Middle Bar came up again in the eighties, after I was on the board. The district was going to go ahead with it and had filed with the Federal Power Commission. Then we were threatened with a suit by Amador County, and finally it was up to Sandy 196 Skaggs, president of the board at that time, and Jerry Gilbert, the general manager. We decided not to fight it, and consequently nothing was ever done on it. Need for More Water Prolects in Califomia## McLean: But looking back, I think it was a big mistake that we never went ahead with the Middle Bar Project. We would have had to fight Amador County- -that is, the litigation that they were threatening us with. But I think had we gone ahead with it and built the project, we wouldn't have faced the environmental situation that we face today . In other words , if we are ever today to have enough water to take care of the people in the state of California, we are going to have to build more water storage projects. Otherwise the economy of California will be seriously affected. Agriculture uses around eighty percent of the water in the state, and the farmers are using it pretty efficiently. I don't know of any areas where they can reduce the amount they use without taking land out of production. There are probably areas where they can conserve, but I don't believe that the conservation is going to solve our water problem. You see, the State Water Project is only delivering about one- third of the water that it should be delivering, and the Central Valley Project of the Bureau is delivering less than half of what it could be delivering. Lage: If they had more dams, is that what you mean? McLean: Yes. They have to complete the facilities that are supposed to.be completed. The Auburn Dam should be completed and the Peripheral Canal built. I know that the Peripheral Canal is one of the biggest controversies in the state, but a lot of the problems that are in the Delta would be solved by building the Peripheral Canal. People don't understand that. The Peripheral Canal has become political, and this is going to prevent it. But if you're ever going to solve the problem in the Delta, the Peripheral Canal has got to be built. What happens today is that when you turn the pumps on at Clifton Court Forebay, and you turn the pumps on at the federal project, what you're actually doing is pulling salt water upstream. This affects the striped bass and the salmon fishery. 197 If you build a Peripheral Canal, the water goes directly into the State Water Project in Clifton Forebay and also into the federal project. And then the outlets in the Peripheral Canal, into the channels of the Delta, keep the fresh water flowing into the Delta, and you don't get the backup of the salt water. The duck club of which I am one of the owners , the duck club on the Suisun Marsh, used to take water directly out of Suisun Bay and out of Grizzly Bay. Lage: Your water for--? McLean: The water for flooding our fields. We have twelve hundred acres, which is on the most westerly end of Grizzly Island. Up until about five or six years ago our water used to be so salty when we turned it in that it was killing all of our native plants. We were having a terrible time. Finally, through the Suisun Marsh Conservation Act, the State Division of Water Resources cut a channel into Roaring River which takes out up near Montezuma Slough. Now the water that we get to the marsh is much fresher. They spent several million dollars to get this water so that we can have fresh water for the many duck clubs there. Previously, ove'r the years our water had increased in saltiness. That has been due entirely to the operation of the projects, and that would have been prevented by the Peripheral Canal. The large water projects like the State Water Project and the Bureau's Central Valley Project have only developed about half of what was originally proposed. Of the $1.7 billion water project for the State Water Project, they've only spent a portion. They've got to complete some of the facilities that were in the original plan. The Casagrande Reservoir in Kern County and a number of others have not been completed, and they need to be completed in order to deliver the full amount of water for which they were designed. Lage: So that seems to you to be the problem we have now, aside from our drought? McLean: Yes. You know, the problems that we have today, which now are politically--. Don't misunderstand me; you and I are both environmentalists. We believe in taking care of our environment. You know, they talk about the wild river rafters. Those wild rivers did not exist until we built reservoirs that turned the water loose into the various streams. The American, the Stanislaus, the Mokelumne, the Tuolumne, and all of those- -many of them never even had any water flowing in them during the dry seasons in the summer. Yuba River was virtually dry. Now they talk about the Sacramento Parkway, which follows the American River from Sacramento up to the Nimbus Dam. There is water 198 flowing in that river today. Going back to my childhood, when I lived in Sacramento, that river was dry in the summertime. Lage : So the dam regulates the flow? McLean: The dam regulates the flow, releases the flow. There was never any water until Folsom Dam was built. There was never any water in many of the Central Valley streams during the summertime. Lage: That's kind of ironic, isn't it? McLean: And they have these white water rafters that raft down the streams. They do the same on the Stanislaus and all the other rivers. That condition didn't exist until the dams were built. Lage: What response do you get when you point that out to people? McLean: People marvel at the fact that these now exist, but they don't know historically the way I know that when we used to go swimming in the American River, you couldn't find a place to swim. The only place you could find to swim was where there was a big hole around one of the piers on the H Street Bridge. The rest of the time you could wade the river. If there was any water flowing, it was six to twelve inches deep, in one little stream along one edge of the river. Lage: And those were normal rain years? McLean: Those were normal years. In the summertime those streams were virtually dry. 199 THE WORK OF A CONSULTING ENGINEER Retirement from East Bav MUD. 1968 [Interview 7: June 5, 1991 ]//# Lage : How did you happen to retire in 1968? McLean: Well, 1 had reached the mandatory age of sixty-five. I don't know whether they still do or not, but at that time they had the mandatory retirement age of sixty- five. My birthday was July 16. The subsequent month after that was August, so I was compelled to retire on August 1, 1968. Lage: I think those laws have changed now. I think that's considered discriminatory . McLean: That's right. I think it is. Lage: Were you about ready to get out anyway, or would you have stayed on? McLean: No, I could have stayed on. See, I had finished the major construction work on the $252 million bond issue. There was a tremendous amount of work that was done. I had charge of all that construction, and by the time I retired it had all been finished. Lage: That was very good timing. McLean: Yes. The aqueducts were finished, the tunnels were completed, the Sobrante and the Walnut Creek filter plants were completed. All those projects were completed, and I had completed all the reports. All the personnel who were temporary had left. Then I went back to my previous position as manager of field engineering, and that group was considerably smaller than all the personnel I 200 had previously. The work then was mostly local, within the distribution system. Lage: Not quite as exciting. McLean: It wasn't as exciting as the work I had been on. So it was a good time for me to retire. I was very much interested in going into consulting. This was a prime time for me to get into consulting work; with all the background and experience that I had had on all the major projects with the district, it was a prime time for me to get out and try my wings. Exoert Witness for Kaiser Steel In 1969 Lawsuit Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Let's talk about your consulting jobs, that sound interesting. You've mentioned several As I said before, I had hardly been retired and was just beginning to take a vacation, do a little traveling, when I got a call from John Feist, the head attorney for Kaiser Steel Corporation. They had a very large lawsuit that was going to be heard in the federal court in Denver, and John asked me to come talk to him at the Kaiser building. He wanted to know if I would go to work for him as an expert witness on the Home stake Project. That was the pipeline that went from Homestake Tunnel on the Continental Divide to supply water to Colorado Springs. It was a water supply line, a 48 -inch welded steel pipeline. I said I'd be willing to go to work for him. What was the lawsuit about? The suit was brought by the contractor, the R. F. Fulton Company, against Kaiser Steel, the manufacturer of the pipe. The pipe was manufactured in their plant in southern California. Their contention was that the pipe didn't meet the specifications. The pipeline was designed by Black and Vietch of Kansas City. It was what we call a bell and spigot welded steel pipe, and in specifying the tolerances on the pipe I believe they had a tolerance of plus or minus one-eighth on the spigot and plus or minus one-eighth on the bell. When they laid the pipe they used a tack weld at the top of the pipe and then put another tack weld at ninety degrees on the circumference, and then they lowered the pipe in place. Late on Saturday, June 22, 1929, when workmen at Pardee dam knocked out bulkheads to release the first Mokelumne river water which would flow into San Pablo dam, Walter McLean, recently re tired manager of the District's field engin eering division, was watching. He is one of the few who was involved with almost every major construction project for the development of the District's Mokelumne river water supply during the last 40 years. "As a young ambitious engineer just starting out," McLean said, "I wanted the experience of working on a really big project and I set my sights on Pardee. I'd worked for more than a year as a junior hydraulic engineer for the California State Division of Water Resources and I was just finishing up a two-year job as assist ant engineer on a preliminary investiga tion of sites for the Feather River Power Development. "I wanted to work on Pardee," McLean continued, "because at that time it was one of the largest concrete dams to be built in the world. In October 1927, I was hired as an assistant engineer in charge of concrete construction for the first Mokelumne aqueduct." When the pipeline between the Lana Plancha gorge and Walnut Creek was fin ished, McLean was transferred to Pardee dam where he became assisitant to the resident engineer, E. L. MacDonald. "I got to Pardee just as the first foundations for the dam were being poured," McLean continued. "I stayed on until the power house was finished and the machinery set. That was May 1930." From that year until 1945, he was senior engineer and super vising civil engineer in the District's dis tribution division. His work included construction of redwood tanks, steel tanks, prestressed concrete reservoirs, steel and cast iron pipelines, pumping plants, wa ter treatment plants, dams, spillways, tun nels, roads, bridges and distribution res ervoirs required for the steadily growing E.B.M.U.D. system. A change of pace came in 1945 when McLean turned his attention from storing and distribution of water to the problem of disposing of it. His assignment was supervising civil engineer in charge of field engineering and construction for Special District No. 1, Water Pollution Control. In 1952 he had a chance to look to the future when he was assigned as supervising civil engineer, investigating the development of facilities for the Dis trict's future water supply from the Mokelumne river. 200a "A project which I really got a big bang out of came along in 1957," McLean re calls, "when I supervised the investigation and design of the Pardee Reservoir Rec reation Area. We worked on designs for the buildings, layout of the water lines and sewers, boat docks, everything. Then we went to the State Wildlife Conserva tion Board to get the money." His final assignment as a supervising engineer came in 1958 when he worked on the design, plans and specifications for the $68 million Mokelumne aqueduct num ber three. McLean was promoted to manager of the field engineering division on May 1, 1959. In December 1961 he was transferred to manager of special projects construction division, responsible for building Briones dam, the Lafayette tunnel and aqueduct and the third Mokelumne aqueduct. In October 1963, he returned to his former position as manager of the field engineer ing division and remained there until his retirement on July 31. McLean was born in Sacramento at a time when regular ferries were the mode of transportation between the Capital and San Francisco and when water problems were of no legislative concern. He gradu ated from Sacramento High School and attended Sacramento Junior College, one of the oldest in the State, and the Univer sity of California at Berkeley. As a regis tered engineer, he belongs to numerous professional organizations and is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engin- McLean's wife, Margaret, was also born in California's gold country at Plymouth and was raised in Placerville. The Mc Lean's have three children, all of whom are married. Their daughter, Phylis Click, is director of the College for Early Edu cation in Los Angeles; one son, Robert James, is an engineer with Stolte Con struction Company in Oakland and a sec ond son, Edward Bruce, is employed by Pinkerton in Oakland. Retirement plans for McLean include some consulting work after a long vaca tion. "I've been working all my life and I can't stop now," he said. But first he plans to do a little upland bird shooting and deer hunting this Fall. Contractor Elmer Freethy, left, bids farewell to former manager of the field engineering division, Walter McLean. Over the years, they worked together frequently on many District construc tion projects. A Time to Remember Splashes August 1968 201 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Veil, by laying the pipe by that method it accumulated a large gap at the bottom. If you happened to get two pieces of pipe that have a plus one-eighth on the bell and a minus one- eighth on the spigot, then you actually have a quarter of an inch gap. When the pipe is laid, you can have a gap as much as one- half inch. It was the contractor's fault in laying this pipe in this manner. As a result, they had to put a rod in the gap, what they call slugging, which is very poor practice. In addition to that, when they shipped all this pipe, because of the very high head that was on the pipe, it had to be all in sequence. Every section of pipe had to be laid at a specific location. There was a section of about a quarter to a half mile in length, right within a couple miles of the Homes take tunnel, where the pipe was delivered out of sequence, and the contractor had to skip this section. He had to go ahead and lay the pipe and leave a gap in order to keep crews working. This was during the late fall. It was getting pretty cold high in the mountains; fact is, they had temperatures that were getting down to zero and even some minus temperatures. When the pipe arrived that went into this section, he had to move all of his crew back to lay the portion where the gap in the pipeline was. As a result, he was claiming damages for the additional cost of the delay and moving the crew. He was claiming damages for it from Kaiser Steel? Yes, the contractor was claiming the damages for payment for the delay and move caused by the out -of -sequence pipe delivery, and he was also claiming damages for this problem with the gap in the pipe joints, alleging that the pipe did not meet the specifications. As I recall, the suit was for several million dollars, and it was in the U.S. federal court in Denver. Did it actually go to court? Oh, absolutely, you bet. I testified. Was this your first time on the witness stand? This was the first time I was on the witness stand, yes. I testified, and I was in court a week. Did the lawyers work with you very much to prepare you? Oh, yes. Absolutely. In order to be represented in the federal court in Denver they had to use a local firm. I was the adviser, 202 basically, not only as the expert for Kaiser, but in addition to that I had to work with the attorneys in Denver. Lage: Tell me what you learned about being an expert witness. What does it take? McLean: One thing I learned on this in working with the attorneys was that very few of them were familiar with engineering or construction practices. I think most of my time as an expert witness has been to educate the attorneys to engineering terms and construction methods. The attorneys I worked with in Denver were Don Gentry and Charles Haines. They were a large firm of attorneys in Denver. John Feist, of course, was the chief attorney for Kaiser Steel Corporation. That was '69. I started there late summer and worked just until Christmas . Lage: Did you go on site? McLean: Oh, yes. I would go back there when they were preparing the case and spend an average of a week. I stayed at the old Brown Hotel there in Denver. They had a suite of rooms reserved for Kaiser in the annex. I think the annex was about twelve stories high. 1 had a room with an adjoining room that had a desk, and I could work there. Kaiser had three or four rooms on the floor below me. It was about a two-block walk to the attorneys' office where I would go each day. We flew first class on United Airlines both to and from Denver. I made several trips back there, beginning in September 1968. I would spend an average of a week there with all the attorneys, and during that time we went out to the site. Of course, the construction work had been finished, but we went out to the site and drove over it so that I could explain to the attorneys how the contractor would excavate the trench and lay the 48 -inch pipe. Most of my time was spent with them going over the contractor's claim. Then we went to court, and I believe we were in court for two weeks. Lage: Were there any other engineers testifying? McLean: No. I was the only one. Kaiser had their own engineers, but they did not testify. Lage: But what about the contractor? 203 McLean: He was represented by his superintendent on the Job and a couple of others who had been on the job. In the federal courts they would start at eight o'clock in the morning. The judge would start at eight o'clock in the morning, and we'd go until five o'clock at night. Sometimes it would even go beyond five o'clock. This was jury trial, and as I remember the most intelligent one on the jury was a schoolteacher. Lage : So you had to make your testimony such that they could understand? McLean: The testimony had to be made in such a way so that they could understand it, and this resulted in a lot of illustrations, just like I've done here. We had one of these great big pads on an easel. Lage: Did you draw right there in the courtroom? McLean: Yes. I had to get up and draw before the jury. I remember one day- -and I always got a big kick out of this- -the judge was questioning me. I had been on the stand all morning, and the judge was questioning me about the process of welding and how they laid the pipe. I was showing the way it should have been done; they should have used a hydraulic jack in the spigot end of the pipe to elongate it. And then it should have been tacked on the sides at the midpoint. Lage: Tacked down the sides and not just the top? McLean: Yes, so that you would equalize this space all around the circumference of the pipe so the space would be uniform all the way around. I was explaining this to the judge, and the attorney for the contractor tried to interrupt. The judge shut him up fast and said, "Mr. So and so, if you'll just sit down and listen to Mr. McLean you'll learn something." [laughter] It kind of took the wind out of his sails. I'll never forget that, because the judge went on questioning me. I had analyzed very carefully the extra costs for the contractor caused by the out-of -sequence delivery of pipe. That was Kaiser's fault, but the contractor had grossly exaggerated the costs in his claim. First of all I eliminated his claim completely on the problem with the extra work he had to do because of the gap; that was his own fault. Then I reduced his claim on the sequence of delivering the pipe. It was getting very close to Christmas, and finally the case was given to the jury. tt 204 McLean: What got to the Jury was a claim for somewhere around $160,000 for one item in addition to the original claim. When the Jury brought the verdict, they had included this $160,000 in the total claim. The Judge said, "I'm not going to allow that! I'm not going to allow that. That's completely wrong. I'll cut that in half." The final award was less than $100,000. Lage: And the original suit had been for--? McLean: The original suit was over $5 million. Lage: So you earned your consulting fee on that money. McLean: Yes, I earned it, absolutely. I sure earned it. Testifying for the Bureau of Reclamation. 1969-1970 McLean: I hadn't any more than finished with the Kaiser suit when, while I was staying at the Brown Hotel in Denver, I got a call from Barney Belport of the Bureau of Reclamation. This was in '69. Barney said, "I want you on a lawsuit that we have down in Texas." I said, "Barney, you don't need me. You've got all kinds of good men in your organization." He said, "I want somebody who is unbiased and who can look at this objectively as my expert." And he said, "I want you to come to work for me on this case." Veil, I had hardly finished the Kaiser litigation when I went to work for the bureau. I spent pretty nearly a year again commuting to Denver for the bureau, into 1970. Lage: Were they being sued? McLean: Yes. They were being sued by another contractor. It was a 350- mile aqueduct through the Panhandle of Texas. This was all concrete pressure pipe, and it went from Amarillo, Texas, to Lubbock, Texas, and served all the communities and irrigation for farms from the Canadian River. It commenced at the Canadian River and went through the Texas Panhandle. Lage: And the Canadian River is--? McLean: It's in Texas, and there was a reservoir on the Canadian River Just north of Amarillo. I spent a year on that project with the bureau. That was in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Lage: Do you have to be specially certified to be an expert witness in these cases? 205 McLean: Yes. I had to be certified by the federal court in Denver, and I had to be certified by the court of appeals that I could serve as an expert witness. Fact is, I have a list of where I have been certified. I've been certified by the federal court in San Francisco and there are several, I guess, in northern California. I think there's a half a dozen or more courts that I've been certified by. Lage: Is that just a rubber stamp process, or do they really examine your qualifications? McLean: They review all your qualifications and your background experience for you to be permitted to serve as an expert witness. Well, that went to trial in August or September 1970. That was just heard before the judge; that was not a jury. Lage: Does that affect the way you present your case? McLean: Oh, absolutely. These federal judges are pretty keen. They've been in there for a long time on the appeal judge circuit, and they are good, no question. Henry Strand was the chief attorney for the bureau. When I got his Christmas card this year, he told me he was retiring. I had a very fine relationship with him. There again, I commuted back and forth to Denver about twice a month. I would go back and spend whatever time he wanted with me, reviewing all the claims, reviewing the pictures. We went over the project. There were two or three times that we went to the project. We flew from Denver to Amarillo, and a government chauffeur would pick us up there. We'd spend the whole day going over the project. There were miles and miles and miles of reject pipe. Lage: The bureau rejected the pipe, and the contractor sued? McLean: The bureau rejected the pipe. Normally this pipe is made in about a ten- foot length. The pipe is made in molds, and it's centrifically spun by what they call a Cen-Vi-Ro process. When they spin the pipe, it's in a mold. They use a very dry mix. When they put this in the mold and spin it, they have a roller in the pipe that compacts the concrete. Normally the pipe is made in ten-foot lengths, and they put just enough concrete in the mold to give a proper thickness . Well, they got the idea that they could extend the length of this pipe to twenty feet. They didn't want so many sections of pipe, so they made the mold longer. The trouble with that was that by making it longer, they couldn't make the roller stiff enough to compact the concrete, the roller would bow, and the pipe 206 would be eight to ten inches narrower in diameter in the middle of the pipe than it was at the ends. If you had a forty-eight inch pipe in the center it might be as little as forty inches . Lage: Now, I don't see how the contractor thought he had much of a claim against the Bureau of Reclamation. McLean: In addition, many the bells were full of uncompacted concrete. There were miles of rejected pipe. Lage: So the bureau rejected the pipe? McLean: The bureau rejected the pipe as not meeting the specifications. The judge didn't come out with his report for about a year. He mentioned all of the different things that I had testified about the project. He gave quote after quote of what I had said about the contractor's pipe fabrication methods. Finally he awarded the contractor $223,000 which I had testified they were entitled to. The suit, again, was around $10 million or so. I told the judge that in my opinionand I gave him all the figures- -they were entitled to a judgement of about $223,000 and that was all, period. Well, the Cen-Vi-Ro Corporation then appealed this judgement. Finally, believe it or not, after going through the appeal process, which took four or five years before finally coming up with an award, they didn't get any more out of it. They finally accepted the $223,000. I wrote back to Hank Strand, the attorney for the bureau, and I said, "How lucky can you be!" They got the judgement on inflated dollars. If they had accepted the $233,000 five years ago , the money would have been worth a lot more . But getting it today, why, it's worth a lot less." He wrote back and said, "Leave it up to you to figure something out like that." Thoughts on Being an Expert Witness Lage: Were you ever offered a case where you thought you couldn't accept it because you didn't agree with what you'd been asked to do? McLean: Yes. I don't recall which one, but I have had one or two like that, where I told them I didn't think they had a case, and I wouldn't work with them on it. Lage: Do you enjoy it? 207 McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage : McLean: I do. I really do. I receive a good fee. It takes a lot of research, and I receive $90 per hour for the research work. On the witness stand I get $250 an hour, with a minimum of $1,000 per day. You're surely worth it, when you consider what's at stake. You know, I've always said that they're paying for my background and my experience. On all the cases I've been on, there's never been a complaint about my fee. Every case I have been on, I don't remember one that we ever lost. There must be something else, though- -the ability to communicate to the jury and the judge. Do you have any thoughts about that? That's right. Very rarely do you ever get a jury in any of these cases, even in federal or superior court, where I would say they have more than average high school intelligence. The thing you have to do is to get the jury or judge to understand what the case is about. "iou have to be able to draw pictures and explain to them things that they can understand clearly. Also the judge --generally this sort of thing is not common knowledge to the judges. Unless the Judge does a lot of research work, you have to explain these things to him. You have to get the judge so that he knows what you're talking about. If it's laying pipe, or whatever it happens to be, he has to know what you're talking about. This is why I've always been very careful to draw pictures and spell everything out, even put down formulas related to the problem. Whether they understand the formulas or not doesn't make any difference. They see that you know what you're talking about. I think this is a big help. I think every case that I have worked on, I've always felt that the judgement was fair and equitable and reasonable. I don't think I have ever had one where I felt the judge or the Jury awarded any exorbitant amount. In most all cases the judgement has been virtually zero; they haven't gotten anything. Or does I have been Are you usually on for the defendant or the plaintiff? that make a difference to you? I have been on both, but I prefer the defendant part, on several for the plaintiff. Why do you prefer being for the defendant? As a general rule I've felt that I'm more interested in defending someone against a claim than I am in trying to help the plaintiff 208 make a claim. Generally when you analyze many claims, the plaintiff has grossly exaggerated the claim. The first thing you have to do is review the claim and tell them what is fair. Lage: So if you were on the plaintiff's side, you'd have to go along with his grossly exaggerated claims? McLean: You have to go along with what he wants. Sometimes, in one or two cases, 1 said, "Look, I can't take this because you don't have a case. Look for somebody else." Lage: Is the cross-examination process a painful one? McLean: No, it doesn't bother me. I know engineering and construction, and the attorney who's cross examining me doesn't. When I'm answering questions on engineering, he doesn't understand. Lage: It gives you the advantage. McLean: I have the advantage. Any time they start to question me on construction or engineering, I know that I've got the better of them. I like to match wits. I enjoy matching wits with an attorney when it comes to cross examinations, because even on depositions they are playing my game. I don't mind it at all. The Case of the Leaky Sewer Line. Bethel Island Lage: Is it any problem for you keeping up with new technology? McLean: No. Lage: Or have there been that many changes? McLean: Well there 've been a few, but generally most of them are straightforward. The last lawsuit I worked on was at Bethel Island in the delta. I worked on for it for a couple years. Lage: And who was that with? McLean: It was the installation of the sewer system for all of the homes on Bethel Island. This was a case where it was all originally septic tanks, but because of the high groundwater tables- -this island is in the Sacramento -San Joaquin Delta, one of the islands where there was a marina and a lot of homes- -it got to the point where the pollution was terrible. 209 Lage: It's right there in the middle of the delta, isn't it? McLean: Yes, it's right in the middle of the delta. The result was that finally they were compelled to build a sewage collection system and take the waste water into the treatment plant at Oakley. They were having a very high infiltration into the system. Infiltration may be due either to roof downspouts and poor joints in the laterals or main line system. In the old days, when they used to make cement joints, the cement joints were made very poorly, and you get infiltration into your system from ground water. Now we use plastic and rubber joints, which are very tight. In some of the old sewers in Oakland and Alameda it used to blow the manhole covers off because of excess water when it rained. All the water poured into the sewer system through the old cement joints. Many homes had their downspouts connected into the sewer. All this extra water overloads the collection system. This also creates a problem for your waste water treatment plant. The waste water treatment plant is designed for waste water flow only, and when you get double that during a rainstorm, this puts a big load on your waste water treatment plant. This is what was happening at Bethel Island. They let a contract for fourteen miles of sixteen- inch collecting pipe throughout Bethel Island to sewer this entire area, plus a long line that went to the treatment plant. After it was in operation, as I recall, the flow was somewhere around over a million gallons per day into the treatment plant, whereas the flow from homes and commercial establishments was less than a half a million. Immediately, because of the poor soil conditions, they blamed the contractor for the joints in the line leaking. The contractor called me in as the expert. Lage: And who was suing the contractor? McLean: Contra Costa County and the homeowners on Bethel Island were suing the contractor. I don't remember the contractor's name. The attorney for the contractor was the firm of Catalano and Associates in San Francisco. I was called in as the expert. The lawsuit was for was over five million dollars. After looking at the plaintiffs' claims, I said, "The first thing we must do is make a TV survey of it, to find out where the leakage is coming from. Then we can determine the merits of this claim." Their claim was against the contractor who had built the system, saying that he hadn't installed it properly, and that it was leaking to the extent of over half a million gallons per day. We retained a TV firm from Fresno, and we made a complete videotape of the entire system with a color TV camera. 210 Lage: McLean : Lage: McLean: I think of the system as being underground. Yes. The system is all installed ten or twelve feet below ground. How do you do make a videotape in those conditions? They had a television camera that was about five or six inches in diameter and about two feet long, and they had a cable. Manholes are normally located four or five hundred feet apart, depending on the terrain. They passed a cable down through one manhole and up another manhole. Let's say we'll take a five hundred foot reach. Then they put the camera down the manhole, and attached to this cable is the electric transmitter that comes from the camera. It actually measures the number of feet it travels between manholes , and as they electrically reel this camera along it takes a complete picture of the inside of the sewer. You can sit there in the van alongside and watch in color- -they have a large TV screenand watch every joint in the pipe and the water that is in the pipe. You can also see any leaks in the joints. First they have to flush the pipe. There is always some sewage flowing in this pipe. The pipe is flushed from a fire hydrant before they put the TV camera in the pipe. McLean: If there's any obstruction of any joint or a leak, it's all recorded on the TV tape. The camera shows the amount of water flowing, and it records a dip in the pipe. If there happens to be a sag, it will show on the camera. Sometimes the camera will be underwater. If there is standing water in the line, the camera will show that. The TV gives you a complete picture of this sewer line. We did find some sags. By judging the depth of the water, why, we could tell where there was a three-inch sag or a four-inch sag in a pipe. But that doesn't hurt anything; it means water stands in there. But we found the leakage was coming from the laterals where the people themselves had connected into the sewer line. Lage: Oh, so the people had come in, or hired contractors to come in--? McLean: After this sewer line was built, the people were compelled to disconnect the septic tanks and bring their house sewer into the main sewer. At the sewer line they leave a lateral connection. The lateral is fabricated right in the pipe, and it has a bell on it. The people are supposed to bring their line and connect into the lateral in the main sewer line. 211 In most cases the water table was above the pipe. When the homeowners made their connections to the main line, they just put a piece of pipe in the joint, and then they put a little plaster around it. Well, the leakage was coming in from the pipe that connected to the main. Lage : So the connection between the main sewer pipe and the household pipes was where the water was coming in? McLean: That's where the leakage was all coming from. The county was supposed to have inspected this to make sure that it was absolutely bottle tight. Ve saw some where there was so much water flowing, it was actually shooting out of this pipe into the main sewer. This all showed on the TV. Lage: It's amazing that there are companies that provide this kind of TV service. McLean: Yes. I've used it in cases, and in cases just like this, where you have to take a look at a pipeline or sewer line. The nice part about color is that it shows everything clearly. Lage: When you showed this, I'm surprised that the county would even go ahead with suing you, once you've shown the problem. McLean: The plaintiffs wanted to go ahead with it, yes. I have forgotten the judge's name. We went to court four times, and the judge told the plaintiffs, "You don't have a case!" He saw these pictures, and he said, "You don't have a case!" And they kept insisting, "Well, we want to go to court; we want to have it tried before a jury." So he said, "Okay, I'll set a date for you." And it would come just about the date, and then it would be postponed, and we would have another hearing. This took two years. It was absolutely ridiculous. They didn't have a shred of evidence, because we had found the contractor's work to be without fault. I sat there in the court room, and there were experts for the county, experts for the people, and the attorneys for the plaintiffs. Lage: Did it ever go to trial? McLean: It didn't go to trial. We spent one day there from eight or eight -thirty in the morning until nearly eight -thirty at night, and the judge tried to convince these people that they didn't have a case. He said, "How can you go against this evidence that you have of where the water is coming from?" And they still insisted that they wanted to go to trial. Four times we did that. Four times . 212 Finally the last time- -I wasn't present that time --they settled. The plaintiffs who made the claim got zero, the county came out with nothing, but the contractors and engineers, of course, had a lot of money coming. They got all their fees and costs. I never did get all the full details of the settlement, but the plaintiffs lost everything; they didn't get anything out of it. I was on that case for pretty nearly two years. Desieninjz a Honduran Shrimp Farm Lage: Let's talk about some of your consulting jobs that were not court cases. You've mentioned the Honduras experience, and that sounded very interesting. Tell me about that. McLean: That was for a shrimp farm (aquaculture) in Honduras. I was working with McCreary-Koretsky, a consulting firm in San Francisco. They had a contract with Armour and Company. Armour and Company had been experimenting with the propagation and rearing of shrimp, or prawns, as we call them. They had had a facility in Florida in which they had carried out a long series of experiments for three or more years, rearing these large prawns artificially on an experimental basis for market. McCreary- Koretsky was doing some other work, and they had an office in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. My particular role was not only to oversee the hydraulics of it, but also the proposed construction. Our assignment was to go to the Caribbean coast in Honduras, near the port town of La Ceiba. They proposed to construct a series of shallow ponds that would cover approximately two thousand acres. That would be around three square miles. These ponds were to be constructed of a size that would range from two acres to four or five acres per pond. They were to have a water depth of not more than four feet. It meant that you had to build levees around each pond to get a water depth of about four feet in the ponds. These shrimp grow to marketable size in about ninety days. In other words, all the criteria that was given us was that you would have shrimp in the ponds for about ninety days. They were really small, minute, when they were put in the ponds , and you fed them fish meal . The reason for going to Honduras was that there is a tremendous abundance of fish meal down there , and there was plenty of land available. The total amount of feed that you would give them was about a pound and a half of fish meal for every pound of shrimp. As the shrimp grew, you increased the amount. 213 We had a number of problems. First of all, we had to find an area where the soil was mostly clay, because that had to retain the water in the ponds. Then the next thing was the levees. The other was the system of pipes that we had to have that would not only permit us to fill the ponds with water but also to drain the ponds. We had to be able to drain the ponds rapidly; you harvest the shrimp when you drain the ponds. We had to provide an eight- foot security fence, and this was very interesting to me. Around the perimeter of the 2,000 acres we had to install an eight-foot security fence, and we had to install electric flood lights along the fence to keep the natives from trespassing and stealing the shrimp. Then we had to construct a town, a small town for the workmen. I think there were somewhere in the neighborhood of about one hundred workmen. Some of those were bachelors, some had families. They employed both women and men, and we had to provide separate quarters for them. And then we had to have family quarters for superintendents, chemists, and all the other personnel who worked on the farm. - We had to provide a water supply and a waste water system. We had to have a laboratory and a refrigerated warehouse. We had to have the processing plant where you process the shrimp and where they were packaged and frozen. And then we had to have a freezer warehouse. We also had to have a vermin-proof warehouse in which to store the fish meal. These were all the criteria that were given to us by Armour Company. The laboratory was very interesting, because the way they obtained the eggs from the shrimp was from the boats out in the Caribbean that harvest the shrimp by nets. When they brought in the shrimp, they would pick out the females, which apparently are very easily identified because they are all covered with eggs. They would collect all those together on the boats, and then helicopters would go out to these boats and get the pregnant females, if you want to call them that, and bring them to the laboratory. There they milked them of the eggs, and the eggs and larvae went through about five or six different processes. The eggs were first put in agar agar to grow as a culture. Lage: Agar agar? McLean: Yes. Agar agar, just like you do for bacteria; you put them in that. Then they went through various stages as they were growing. I don't recall the length of time, but it was two or three months that they went through this process before you could put them out in the pond. 214 We had several criteria to meet in constructing the ponds. The water in the ponds had to be of uniform salinity- -that is, as close to a uniform salinity as you could get. We couldn't permit predatory fish or the eggs or the fry of predatory fish to get into the ponds, because if they did they would feed on the fish meal and eat the baby shrimp, see. We had to provide facilities so that in drawing the water out of the Caribbean we didn't get these predatory fish. We had to locate a site where there was good clay bottom, with soil that was mostly clay, where we could use it not only to build the levees but also to make the ponds. They had several methods by which they wanted to harvest the fish. You would harvest the shrimp every ninety days. We looked into one method that used a vacuum process . As you draw the water from the pond, the shrimp follow the water. If we had a large vacuum suction pipe in there where they were following this water as we were draining the pond, we could suck them out of a sump and take them into an area where we could remove them in baskets near the processing plant. That was one idea that we investigated. The other was to have large baskets when the water was being drawn out? of the pond, and when one of these baskets got full, to hoist that up on a carrier and take the shrimp into the refrigeration warehouse. There had to be a big refrigeration storage area because you have to hold the shrimp for forty -eight hours before you can de- head them. That has to be done by hand. In order to keep from damaging the meat when the head is removed, experiments have shown that they have to stand for about forty-eight hours in- -not a cold temperature, but about forty degrees. As I recall, it was around forty to forty-eight degrees, and then the heads would come off easily. And this is done by hand. The other problem was to obtain a uniform source of salt water. We ran tests for about a year. Along the coast of Honduras there are a lot of large fresh water rivers that come into the Caribbean. The currents flow out from these rivers and follow the coastline. You have to go quite a distance into the Caribbean in order to get away from the influence of the fresh water. You cannot have fresh water in the ponds. If you get fresh water in the ponds, that kills the shrimp; the shrimp wouldn't survive. So we had to go far enough out into the Caribbean to where we would find water of a salinity that was reasonably constant year in and year out and of the correct uniform temperature. We found that the intake for the pumping plant which would deliver the water into the ponds had to extend four thousand linear feet into the Caribbean. We found this by carrying out a series of tests throughout the year, so it took us 215 about a year to determine how far the Intake would go out into the sea. Lage: Were you down there for the whole time? McLean: No. I went down there several times when all the work was going on. We had an office in Tegucigalpa and also a field office at the site where these tests were carried out. One of the things that I noticed down there was that there are two levels of wealth, the very poor and the very wealthy. Lage: Do you have some observations from your exposure to living conditions there? McLean: You'll see that many of the people living there are very poor, although one of the things that I noticed was that all the youngsters, the schoolchildren, though many of them were barefooted and didn't have sandals, why, they were always clean. They had their clothes cleaned, washed, starched, and ironed. Even the poor were neat and clean. To get to the coast we had to fly from Tegucigalpa to La Ceiba. The landing field there was just gravel, and of course only small planes could land there. Ue had to take a DC 3 flight from Tegucigalpa. The airport was just an open shed. They had one locked area where I guess they kept baggage and things that had to be stored. The airport itself had just a corrugated tin roof --an open shed. Every time you'd get off a plane there was a group of beggars. Wherever you'd go you'd find people begging. There was one woman you never failed to see down there. She had two blind children, I don't know whether they were hers. As soon as the plane would land, why, these people would come out, asking for money, and she always had these two blind youngsters with her. Lage: It was quite a cultural shock to fly back and forth to Honduras, it seems. McLean: Yes. I think I told you that we went one night to a birthday party for the president of the Bank of America. It was very interesting to find that the men were all in one area, and the women were in another area no mixing of the sexes. Lage: Were these Americans or Hondurans? McLean: They were mostly local natives. There were a few Americans. This was in Tegucigalpa. Usually the Americans are there on business; you meet a lot of Americans on business. To my knowledge we were 216 the only firm working down there as consulting engineers. The man who was the president of the Bank of America was American, and he could speak Spanish fluently. The engineer who was head of our office there, Leon Delhey, had worked in Peru, and although he was American, his wife was from Peru. He could speak Spanish very fluently, and he was our interpreter wherever we went. After we had worked on this project for over a year, we finally put together our report. At that time Greyhound had taken over Armour Company. We went back to Chicago and spent a couple days there in which we presented the project to the Armour and Greyhound people . One of the things that I forgot to mention, though I talked abut the harvesting, was the process we had to go through after the harvest. The shrimp are in large baskets, and the baskets are put in the refrigeration room. After forty- eight hours of being under refrigeration the shrimp go to the processing plant. At the processing plant they go to the women who take each shrimp and pull the head off. Then they go on a conveyor belt, and from there they're sorted according to the number of prawns per pound. They go into this sorting mechanism over conveyors, where they are graded. As they are graded, they go into five -pound boxes and through a quick freeze unit where they are frozen solid in five- pound boxes. From there they go into a large freezer warehouse. They are stacked in there until they get enough to provide a shipload. Then refrigeration trucks take the large boxes of shrimp out of the freezer warehouse , down to the docks , and into the freezers on the ship. From there they go to New Orleans or other gulf states . McLean: When we priced out the total cost of the project, the cost of producing the shrimp was about two dollars per pound. Lage: Two dollars a pound loaded aboard the ship, and from then on in, the price of transportation and the middlemen- - . McLean: Yes. It was an interesting project. Lage: It sounds as if you got involved in every step of it. McLean: Yes, I did. Lage: Was that your job, or you were just interested? McLean: Yes. I was involved in the salinity test, temperatures, ocean intake pipelines, hydraulic engineering, ponds, piping, etc. 217 Lage: Were you working as a team with people who weren't engineers? McLean: Yes. See, we had these people in the office at Tegucigalpa, and my job was to go down there and consult with them and go through the tests they were doing. Lage: Kind of review the whole process? McLean: Review the whole project. Lage: They must have had biologists there. McLean: Oh, yes. We also had a fellow working with us from Armour and Company. He was the biologist and the one who had been through all the previous experiments. He worked with us the full time. We went to Chicago and appeared before the board of directors of both Armour and Greyhound. They accepted our report, which went through all of the cost data on all of the work and the various ways we had planned everything, and we submitted drawings. They took a long time to review our work, and finally, because of the political situation down there, decided not to build the project. Lage: After all that planning? McLean: Yes. They never went through with it. Lage: So all of this that you are telling me is just in abstract. It wasn't really in operation? McLean: It was never built. Lage: Oh, I had visions of the ship coming right up to New Orleans. McLean: We were disappointed that they didn't build it. I was really disappointed that they didn't build it, because I had put in a tremendous amount of work in it. We worked for nearly two years on it. It was pretty costly. Lage: I would think so. And ic seems to have given you some insight on cultural differences. McLean: Yes. Oh, we had a lot of fun on that. It was very interesting. The few trips that I made down there were worthwhile. On one of the trips, flying back, we had a layover in Mexico City for nearly a full day. While we were there we went up to that beautiful museum, the Aztec museum. That was a real experience. 218 I can tell you the big contrast between the very wealthy and the very poor there. They use a lot of charcoal. You see it coming in large bags from the mountains on muleback. A lot of the cooking the natives do is with charcoal. The houses where they live, those that I saw, don't have glass in the windows- -the windows are open- -and there are no chimneys, so the smoke from cooking fires comes out the windows , and you* 11 see the smoke stains above the windows. All the washing, or at least a big portion of it, is done in the river. You see the women taking their big baskets of clothes to the river, where they wash them, and they carry them back and hang them up on long lines near their homes. At the airports, you go into the men's room, and all the toilet paper has been stolen; there's no toilet paper. If you have to use the toilet, you'd better have your own toilet paper. There's no soap; it's also been stolen. We were there once during a time when they were holding the general election. The way they get people to vote, at least how it was in Honduras, is that they go out with these large army trucks. The people stand alongside the road, and they load them in these trucks and bring them into town where they can vote . Then they take them back and let them off where they were picked up. That was one of the last times that I was down there. The airport was closed the day of the election, and we were told it would be closed. It was a Sunday, and everything in town was closed. We'd been to La Ceiba, and then we'd flown to San Pedro del Sol and stayed there overnight. We were to meet our plane at San Pedro del Sol, but the airport was closed. I called up whoever was in charge and asked if we would be able to get the flight to Mexico City, and they said, "You'll get the flight out all right. But you'll have to go through the airport; there will be a way for you to get through the airport, and then you go directly out to the plane. Don't stop in the airport." We got down to the airport, and there were armed guards patrolling. Finally the plane came. I told them we had a flight out to Tegucigalpa, and they let us through. There were three of us on that flight. There were all these armed soldiers guarding the airport building. When the plane arrived, it just came up the runway, we ran out and got in the plane, and they closed the door. All the window shades were drawn. We went to Tegucigalpa for a stop and then to Mexico City. 219 Troubleshooting on a Pipeline in Ghana Lage : Did I notice that you also had some jobs in Africa? McLean: No, I didn't go to Africa, but I worked with Kaiser Steel on a project in Ghana. It was one of the largest reservoirs in the world, on the west coast of Ghana. Kaiser had built a large aluminum plant. A pipeline runs from the dam to the towns of Tima and Accra on the west coast. It supplies water to the aluminum plant. I was called in on that because the concrete lining had failed in the line, which was about thirty miles in length. It was a mortar-lined steel pipe. The lining was only about three- sixteenths of an inch, which is a very thin lining. It was designed by an engineering company in Tel Aviv, a Jewish company. It was well designed; there was nothing wrong with it. The water in the reservoir has a ph of about seven, so of course it's very corrosive. It was a well designed plant, and the pipeline was well designed. They had a hydrated lime plant in order to treat the water and to raise the ph to 8.0-8.5 so that the water would be alkaline and not so corrosive. The natives didn't know how to operate this lime plant, and consequently they had just shut it down. Something had gone wrong, and they hadn't done anything to repair it. Adding lime solution to the water was necessary to prevent the corrosion in the pipeline. Lage: And you looked at that problem from here? You didn't have to go over to Ghana? McLean: I looked at it from here, from the plans and all the data. I did do some long distance telephoning, talking back and forth. What happened was that they started to get corrosion in this pipeline. When they started to get the corrosion in the pipeline, it started to loosen the cement mortar lining. Once the water got behind the lining it started to remove the lining. The broken lining started to plug the pipe, and it decreased the flow in the pipeline. To counteract that, they put more pressure on the pumps, and this tore out more lining. One section of pipe was practically filled with this broken lining. At the end of the line there was a reservoir that served the towns of Tima and Accra. A large amount of this lining was carried into reservoir. There were tons of it in the reservoir. Kaiser wanted to know what could be done about it. You couldn't get in to re- line it; they needed the water. First I wanted to know what had happened to their lime plant. Was it in operation? By long distance calls back and forth to the treatment plant I found that the motors on the lime slakers had burned out, 220 and they hadn't done anything about getting new motors. The lime machines had been idle. Then they brought in the firm from Tel Aviv that had designed the plant to look at the problem, and I gave them a copy of my report. I told them they better get the lime plant functioning; otherwise the pipeline will be leaking like a sieve, and they won't have a pipeline. They'd better get the lime plant operating and get the ph to 8.0 or 8.5 so that they can protect the bare pipe. One of the first things they had to do was take out the section of pipe that was filled with the concrete lining material. They had to get in the pipe with wheelbarrows and shovel the debris out. That was my recommendation. They had to shut down the pipeline for a period, as they should first fill the reservoir full and cut down on their water use. The pipeline not only supplied Kaiser's aluminum plant with water but also the adjacent cities. My recommendation was to fill the reservoirs, get the pipe opened up, clean it out, and then get the lime plant functioning so they would protect the pipe. Lage: And just forget about the lining? McLean: Forget the lining. There was no way they could line it, because it would take too long. I suggested that if they wanted to line the pipe sometime in the future, they would have to shut the line down for a period of time; then they could line a short section, but they would have to have a bypass. They would have to move this bypass along so that they could shut down a section, bypass it, and then re-line. Whether they ever did that I don't know, because my job ended when I made the report and the recommendation to get their lime plant going and clean the muck not only out of the reservoir but also out of the pipeline. I don't what happened after that. Consulting on BART's Market Street Tunnel Lage: I wanted you to talk a little bit about your consulting work on BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] . You worked on the Market Street station and the transbay crossing. McLean: The work I did on BART was with Ed Peterson, who was head of construction for the Three Companies. He had come from Bechtel. Ed called me in to consult with them on the Market Street tunnels. The problem there was that until they got nearly to the Civic Center on Market Street, the soil was all sand fill. In drilling the tunnel through the sand, they were getting settlement on the 221 street. This is probably due to a number of things, not only to de -watering- -that is, to removing the water- -but also, when drilling tunnels like this one, they use a breast board in the heading to prevent sand from running into the tunnel. There's always a certain amount of sloughing; you cannot always prevent it. The result was that the street was settling. In some reaches this amounted about two feet. There were two factors that came in here. San Francisco has a high pressure salt water fire line. Probably very few people know that, but they have a twenty -four -inch pipeline that goes up Market Street and parallels the BART tunnel. That's a cast-iron line, bell and spigot joints, with a special lead joint. Accordingly, as the ground settled, the pipeline settled. Lage: So that puts a lot of stress on the pipeline? McLean: This is what the city thought. The city was concerned that with this amount of settlement the pipe joints were going to leak. I plotted the pipeline, showing the settlement at the joints, and I didn't agree with the city. The city wanted the contractor to dig up every one of these joints and recaulk the lead joint. The 24- inch line was five feet or more below the surface. Each pipe section was twelve foot in length, and you'd have to uncover every joint and caulk it. I said I didn't agree with them. I felt that the line was perfectly all right and that it would take that settlement without any deformation or any leakage. Lage : What did you base that on? McLean: Because many years ago, when I had been with the district, we had a 12 -inch cast-iron line that went over what was known as Standard Oil Hill in Richmond. That was when the highway went through there. We had to lower that line, and of course everybody thought we'd have to go out there, take the line apart, and lower it. Instead of that, we just dug underneath it and let the pipe come on down, which it did. I think we lowered the pipe a foot and a half or more. It never caused a bit of leakage, and that was a pipe with lead joints, the same as the San Francisco line. So the experience that I had had proved to me that there was enough flexibility in the lead joint that it could take this amount of settlement. To satisfy the city we did dig up some joints where they indicated and proved to them that it wasn't necessary to do any caulking. That settled the problem. 222 Cathodic Protection. Under -Bay Cables, and Ships' Anchors^// McLean: The other problem I got involved in with the Corps of Engineers was on the anodes they had for the BART bay crossing tube. In the Oakland inner harbor, which is alongside the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, there is the Port of Oakland inner harbor. The BART train tube is just south of the harbor. At that point you have anode cables, a cluster of piles, and a cathodic station to the north of the harbor entrance. Cathodic protection is to prevent corrosion in and on the tube. Where there are stray electrical currents they are conveyed through the cables to anodes , and the bay tube is protected. Stray currents may come from street railway rails or the train operations. Lage: From the BART train itself? McLean: Yes, the BART trains. There are stray currents, and the tube may become an ideal transmission line for those stray currents. If you don't drain those off, they will drain off the tube. Wherever they drain they will remove metal. This is how you get. what we call electrolysis of pipelines. To take care of that, like we have on the aqueducts, you must bond the joints. Then you install drainage stations. The drainage station is just as if you were draining the water off, but instead of that you're draining off the electrical currents. You drain the current off into magnesium anodes so that rather than corroding the metal on the pipe or the tube, the current goes off to these magnesium anodes. Well, to take it from the tube to the anode beds you have a cable from the BART tube to the anode station. This was across the channel, north of the tube, where they put in a battery of piles. They had a cable that extended across the harbor entrance to the drainage station. Lage: Did that drain the whole tunnel? McLean: They have these at frequent intervals. The main one was in the inner harbor where the cable crossed the channel. They laid the cable right on the surface of the Bay floor. In order to reduce the speed of ships entering the harbor, when they come into the dock they drag an anchor. Sometimes the anchor would drag the cable and break it. The contractor was under a guarantee , so he had to replace the cable. Every time he'd replace it, the ships would come in 223 and pull it out. They'd lost half a dozen cables by that time, and the contractor was screaming. Lage: They didn't think that one through too well. McLean: No. So he asked, "What are we going to do?" I recommended to Ed Peterson that they go in and dig a deep trench five feet or more in depth and put the cable in the bottom. Then cover the cable with gravel to a depth of two feet and fill the trench to the surface with large rip rap boulders- -all the large rocks they can put in the trench. After that they never had any further trouble losing the cables. Lage: I suggest that when the Port of Oakland gets its permit to dredge the channel, you'd better remind them that that's there, [laughter] McLean: Yes. Oh, they will watch it, because it's got a sign up there. Lage: It sounds to me as if you're a good idea man, a problem- solver. Is that something you're known for? McLean: I think so, yes. You run into this in engineering all the time. This isn't anything unusual, you know. Lage: But they didn't think of it. McLean: Well, no. Believe it or not, there are lots of cables laid across the bay like that. Normally all these power cables that go across the bay are laid right on the surface. Nobody ever thinks about it. But here you had a case where they overlooked the fact that ships coming in have to slow their speed down, and they drop their anchor. Lage: I wonder how long it took them to figure out what the problem was after they kept breaking? McLean: Nobody stopped to think, "Dig a deep trench, install the cable, and fill the trench with rip-rap." When they did that, they didn't have any further trouble. I run into lots of things like that. That's just part of the game. Lage: I know we haven't covered all of your consulting work, but we really should move on to your time on the district board of directors. But I think we've gotten a good picture of the kinds of things you ran up against as a consulting engineer. 224 XI EBMUD BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 1979-1990 Running for the Board [Interview 8: August 5, 1991 ]## Lage: This time we want to talk about the board of directors of East Bay MUD. Tell me how you ran for the board. McLean: Well, let's go back a few years. After I had retired from the district [August 1, 1968], I had done a little consulting work for the district. They called me in on a couple of occasions on problems they had, and I worked with them on those. At that time Charles J. Wright, who was an attorney and who lived in Richmond, was appointed to the board. He had been an engineer who had worked for me on the waste water project. I knew the family quite well. He had been an officer in the Seabees in World War II, and he came to the district right after he was discharged from the U.S. Navy, when we were building the waste water project. His wife was a legal secretary, and she had worked for the - city attorney [Tom Carlson] for the city of Richmond. They encouraged Chuck to take up law, and even while he was working for the district he was studying law at night. He eventually passed the bar examination and then took up practice as an attorney after he had left the district's employ. Because he was well known in the Richmond area, he was appointed to the board of directors to fill out the term of William McNevin. When he came up for reelection, I had known him so well that I helped out on his election. Lage: Had you done this kind of work before? McLean: No, I had never done this before. But being very interested in the board of directors and who was perpetuated on the board, I was 225 very much interested in having him continue , because he was a good member. He was on the board with Louis Breuner, and he ultimately did become president of the board. I had known most of the members on the board- -Louis Breuner, Howard Robinson, Bert Carrington, and also Ted Hitchcock in San Leandro . Lage: Did you know them as an employee? Did you have occasion to know them through your job? McLean: Yes. When we had the large projects under construction, the board members many times would come out and visit the projects. It was my duty to take them around, and I became well acquainted with all of them. K. Leroy Hamman was president of the board. He was also president of the Boy Scouts, and I was on the executive board of the Boy Scouts. I knew him personally, and I knew Ted Hitchcock very well . Well, Ted was up for reelection in November of 1978, and I was interested in helping him out on his campaign. Lila, my wife, and I had been on vacation. I think we'd been to Montana on a fishing trip for a couple of weeks, and when I came back I contacted Ted Hitchcock and was going to help out on his campaign. It wasn't known publicly, but he had developed cancer, and after I had met with him and talked with him about the forthcoming campaign with the district, he said, "I'm not going to run for reelection because of health." He said, "Why don't you run?" Well, that kind of shook me off my feet, because I'd never been interested in running for any political office. But he said, "You go ahead and run, and I'll endorse you." So I went to the district office, and I'll never forget this. John Plumb was the secretary of the district at that time, and you'd get your nomination papers from the district. I went down, and I said, . "John, I want nomination papers to run for Ted Hitchcock's seat." He said, "You!? You want papers?" And I said, "Yes. Is there anything wrong with that?" He said, "No, I guess not." [the following section was revised during the editing process by Mr. McLean, with the assistance of his campaign manager, Jim Zeno] McLean: My previous campaign experience was limited. I did some campaigning in 1974 for Charles J. Wright. In 1976 I served as finance chairman for Bert Carrington and Bill Moses to the water board. Art Ames, like myself another retired EBMUD employee, was chairman. 226 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: My first of four elections for the water board was on the November 1978 ballot. Ted Hitchcock was chairman, and Bill Groeniger was finance chairman. I engaged James V. Zeno, Sr. , a San Leandro public relations and media consultant, as my campaign manager. Zeno brought a strong, winning track record from previous EBMUO campaigns. He had managed the $252 million water development bond campaign in 1958, plus winning campaigns for Charles Wright, Bert Carrington, Ted Hitchcock, and other EBMUD directors during elections spread over two decades, from 1958 to 1978. In my second, third, and fourth campaigns, Zeno continued as campaign manager; and Jack Maltester, former mayor of San Leandro, and James Dieterich, past president of the Alameda County Taxpayers Association, served as chairman and finance chairman respectively. The steering committee also included co-chairmen Bob Tucknott and Ted Kuntz of Castro Valley, and Dick Karn of Hayward; co-chairwomen Cecile Johnson and Violet Zeno of San Leandro; and publicity director Jim Zeno, Jr., of San Francisco. What media did you utilize to get the across? 'Elect McLean" message Ue used direct mail, including brochures and postals targeted to the five cities in Ward 7, with its more than 100,000 residents; publicity stories; newspaper ads in the Havward Review. Oakland Tribune . San Leandro Gazette. San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco Examiner: more than 2,500 outdoor signs; pencils with McLean punch-lines; business -size election cards; pamphlets; handbills; and other materials. [See following pages for sample campaign materials, 1978-1990] Did you have any campaign slogans? Yes, I had several: "Elect Walter 'Mac' McLean, East Bay MUD Water Director Best qualified by on- the- job experience." "Elect Walter McLean- -Keep high quality water at reasonable rates." How did you personally campaign? The best way to get elected is getting yourself known and implanting your name and office sought in the minds of the voters, trusting they'll remember to vote for you on election day. I attended an average of a hundred meetings and public gatherings before each election. I was given a courtesy introduction at many of these meetings. With my on- the -job campaign manager and volunteers, we passed out hundreds of small "Elect McLean" cards. We pursued this route for more than a year and a half before each election day. Many candidates punch doorbells; I never did, because 1 was also busy with my consulting engineering practice in 227 San Francisco. I took time off to attend public luncheons and dinners, after which I returned to work in my San Francisco office. Between my professional assignments and running for office, I was putting in a seventy- five -hour week. During my first campaign in 1978, I was extremely busy. I had several legal cases and was working on litigations. Also, 1 had a large pipe job in Virginia. I had to go there once a month, flying to that project. Obviously, I didn't have time to walk precincts in five cities in Ward 7. Therefore my presence at public gatherings, with one hundred to five hundred in attendance, was the best opportunity to shake hands with potential voters. Lage: Vere there issues that had to be discussed? McLean: Many issues, primarily the American River water rights and the proposed Buckhorn Dam, both relative to water supply and storage. Future water supply was a key theme of all four of my election campaigns . Lage: Was there any relations to party politics? McLean: Not in behalf of my three winning campaigns, which were conducted on an independent, nonpartisan basis. However, in each of these successful races the opponents linked their campaigns to political parties. These were fundamental errors on their part, because consumers disdain partisan ploys in the administration of water development. In contrast, we distributed literature documented by background qualifications, with emphasis on my credentials synonymous with my water development training and experience. Zeno, Sr., and Jim Zeno, Jr., did most of the campaign writing. In all of the material and copy they prepared, you will not find one reference to a political party. Lage: What was the basic structure and format of the EBMUD campaigns? Were the individual members of the water board elected by all the voters in the district? McLean: Before my tenure on the water board, five members were elected at large by voters in Alameda County and Contra Costa County. When I ran in 1978 to succeed Ted Hitchcock, the utility district boundaries had been revamped, and the board had been expanded from five to seven members, each representing one of the seven areas. I ran in Ward 7, representing San Leandro, Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, and portions of East Oakland and Hayward. Helen Burke of Berkeley, who was elected in November 1974, promoted the seven- ward system, which went into effect January 1, 1974, and facilitated her election the following November. asvaaoiMi xvi ON' saiva UBIVAA H3AAcn aod NVBI OIAI 13313 227a Campaign Brochure 1978 ELECT WATER RESOURCES LEADER WALTER R. Me LEAN EBMUD DIRECTOR, WARD 7 Please vote Tuesday, November 7, 1978 WALT Me LEAN is supported by civic, fraternal, professional, labor, industrial and numerous other community leaders Citizens for the Election of Walter R. Me Lean WALTER R. Me LEAN A Proven Water Resources Leader Me LEAN is former manager of both the Field Engineering and Special Construction Divisions of the East E Municipal Utility District. Me LEAN was associated with or responsible for studies, design, construction and development of all water fa ities at EBMUD for more than 30 years. Me LEAN left EBMUD in 1968 to form his own firm as a Consulting Civil Engineer specializing in Water Resourc FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS. Me LEAN has been a consultant on Water Development Projects and U.S. Envin mental Protection Agency Grant Projects throughout the United States. MC LEAN was chairman of the Citizens' Shoreline Commission, whose feasibility studies led to the developm of the San Leandro Marina and adjoining golf course. Me LEAN'S water administrative affiliations include: Past President, American Public Works Association California Water Resources Association American Water Works Association Society of American Military Engineers McLEAN is the only candidate in the field of seven, with water development experience that's what this elect is all about! Me LEAN knows the job! Me LEAN, with his educational background, training and knowledge of EBMUD, plus his broad experience consulting Civil Engineer, is the best qualified candidate for Water Director of Ward 7, representing San Leanc Castro Valley and East Oakland. That's why C. R. (Ted) Hitchcock, retiring water director, and the overwhelm majority of the city officials responsible for the needs of those communities, have endorsed Me LEAN for the wj Board of Directors. Me LEAN pledges to fight for lower water rates (such as eliminating the extra charge for drought conditions t were controlled as of last February 1). Me LEAN pledges to fight for the full value of every tax dollar in the true Jarvis Gann spirit expressed by people at the June election. Me LEAN is Vice-chairman of the San Leandro-Castro Valley-East Oakland Committee for Lower Taxes. In dition to his water service, Me LEAN has established a record of professional and civic leadership: Current Chairman, San Leandro Board of Appeals. . .prominent member of California Alumni Associat (majored in civil engineering and business administration). . .Society of California Pioneers. . .Amerii Society of Civil Engineers (Fellow and Life Member). . .Consulting Engineers Association. . .Engineers C : of San Francisco. . .Board of Directors, Bay Area Council Boy Scouts of America. (Presently, Chairmar I Physical Properties Committee). . .Silver Beaver Award, Boy Scouts of America. . .Arthur Greulich AWJ , Camp Fire Girls of America. . .United Crusade. . .Red Cross. . .Many other Community, Fraternal and Yo i activities. Notice To All Citizens Don't Be Fooled! By Law, the EBMUD Water Board is a Non-Partisan Independent Office; Whatever Your Party Affiliation, You May Vote For Walt McLean on Tuesday, November 7. His Name is on Your Ballot. McLean Campaign Committee: 655 Montague Avenue, San Leandro - William Groeniger, Finance Chairman C. R. (Ted) Hitchcock, Honorary Chairman iu- ^ ELECT Me LEAN FOR LOWER WATER RATES. . .NO TAX INCREAS 227c EBMUD Campaign Committee To Re-Elect ?986 tion Results Walter R. McLean, Water Director, Nov. 4, 1986 655 Montague Avenue San Leandro, California 94577 Telephone 357-4330 Jack Maltester. Chairman Jim Dieterich, Jr., Finance Chairman December 3, 1986 Memo to: Walter R. McLean, Incumbent EBMUD Director, Ward 7 From: James V. Zeno, Political Consultant and Campaign Manager Subject: RESULTS - Area breakdown, November 4, 1986 Election McLean margin McLean Hindshaw Cryer Kinder over Hindshaw Absentee Vote (Included in above results): McLean 1,485 Hindshaw 703 Cryer 236 Kinder 148 Precincts won by: McLean, 116; Hindshaw, 21. **McLean's total with four contestants in one race, was the highest victory percentage in EBMUD election history. With the third and fourth candidates garnering a combined 14% of the total in this (11-4-86) plurality race, 44% was needed to win first place. McLean 21,108 Hindshaw 15,596 Cryer 3,426 Kinder 2,366 TOTAL VOTE 42,496 cc: Maltester, Tucknott, Dieterich Kuntz, Johnson, Jim Zeno, Jr. Ted Kuntz, Cecille Johnson, Bob Tucknott, co-chairmen; Jim Zeno, Jr., media consultant EBMUD Campaign Committee I.D. 761-261 OPEIU-3-AFL-C1O (3) "j 227d Campaign Materials 1990 RE-ELECT WALTER R. MCLEAN a A Proven Water Resources Leader * EBMUD Water Director Ward? (Covering San Leandro, Castro Valley, Hayward, East Oakland) VOTE TUBS., NOV. 6, 1990 Jccfc UaltMtor, Chair.. Jim DMartch, Fin Chairman EBMUD Campaign Committee I.D. 761261 655 Montague Ave., San Leandro BEST QUALIFIED BY ON-THE-JOB EXPERIENCE Re-Elect McLean Best Qualified By On-The-Job Experien KEEP OUR WATER RATES LOW KEEP OUR WATER CLEAN AND PURE KEEP OUR WATER SYSTEM SAFE AND SECURE j KEEP TOUGH ON TOXICS PROTECT OUR WATER SUPPLY PROVIDE WATER STORAGE FACILITIES I CONTINUE EBMUD'S WATER CONSERVATION PROGRAM KEEP MCLEAN 228 Lage: Did you hook in with any other candidates running for other offices? McLean: No, in my winning campaigns that would have been antithetical to my policy of separating our election race from partisan persuasion. Lage: Wasn't that the time when a group called PACE started endorsing water board candidates? McLean: Yes, Helen Burke emerged as the storm symbol of their anti- development philosophy. In fact, several groups dubbed as "no- grovthers" opposed my candidacy during all four of my election campaigns. They were unsuccessful in my first three winning four- year campaigns. They scored in my quest for re-election as an incumbent to a fourth term in November 1990. Unfortunately, this happened on the same ballot when voters passed a two- term-only limitation for state officeholders. This voter revolt carried over to district and local elections and helped defeat many incumbents who were overcome by the "too long in office" syndrome that is peaking out in the 1990 decade. Lage: What groups endorsed you? McLean: Union entities: the Operating Engineers, headed by vice president Bob Skidgel; the Building Trades Council; the Carpenters Union; and the Associated General Contractors. Lage: Where did you encounter your strongest opposition? McLean: It came from the Alameda County Central Labor Council, two EBMUD employees union affiliates, and the Sierra Club. Lage: What was the composition of your grassroots support? McLean: A citizens committee labeled "1,000 Citizens for McLean." These volunteers were recruited by Zeno Associates through signature petition solicitation and "people to people" polls and interviews. This committee passed out McLean literature door to door in the neighborhoods. They also furnished women and manpower for the "McLean telephone callers." Lage: What was the motive of the three labor organizations that endorsed you? McLean: They were strongly interested in the water district contracting out work to the private sector and creating more jobs. I'm referring to the Operating Engineers, Building Trades Council, and the Carpenters Union. Paradoxically, the Central Labor Council 229 supported the "no-growth" candidates at the financial behest of their EBMUD employee union affiliate, two large groups of dues- paying members. And therein lies the sad water election tale: three incumbents --McLean, Mary Warren, and Sandy Skaggs--who decided to quit the political wars are out! Today candidates sponsored by the "no- growth" elements have seized control of the East Bay Municipal Utility District board of directors, and are in! [end of revised section] The Contractine-Out Issue Lage: You believe in contracting out? McLean: Yes, I've always believed in contracting out, because I think that is the most efficient way for work to be done by the district. It is true that there is a lot of work done by district forces that cannot be done by outside contractors. But installation of new pipelines, the construction of reservoirs, and even consulting work can be done by outside firms. I have always believed that that is the most economical way for public organizations to operate . Lage: Did you observe something as an employee that developed that belief? McLean: It's from my own observations. Lage: But why? McLean: Well, I'll tell you why. To begin with, when you take an organization within a public entity, you have a force of people to take care of X amount of work. Sometimes to keep that force busy you generate work that is not necessary. Furthermore, you have to look at inclement weather- -rainy weather and such as that- -in which your forces can't work, and there again you make work which sometimes is not necessary to keep the personnel occupied. With contractors, first of all they go out to bid; you get the lowest, most responsible bidder. Those people come on the job and do the job; and when they are finished, they are finished and are off. You don't have anybody that is on civil service, on a payroll that you have to carry because he is a permanent employee. I have always believed that all of the work that is possible to contract out should be contracted out. I've always believed in 230 private contractors. That is through my years of working, you might say- -to begin with, in the private sector, and then being in charge of millions of dollars' worth of work with the district on big contract work. You know, a public organization cannot gear up to do big work, like building the Mokelumne Aqueduct or something like that. It could be done, yes. But the big contracting firms have the equipment, and they have the skilled personnel carry out big projects, whereas the district does not have qualified people. Now, when it comes to installing services, replacing small mains, or things like that, the district maintenance and operation personnel are highly qualified to do that, and you can't compete with them. But when it comes to installing big pipelines and building dams or things like that, there are not the personnel to do that. Lage: Is there a difference of opinion on that? McLean: Oh, you bet there's a big difference of opinion. The district personnel would like to do everything. -< Lage: And hire more--? McLean: Yes, hire more people. But I disagree with them. The whole time I was on the board I was very much against expanding the district forces to do more work. My philosophy has always been that the district should have a force of people, engineers and maintenance people, who can handle basically all the routine work that comes to the district. When it comes to replacing small lengths of pipeline, installing services, and doing all those jobs, this is what the district is highly qualified to do, and this what they should be doing. But when it comes to larger work, not only in the engineering department but larger projects, then those projects should go out to the private sector. There are a number of reasons. Let's look at the engineering part of it. The district's engineers are highly qualified, they are very fine people, a good organization. But unfortunately they don't get into enough of a variety of work so that they know what is going on on the outside. The private consulting engineer does a large variety of work to survive; he does everything, all types of work. Those people are far more experienced in some jobs, like the design of a dam or many things like that, where the district does have qualified people. Consequently, that type of work should be contracted out. And on big construction projects, building reservoirs and other projects like that, this is the place to contract out. 231 Lage: Has that been the policy overall? Has your view prevailed? McLean: Originally it was the policy of the district. Way back in the early days, this was the policy of the district. And it was the policy of the district because the people who had come over from the Bureau of Reclamation were great believers in that. They believed in a small organization and then contracting out everything beyond that. That carried for a long, long time, but later on the district forces began to build up more and more. The Municipal Utility District Act, as it's known, says that the district shall contract out any and all work that cannot reasonably be done by district forces. Well, that leaves a little loophole there, and that's unfortunate. There has always been quite an argument- -or disagreement, I should say- -between the unions at the district and staff and board. While I was on the board, when it would come to cases like pipeline installation or other work, we said that anything over four thousand feet of pipeline had to be contracted out. The unions always wanted to do more; of course they want to do more all the time and build up more and more personnel. We altfays had a restraint on that, and that's why we've always tried to keep the forces in the district at a fixed number of people. Lage: Is there a trend towards more work done by district forces, do you think? McLean: Well, I don't think there's been any change. The fact is, I'm not so sure what they're doing now. With this new board that was virtually elected by the unions, I'm afraid there's going to be some slippage on this. I know that myself, Sandy Skaggs, and Mary Warren were always in favor of holding the line on increasing personnel . My philosophy has been this: If you take the average amount of work that the district does, this should be done by district forces, and you can draw that line at a certain point. Any peaks above this, any time that you have a lot of work that comes in, it should be contracted out. And I mean this both from an engineering standpoint and a construction standpoint. I think this is good business, and this has been my philosophy. This is why private industry has backed me for the board. Lage: The unions as well as the contractors? McLean: That's right. Not only the contractors, but the labor unions and everybody else, because they have believed in my philosophy on this. I think this is the most economical way for any public entity to work. This is the way that they should work. You 232 should have enough people for emergency and to carry on the general operations of the district. Those people are skilled; they're qualified to do the work. But anytime that you have anything above that- -that is, peak work where you have to build a reservoir, a dam, a big pipeline, a big pumping plant, or anything like that- -then that should be contracted out, both from the engineering standpoint and the construction standpoint. Lage: Okay, I'm glad we got into this. McLean: This is the way public entities should work. Lage: Let's get to something I wanted to discuss about your board membership. Were environmental issues raised during that first election? McLean: I don't think any environmental issues ever came up in the early elections at all. It wasn't until this last election that the environmental issues began to rear their ugly head, you might say. I think this occurred when Nancy Nadel came on the board. She worked for the Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco. Lage: And she came on just at the last election? McLean: Yes. She came in on the last election, three years ago in 1988. Lage: Is it every four years that they run? McLean: Yes, four years. She's up for election in '92, and she came on in '88. She defeated Ken Kofman. Helen Burke also has always been a very strong environmentalist. Representing Ward Constituency on the BoardM/ Back-Flow Devices for Veils Lage: Did you see your role on the board as representing the views of the people of this ward or more making use of your expertise? McLean: I do feel that I represented this area, my ward, that I represented those people on the board. We met with groups on three or four occasions, but as a general rule, if I received a request or a complaint from someone, from a constituent in my ward here, I immediately followed it up and pursued it as to what the request was and what I could do about it. 233 A good example was in reference to the back- flow devices for wells. In my ward I guess 1 had most of the private wells. There were a couple thousand of them in this area. You see, when this area was developed, particularly in San Leandro and Castro Valley, they were all little farms. Even in this area they originally were little farms, maybe one acre. In fact, this property of mine was a part of an acre farm. I guess if you look at it, Castro Valley used to be a group of little chicken farms. Most of them were five-acre plots, and there was no water supply out there; it was all private wells. When you bought a piece of property, you drilled a well for your water supply. Lage: So there's an aquifer underneath this area? McLean: Yes, there is an aquifer. Fact is, there's a well next door, and there's a well across the street that they use for irrigating their gardens. And I think the house in back here that I bought my property from had a well on it. I would judge that within my ward, and this includes Castro Valley and around the Marina and that area out there, I forget what the count was, but there were a couple thousand wells. The Clean Water Act of several years ago said that all private wells within an area where there was a domestic or public water supply had to have a back- flow device on it. The purpose of that was so that if you were connected to the utility district supply, you could not get the water from the well into the public water supply. They have to have back-flow devices. You'll see these in many, many, places around here; well, up here at the San Leandro high school they have a well for irrigating their lawns and all their shrubbery, and they have back-flow devices. A back- flow device is a unit that has check valves on it and two little pet cocks, as we call them, or gate valves, for checking whether there is any pressure on the one side that could permit water to flow into the utility district system. Well, the district notified all those that we knew had private wells. Now, a lot of them we didn't know; a lot of the wells were not revealed. Of course we notified the people that they would have to do something about these private wells. Lage: Was it an expensive procedure? McLean: The average cost was around a thousand dollars or more, and in some cases up to a couple thousand dollars. What happened was that the district sent notices to those who had wells, that this had to be taken care of within a period of time. Of course, my phone got to ringing with calls from these people: "What are we going to do about it?" It required them to install this back- flow 234 unit, and then it had to be checked and inspected. Veil, some of them went ahead with the installation. After hearing from many of the people with wells who could not afford the cost, I discussed it with the general manager and asked why we couldn't do it free of charge or at a very small charge. In many, many cases these people were only using the well for irrigation; it was not connected to the house supply. Lage: How did it get into the system if it was separate, if they Just used it for irrigating? McLean: Well, it did not. But you see, the act does not define it. It says that whenever there is a private well on the property you must install this back-flow device. Now, some people did have it connected to their house supply. Others, like those who live over near me, only use the well for irrigation; but they still had to put in a back- flow device. The one across the street is the same way. You still have to have it on the utility district supply. And this is in case --let's say that something happens to the water supply, if we got into an earthquake situation where there was no water or something like that. All they'd have to do is make a little connection from their well to their house supply, and they would have water for their toilets and other uses. So it was because of the chance that they could connect to the house supply that they had to install the back- flow unit. Most all of these are installed right outside the house or very close outside. Anyway, because there were so many of them and because of the cost- -to have a plumber come and do the work, the cost was anywhere from one thousand to two thousand dollars. To put out that large amount of money was difficult for many of the homeowners, particularly in my ward. Lage: So you suggested the district do it? McLean: Jerry Gilbert and I talked quite a little bit about doing something about it, and finally the district came up with the idea that we could make up our own units, and we would install them free of charge . I was one of the ones who pushed to do this . The result was, as far as I know, that many of them have been changed to date. They're still working on it; they haven't changed all of them, but they are working on all the ones that are known. The district is doing it as part of the work. But that was one of the issues that came up four or more years ago. Most of them were in my area. Lage: Did other board members object to this kind of--? 235 McLean: They went right along with it, and everything was okay. But it did save the people a lot of money on the installation of the back- flow device. Of course, industries like Gerber Foods that used to be here had their own wells. Granny Goose had their own well, and Fleischmann's also had wells. But those back- flow devices, which are large, were installed at the time they received service. Many of the small wells out in my area were virtually unknown, and people were using them for irrigating lawns and gardens as a matter of course . Fact is , some of them even occurred after the drought. When the drought of '76 -'77 first started, some people even drilled wells. Lage: I heard they had water witches coming and locating water. McLean: Oh, yes, you bet. They went in and put in wells so that they could irrigate their shrubbery and gardens. That was probably one of the biggest issues that I had during my time on the board. Lage: Of a local-- . McLean: Yes, of a local nature. And 1 took care of most of them. Stand on Buckhom Dam and Elevation Charges Lage: What about on the broader issues that the district faced, say on how rates should be set? Did you feel you were representing your people or some larger--? McLean: Yes. Yes I did. On the rates and even on Buckhorn Reservoir. I had several occasions where I addressed people not only on Buckhorn Reservoir but also on the need for the American River supply, in which I pointed out to them that Buckhorn. Reservoir was needed for many reasons, particularly after the first reports came out. Lage: I don't want to get into a whole discussion of Buckhorn yet but more on how you operated on the board. Did you try to find out how your district felt, or did you try to shape your district's opinion? McLean: I don't know whether you remember Measure Z. Lage : Yes . McLean: Why, all of my area voted for Measure Z, for Buckhorn Reservoir. I have the records here, which I saved. I always believed that 236 that was influenced by my talks that I gave before people as to why we needed more storage. That was not true of Oakland- -of course I had nothing to do with Oaklandand Berkeley voted overwhelmingly against Buckhom, as you know. But my ward carried fully on that. I don't know whether I was influential on it or not, but I think that in talks 1 gave before the Sirs, the Rotary Club, and various other organizations, it had something to do with the vote . Lage: Before the "Sirs," did you say? McLean: Sirs. That's an older men's organization. "Sons in Retirement" is a national organization. 1 gave a talk before them in Castro Valley, at the Willow Park Golf Course, and on two or three other occasions, at the Blue Dolphin and several other places. On general overall water issues, but particularly related to storage. I'm sure that had some effect upon the vote in my ward. In regard to the water rates, I received many questions on water rates. I always explained very carefully to them so that they would understand why the rates were necessary. I had very little of it in my ward, but one issue was the so-called elevation charge. I think there is a little of it in the Fairview district and some in Castro Valley. There are some people out there who have the elevation charge, and I really never heard any complaints in reference to it. However, I was never in favor of it. I felt that there was a little discrimination with it, and all the time I was on the board I tried to get it changed, but I was not successful . Lage: That seemed to be part of a larger trend toward rates reflecting the actual cost. McLean: That's right. Lage: That's something that you don't agree with? McLean: No, I don't agree with it. The purpose of it- -and this was fostered by Jack Hill and Jerry Gilbert, all due respect to them. They felt that people who lived in the higher elevations, because the water had to be lifted up to reservoirs for the higher elevations, should pay that additional cost, the so-called energy charge. I always felt it was more equitable to have the same rates for everybody, and I'll tell you why. Number one, a good portion of the elevation charge is related to areas like Orinda, Lafayette, and maybe a little of Moraga, but the bulk of it is out in the San Ramon Valley. Now, the district every year has a replacement cost. Part of the annual budget is the cost for replacing old mains. Everybody pays for that, whether you live in 237 the elevation charge area or in a low area. It's part of the budgetreplacement of more or less ten miles of pipe every year. Practically all of the replacement work is in the area west of the hills. Lage: The older-? McLean: The older areas. In Alameda there are pipes that are over one hundred years old. Alameda had what we called old sand-cast, cast iron pipes. Many of those have corroded so badly that you can only get about half the flow through them of what the normal capacity would be. All of this replacement program has been going on since the district took over the East Bay Vater Company. Well, you have to take a look at the areas, particularly Orinda, Moraga, Lafayette , Walnut Creek (well , Walnut Creek may not be so much) , Danville, and San Ramon; they're all in elevation areas, but they're also paying for replacement of mains over on this side. Whereas all of those installations over there are practically new; Pleasant Hill was started in the late forties, early fifties, and the piping in Castro Valley was put in somewhere in the late thirties, I believe, just before the war. Most of those are new pipes. Lage: So you think it kind of balances out, the elevation and the replacement fee? McLean: What I'm saying is that you are charging people because they live in the higher elevation areas; you charge them an energy charge. But they're also paying for the replacement of these pipes over here. I've always said that if you're going to require them to pay an elevation charge, then you should charge the people west of the hills for pipe replacement and not the people east of the hills. Lage: How did your fellow board members react to that? McLean: Well, I could never get it through; that is, I couldn't get it through the general manager. Lage: Oh, even the general manager? McLean: I couldn't get it through him; he didn't see the logic of it. That's why I said everybody should pay the same rate. In other words, those people who had the energy charge --forget about that. And forget about the fact that the people west of the hills have the costs of all the replacements. But we never did get very far. I fought that down to the bitter end. Even up to the time I left the district I was still talking about it. 238 The Proper Role of the Board vis a vis Staff Lage: I'm trying to get a sense of how the staff, and Jerry Gilbert in particular, related with the board. You mentioned that you could never get your plan through Jerry Gilbert. McLean: The board is a policy-making board. I know that I and none of the other directors ever got into the day-by-day work of the district. This was out- -verboten, you might say. I have always believed that. Of course, I had lots of personal discussions with Jerry, but Jerry ran the staff. He was the general manager of the district, and we let him manage all the affairs of the district. The board established the policies, and if there was anything of a policy nature that would come up, why, it always came to the board for approval or disapproval, discussion, and everything else. 1 headed the planning group for pretty nearly the whole time that 1 was on the board. Lage: Now, what was the planning group? McLean: Any of the projects to go in the budget or any of those things that came from the staff went through the planning committee. I was also on liaison board between the district and the East Bay Regional Park District. Most all of the planning that the staff was working on came before the planning committee- -the new projects and everything else. Lage: Did it also involve rates and things like that? McLean: No, rates came under finance. But the planning committee, which 1 chaired, mostly was the new building and the various other projects that were either in the mill or were under construction. Lage: How closely did you look at that as a board member, but also as somebody with expertise? McLean: Well, we looked at it very carefully, not only from a feasibility standpoint but also the cost standpoint. Lage: Did you look at it as an engineer? McLean: Absolutely; you bet 1 did. 1 took a very careful look at it. Ve always had discussions on it. Then they were approved, and our recommendation went to the board for voting. When it came before 239 the board, It was up to the board whether to vote yes or no on the committee recommendation. Lage: Was there any difficulty in working with staff? McLean: Oh, no. If it was an engineering project, as most of them were, we had Dennis Diemer. If it was waste water, we had Vally Bishop. We'd go through all the charts and the costs and listen to their recommendations. We also had Ted Way, the chief engineer. They always came before the committee with the costs and the charts. Lage: Do you remember any instances where you helped modify plans? McLean: I don't recall any, but I'm sure there were. I'm sure there were suggestions made by the committee. Then they went back to do changes and came back again for a review and recommendation. We covered a lot of projects and a lot of work on the committee. That was one of the main committees. Of course, there were also the finance committee and the human relations committee. Lage: But you didn't sit on those? McLean: No. I didn't sit on those. I did sit on the retirement board. I was on the retirement board I think for the full time that I was on the board of directors. There were a lot of things that came up while I was on retirement board which we went over very carefully. One thing I can say is that there was a very definite separation between board and staff. We left staff alone, which I understand is not true with the present board. They want to get involved in everything. Lage: Was that the consensus on the board as you served on it all those twelve years? McLean: Oh, absolutely. Lage: Was there a change in balance of power between board and staff during those twelve years, or do you think it remained about the same? McLean: It is my suspicion that the relations between the board of directors remained about the same. The board of directors stayed away from the day-to-day staff operations. Lage: You had [A. C.] Carrington, yourself, [Sanford] Skaggs, [William P.] Moses, [Kenneth] Simmons, and [Helen] Burke; and [Jon Q.j Reynolds was president when you came on. McLean: That's right. Yes. Skaggs and I were new. 240 Lage: And you had John S. Harnett as general manager until April '81. McLean: Yes. Lage: How did that board function with staff? McLean: There was a good relation between the staff and the board. Burt Carrington had been on for a long time, Bill Moses I think was either in his second or third term, Jon Reynolds was in his second or third term, and Helen Burke had been elected to the board in 1974. When the ward concept was enacted by the legislature and the board enlarged from five to seven directors, C. R. "Ted" Hitchcock was the other director to fill one of the two new seats in Ward 7. Hiring Jerry Gilbert as General Manager. 1981 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: And Mr. Harnett was general manager. Mr. Harnett? How did that board work with All right. What happened was that John S. Harnett had come to the district as an assistant to John Me Far land. He was a colonel from the Corps of Engineers. I forget how long his term there was, but he came in somewhere in the mid-sixties as an assistant to John McFarland. When Joe DeCosta retired as chief engineer in 1965, McFarland appointed Harnett as chief engineer. There was quite a change at that time. Harnett remained as chief engineer until McFarland left [in September 1968], Harnett became general manager, Walt Anton was promoted to director of engineering, and Don Larkin became chief engineer. They were not the best qualified, you might say, to carry out the policies of the district. The team that was in place? The team that came into place. So when you came on the board--? When I came on the board, there was considerable discussion about the attitude of the staff. We were not moving ahead with things like the American River and projects to carry the water supply into the next century and a lot of those things . The American River litigation was being handled by the legal department. Walt Anton was director of engineering, Don Larkin was chief engineer, 241 and Gordon Laverty was in charge of distribution. They were not qualified for the job. Lage: Did you know that from your previous work with them? McLean: From working with them. I worked with all of them. Don Larkin was a sanitary engineer. It was just one of things where no progress was being made. Lage: And Mr. Harnett was not the greatest leader either? McLean: That's right. He was not the best leader in the world. Lage: Did other board members agree, or did you know this from the insider's view? McLean: They agreed. Finally we asked Jack Harnett to resign, and that's when we brought Jerry Gilbert aboard. Lage: It seems to me that you told me there was some story behind either the resignation or bringing on of Gilbert. McLean: Yes. The story behind Jerry Gilbert was this: We had one of these head-hunters, as you call them, out to find a replacement for the general manager. It finally was down to two persons. One was an Afro -American, and I think he was in the waste water department or a similar position in Washington, D.C.; and Don Paff, who was the manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District. Don had previously worked for me in the district. He was my project manager at Briones Dam, and he had been with the district previously. A very good man. We had interviewed both of those men, and we had had them bring their wives to dinner. We had a room at the Holiday Inn near the Oakland airport where we carried out all of our interviews . When we got down to the final interview we also had them bring their wives so that we could meet with them in a social atmosphere. When we finally got down to voting, it got down to a deadlock of Simmons favoring the fellow from Washington, D.C. , and he had with him Jack Hill and Helen Burke. Lage: In '81 [Jackson] Hill and [Kenneth] Kofman came on, replacing Moses and Carrington. McLean: It was myself, Kofman, and Skaggs who were for Don Paff. Then there was Hill, Burke, and Simmons for the other person from Washington, D.C. Lage: And you had one more person. Who was that other person? 242 McLean: Jon Reynolds. Lage : He was the president. McLean: Jon Reynolds was president. And Jon wouldn't vote to break the tie. Lage: Why not? McLean: I don't know. He wouldn't vote. Lage: Is it usual for the president not to vote on these things? McLean: Well, yes, it's possible. He wouldn't vote, and we were deadlocked for two or three sessions. Every time we went through this situation we were deadlocked. On Sunday evening I received a phone call at my home. It was Jerry Gilbert. Jerry said, "I understand that the board is deadlocked on the general manager issue." I said, "That's correct." He said, "Do you think there's any chance for me?" I said, "I think there's a terrific chance for you, Jerry. " Lage : Where did Jerry come from? McLean: Well, Jerry had been with the North Marin Water District, and he had also been on the State Water Resources Board. He'd been the executive director of that at one time. Then he left and went into the consulting business. How I happened to know him so well was that I had been called in by his firm and another consulting firm in Sacramento because they had a problem on what they called the 1-5 interceptor, which was the large sewer pipeline from the waste water treatment plant on the Sacramento River to a big holding basin near the 1-5 interchange structure in Sacramento. What had happened there was that they had a budget of about twelve million, and when they had finished the final design of the interceptor the cost was up to about sixteen million. They didn't know what to do. They called me and asked me to take a look at this and see what I would suggest. I spent several days walking the project and looking at the aerials, and I finally came to them and said, "Here is my suggestion." Number one, they had this routed all the way around through city streets and under the 1-5 interchange structure. They had a ceiling there, which was going to be hard to get equipment under, and they also had to drive some long sheet piles. I said, "I'm going to recommend that you do this. Number one, you'll follow the freeway through the city housing area and school property alongside the freeway, through the housing area of 243 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: the Sacramento Housing Authority, and cut the end of an apartment building off so that you can get through." They said, "Oh, my gosh! We can't cut the apartment building off." And I said, "Well, why don't you go to the city and ask them?" They said, "What do you estimate that this will save?" And I said, "My total estimate is less than ten million dollars." They went to the city housing authority, and the city housing said, "Yes, we'll let you cut the apartment building off." So they followed the route I suggested and tunneled under the 1-5 freeway. Due to the shorter length and less problems in city streets, the final cost was $9,600,000. I had worked with Jerry on that project, and I'd known Jerry when he worked at North Marin and also when he was with the state. I guess it was about seven o'clock at night that he called me and wanted to know if he had a chance to apply for the general manager's job. I said, "I think you've got an excellent chance. Your background and experience is what the district needs. I'll give you Jon Reynolds' telephone number, and you call him at home tonight." So he called Jon, and Jon told him to come down immediately. Jerry came down and met with the board, and he agreed to accept the position if he was chosen; and we voted for Jerry. Just like that? That's how he got the job. Did you get support from all the factions? Yes. We finally got a majority vote. After Jerry came down and talked before the board, we got the majority. And that's how Jerry got the job. But Jerry always said I was the one responsible for getting him the job. General Managers from Davis to Gilbert: A Firsthand Assessment McLean: Well, I knew Jerry. I have worked under all the general managers in the district, every one of them. Every general manager. Lage: That's quite a record. McLean: Yes. I've worked for every one of them, both on the board and also as an employee. Remember, there have not been that many. Arthur P. Davis and Frank Hanna, John Longwell, John McFarland, 244 Jack Harriett, and Jerry Gilbert; and I've worked for every one of them and have known them very well. And I would say this: Of the outstanding ones that have been with the district, there have been John Longwell; Arthur P. Davis didn't stay very long. Veil, you have to look at him; he was the organizer of the district. He put the district together and oversaw the projects: the first aqueduct, the acquisition of the East Bay Vater Company, the construction of Pardee Dam, the construction of Lafayette Dam, and tunnels. That was his real job. Then he left for Russia and took with him one of the fellows from the district; Lyman Wilbur went with him to Russia on a big irrigation project in Turkistan. The next one who became general manager was Frank Hanna. Mr. Hanna was the chief design engineer for Pardee Dam and the Mokelumne Project, and Frank was general manager for about two years. Then he left and retired. The next phase was John Longwell, from 1934-1949. This was when we got into the annexations of a number of areas: Pleasant Hill, Castro Valley- those areas were annexed during his particular regime. Orinda, Moraga, Lafayette, and Walnut Creek were all annexed to the district. Then came the war, and we had the period in which there was more or less coasting. But during that period of time we also have to look at some of the things that were done. Number one was the connection to give San Francisco water. That was a 24- inch pipeline that commenced at Lake Chabot and went to San Lorenzo, where San Francisco installed a pumping plant and pipeline to connect to the peninsula. That was the story of San Francisco- - water. The next was the 24- inch W.S. Crockett pipeline, which was put in in 1935. That was under John Longwell, and it supplied the sugar company at Crockett. Then there was the supply to Mare Island during the war and the emergency there. There was the supply to Treasure Island from the district for the water supply. That covered the war period, and right after the war we had all of this tremendous amount of expansion and the various annexations. Lage: And we still have Longwell in charge here? McLean: Still Longwell. He served up until- -oh, I forget when he left [December 31, 1949]. He was general manager until most of the waste water project was under construction. This is the time when John McFarland became general manager. John McFarland did not have any experience in the water field; he was a businessman. Leroy Hamman, who was on the board of directors at that time and was president of the board, was later succeeded by Louis Breuner. I knew Roy very well, because he was president of the Boy Scouts when I was on the Boy Scout executive board. He was instrumental, I believe, in bringing John McFarland aboard. 245 Lage: Now you're rating your general managers here. McLean: Yes, okay. I'm going to tell you the ones I think have been the outstanding general managers. Number one, John Longwell. Veil, first I think you have to consider Arthur P. Davis, who laid the foundations for the district and who really established all of the early policies of the district. From an engineering standpoint, he was the one decided on the Mokelumne River supply. John Longwell was the next engineering general manager. He was the one who really built a lot of the facilities: the first aqueduct, the waste water facilities, the large filter plants, and the large expansion that occurred during this time. Those two I would rate quite high because they were the ones who laid the foundation for the district as it is today- -the distribution systems and all of that. Then we got into a phase about that time where McFarland became general manager. He was a business administrator, and he established the salary rates and a lot of the policies that now exist today- -personnel policies and everything else. You have to look at him from the business side. He was the one who really put the district on a business basis more than had previously been done. John McFarland was a good administrator who relied upon the engineering staff to carry out the policies of the board of directors . Under McFarland, Bob Kennedy became chief engineer for a short period of time [January 1, 1950 to July 31, 1958]. He and McFarland didn't get along, Mr. Kennedy resigned, and Joe DeCosta became chief engineer. It was during Joe DeCosta 's time [August 1, 1958 to April 30, 1965] that we moved forward again with the big construction program, the $252-million bond issue which was voted in in June of 1958. That ten-year program went through until I retired on August 1, 1968. Joe DeCosta was chief engineer until '65, when he retired. Then John Harnett took over the last period, and this is when we finished up all the major construction. John McFarland resigned on September 3, 1968, and John Harnett became general manager. Jack Harnett came when all the construction work was complete. During this period we experienced the first severe drought [1976-77], when the district had to pump water out of the Middle River. Then Jack Harnett resigned, and Jerry Gilbert was appointed. 246 In rating the general managers, I would rate Arthur P. Davis and John Longwell as outstanding engineers and nationally known. You have to look at John McFarland from a little different standpoint. As far as engineering was concerned, he had no knowledge of it. However, he did establish the business policies of the district which have carried over to today. I think that was necessary. Prior to that time the district had been engineering oriented: Lay the foundation and do the building to maintain service. Then John McFarland came in, and there was a tremendous upset in the district staff. He came at a time during the annexation and expansion of the district's boundaries. New policies and procedures were needed, and John met the challenge. During this time several key staff personnel left the district. Lage: You mean he fired a lot of people? McLean: Well, there was disagreement, and people left. Bob Kennedy left. Bob was a good engineer. There were several other people who left. Why, I can't say. Then, because of the studies that we had made previously- -this is when we carried on the $252 -million bond issue. We had finished the waste water project in 1952; John Lorfgwell was there during part of that period. Then we had the tremendous expansion period, 1958-1968: the third aqueduct, the second Lafayette Aqueduct, the second Lafayette Tunnel, the Walnut Creek Tunnel, the Briones Reservoir, the Camanche Reservoir, the Sobrante Filter Plant, the Lafayette Filter Plant, and the Walnut Creek Filter Plant. That was the $252 -million bond issue, and that was a tremendous expansion period. In rating the general managers you cannot leave out John McFarland. John did establish the business policies and procedures of the district. Lage: What would you describe as Jerry Gilbert's contributions? McLean: Jerry Gilbert's contributions, to my estimation, were moving the district out of a period of lethargy into the period of doing something about the American River supply and doing something about additional storage, such as Buckhorn. I think his contribution was pushing that through, particularly during a very difficult time of environmental situations. This has been a tough battle , the water supply management program which he really inaugurated. Plus we had a lot of expansion out in the San Ramon Valley and then the controversies we've been through on this- -the lawsuits by the Environmental Defense Fund in regard to the size of the pipe to serve the San Ramon Valley, the American River supply, and Buckhorn Reservoir. 247 Regrets about Abandonment of High Middle Bar Dam McLean: The one thing that I regret very much is that the construction of the High Middle Bar Dam was not pushed. The High Middle Bar Dam was a project upstream from Pardee that I worked on in the fifties. After I had finished the waste water project, there was a period of four or five years , and Orin Harder and I put together the Middle Bar Project. This was a project that had been looked at back in the twenties. We were to the point of filing to the Federal Energy Commission to build the project. We had all the analyses and the feasibility studies, and we were ready to proceed. This was right after I came on the board, about 1980, 1981. Because Amador County threatened us with a lawsuit, we dropped it. I think one of the biggest mistakes we ever made was dropping the High Middle Bar Project. If we had gone to the courts and fought Amador County on that, we would have had that project, which would have been of tremendous benefit to the district today. Lage : Would you have needed that and the American River both? 4 McLean: Yes. We still need the American River. Lage: So this wouldn't have solved the problem of the American River? McLean: No, this would not have. The true safe yield of the Mokelumne is only in the neighborhood of 215 million gallons per day, in spite of the fact that we have water rights to 325 million. Lage: What would have the High Middle Bar Dam have done? McLean: I'll tell you what the High Middle Bar Dam would have done. Number one, it would have controlled the full flow of the Mokelumne River. The full flow. It would also have generated the maximum amount of hydroelectric energy from the stream flow. Lage: And then that gets sold to PG&E, is that right? McLean: That's sold to PG&E. It would also have given you a maximum pool in Pardee Reservoir, which would give you a gravity flow in the aqueduct at all times, winter and summer. It would also have controlled the flow over what we call the south spillway at Pardee Dam, which has always been a very dangerous situation, because any time we get a flood flow over the south spillway we get a blockage of the stream below the Pardee powerhouse. This creates some real problems of removal of debris. The last time we had that it cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 to clear the river, plus the loss of the powerhouse during all that period of time. 248 By building the High Middle Bar Dam you would have added all these particular benefits, and you would have been able to control the full flow of the Mokelumne River. San Joaquin County is now looking at the project. The district has turned over all of our reports to themI guess a lot of my reports and everything--that we wrote during the time when we made the study. San Joaquin County wants to build it because they say they need more water supply. fj McLean: San Joaquin County needs more water. One of the problems there is that the groundwater table in the Stockton and Lodi areas has been badly depleted, and because of the present drought they need additional water both for agricultural and urban use. Lage: What role did Jerry Gilbert have in this Middle Bar decision, and what role did the board have? How was it decided? McLean: I don't know whether Jerry recommended it or whether Skaggs recommended it, but it came before the board. The fact is, we didn't want to get into a legal battle with Amador County. I forget who the district attorney was up there. But you see, with all the legal battles that we had with Amador County in the early days --we had pretty well got those behind us. Since then our relations with Amador and Calaveras Counties had improved, particularly after we paid them generously for additional water rights- -$2.5 million each for the 125 mgd. You see, our first rights on the Mokelumne were 200 million gallons a day. We fought both Amador and Calaveras counties for seven or eight years after Pardee was built to make sure that we had the rights to the 200 million. That was a bitter battle, and it left some very, very bad blood in those mountain counties. The fact is, the district was hated for many years afterward. If you said you were with the district, they might take a shot at you. Lage: You experienced some of this yourself, I would think. McLean: Yes, you bet. I'll tell you, the hatred of the mountain counties against the district in those times was pretty volatile because of the lawsuits, not only with Lodi and those people but also Amador and Calaveras counties. Well, when we acquired the additional 125 million, which brings us up to 325, we paid each of the counties $2.5 million. That was back in the fifties, and it kind of changed our relations a little, that we were the guys with the big sack, you might say, and we gave them this in order to acquire the rights for the other 125 million. 249 Among the old-timers there's still been the resentment against the district, and the particular one who had lost the battle of all the lawsuits was the district attorney of Amador County. As soon as we started having public hearings on the Middle Bar Project in order to get the public's opinion- -this was before we had to file an environmental impact report- -to determine if we should go ahead with it, there were many protests against it. Lage: This had been in the works a long time. McLean: Yes, you bet. We started the studies back in '52. Lage: And then it was in the eighties when they decided not to go ahead with it? McLean: That's right. It's been nearly thirty years ago since we started on it. Then we revised it again after Jerry Gilbert came aboard, to go ahead with the construction of the Middle Bar Project, and the district was all set to do it. And then this district attorney of Amador County threatened a lawsuit and to get out an injunction. Apparently Jerry felt that couldn't be resolved, and Skaggs recommended to the board that we drop it. So we dropped it. Looking back, of course, your hindsight is always better than your foresight. But looking back today, had this been Arthur P. Davis, John Longwell, or Ted Wittschen, the attorney, I think we'd have said, "To hell with them; we're going go ahead and build it, and we'll fight them in court." Lage: So the general manager could have had a deciding role, do you think? McLean: That's right, yes. Lage: If the general manager comes down strong on an issue, does the board tend to follow along? McLean: Yes. Also, I think Skaggs himself, being an attorney, didn't want to put the district in a long legal fight. He's not the type of attorney like Harold Raines [EBMUD attorney, 1947-1966] and the other one, the first attorney we had [Theodore Wittschen, 1925- 1947]. Harold was ready to do battle at the drop of a hat. If anybody opposed the district, he was ready to battle with them. I don't know whether that's good or bad as far as a public agency is concerned, because you do create a lot animosity, but also we won a lot of cases. If it hadn't been for Ted Wittschen, the first attorney--! want to tell you, he was an aggressive attorney. He 250 Lage: McLean: had come from Miller and Lux [owners of vast California land holdings who were engaged in protracted legal battles over water rights], and had been in all their water rights battles, and he was a tough opponent. When he took on a lawsuit, it didn't make any difference how big it was; he battled it through to win. And he did; he won all his cases. If he hadn't won the cases that we had against those people and come to an agreement, then the district would not be where it is today. You would like to see a more aggressive policy? Yes. He was a very aggressive attorney, and so was Harold Raines. Harold Raines was very much so. Gilbert's Role in Tightening a Lax Administration Lage: Shall we finish off with Jerry Gilbert's contribution? I want to be sure that you complete what you have in mind now. 4 McLean: Yes, okay. Jerry Gilbert, to my estimation, has brought the district forward to where it is today. I think he did an outstanding job; he's a tough administrator. He had a lot of demands, and he made his staff toe the line. This is what the district needed. Lage: Needed a tough guy in charge? McLean: Yes. John McFarland and Jack Harnett were sort of- -I wouldn't say patronizing, but more or less easy-going with staff. As I say, I have to compliment McFarland on his policies of administration. I think that's what put the district where it is today on the business policies. But there was a lot of patronizing going on. within the ranks of the district during the time that they were with the district. Lage: Now, what do you mean by that? McLean: Well, I'm not going to go into all the details on that. Lage: "Patronizing" is such an intriguing word. McLean: I don't want that to be on the record. Lage: You know we can remove something that you think is indiscreet when you look at the transcript. 251 McLean: You know, we've had the dining hall at Pardee and other facilities at Pardee. Both John McFarland and Jack Harnett used to take their families and friends up there on weekends and use the district facilities. This was never permitted under John Longwell or Arthur P. Davis. The only ones who went to Pardee and used the lodge and the dining facilities were those on business. Or, when we had the $252 -million bond issue, when we took groups of people there, particularly the press, city managers, and local business executives, where we wanted to show them the facilities. McFarland and Harnett were taking their friends and their wives and using the facilities, and the district paying for the meals, housekeeping, and all the rest of the stuff, see. When Jerry Gilbert became general manager, that was stopped. Lage : Did you talk to him about it? Or did he just pick it up right away? McLean: He picked it up, because it was obvious. It was a matter of having known. Jerry Gilbert then stopped all of it. Lage : So he sort of tightened up the ship? 4 McLean: He tightened up the ship. And of course that created a lot of resentment, not only within the two unions but also with other personnel. As I say, I don't want go into detail, but--. Lage: No, but it helps to understand. McLean: There had been a lot of favoritism going on within the district. Consequently, when Jerry learned of it, he stopped it immediately. Jerry Gilbert was a tough administrator. This was completely opposite from Jack Harnett. Joe DeCosta was easygoing; he had a good, responsible staff, and he let them do their jobs without any interference. Joe was a good engineer, and he expected his staff to keep him informed; otherwise he never became closely involved. Joe was easygoing, and he got along well with everyone. Lage: So Jerry Gilbert was more of a return to the previous standards? McLean: Jerry Gilbert was a good administrator, and he was a good engineer. His management style was more of the Arthur P. Davis and John S. Longwell type. 252 Urgent Need for Understanding of Califomia'i Unique Water Problems and Needs Lage: Do you think it helps to have an engineer as general manager? McLean: Absolutely. I think, to be very truthful with you, that the ones they are looking at for general manager now are administrators in public works, not water. The fellow they're looking at is from Arizona [Jorge Carrasco hired as general manager in 1991], a former city manager of Scottsdale. Lage: So it's public administration? McLean: Yes. I think they're going to have a difficult time. My personal opinion is that California's water situation is one of the most difficult and complex in the United States. This coming decade in California is going to decide what is going to happen to our water in California. Unfortunately we have a chief engineer who is from Texas, a head of planning who is from Seattle, a fellow from Personnel who is from Seattle, and now the district is going to have a public administrator from Scottsdale, Arizona. Just totally out of the California water picture. 1 think this is going to just create havoc for the district; I really do. Lage: You don't think they can learn about the situation? McLean: Well, the water picture in California goes back to the Gold Rush. Ve have water in California, but the problem is that you have everybody taking a shot at it. These are all environmental issues: you've got the Save the Bay Organization; you've got the bay delta situation; you've got fish and wildlife, the endangered smelt, and the chinook salmon; you've got the commercial fishermen, wetlands people, the State Division of Fish and Game, white water rafters, save -the -river people, and others all demanding that the water in California be managed to their demands, with urban and agriculture at the end. Lage: So it might take a public administrator to deal with all of this? McLean: It is going to take a long time for the new people to become familiar with the problems. That's my personal opinion. Now, he may be all right as far as administration is concerned, but here's a chief engineer who's only been with the district six or seven months, and here's the fellow who's head of Planning who has been with the district six or seven months--. Lage: So it's a real change-over time. 253 McLean: Vally Bishop will probably leave within a short time. Vally Bishop should have been the general manager. He's leaving; he's going back to waste water for a while, and then apparently he is going into the consulting business. Keith Cams, another outstanding engineer, has left. And then you've got a board that is completely environmentally oriented, and they don't know the picture. They don't know what the water problem of California really is. Nancy Nadel makes a statement in the newspaper that we already have rights to 325 million gallons a day, so why do we need the American River water, when the true annual flow of the Mokelumne River is only 215 million gallons a day. And by the year 2000, the consumption, regardless of conservation or anything else, is going to be up to 246 [mgd] . And you tell me why the district needs storage or the American River supply. If we have a failure on the Hayward fault that severs every one of our supply tunnels, you have less than a six-month supply of water here to serve the Bay Area if the aqueducts are also out of service. What I'm saying is that we have people who are completely unfamiliar with the water situation in California, and it is serious. We have enough water, but we've got to conserve and recycle all of the water that we can. That's number one; we've got to recycle all the water we can, and we've got to practice as much conservation as we can- -low- flow toilets and showerheads and all of those things. And we've got to build more storage. We've got to control and conserve all the surplus water that occurs on the Mokelumne and American Rivers. Water only occurs in California between roughly between October 1 until about April 1. That's our maximum source of water. Historically this is when we have had our large floods in California. But you've got all these other agencies that are pecking at that water. The economy of California is agriculture. Very few people know that, but the economy of California is agriculture. They keep screaming about agriculture using eighty percent of the water in California. This is true; they do. But look at what they produce. They produce $19 billion in business for the state of California. Lage: Do you think agriculture could do with more water conservation? McLean: They are doing conservation. I was consultant for the Tecopa Irrigation District near Bakersfield for a couple years on some problems they had with their distribution system. All of their vineyards and orchards are on drip irrigation. It's true that you 254 do use a lot of water for rice, but the type of rice that is grown in California is not grown anywhere else. They also use a lot of water on cotton, but the type of cotton that is grown in California cannot be grown anyplace else. It's what they call the long fiber cotton, and it's the only place in the United States that I know today where they can grow the long- fiber cotton. I don't know whether it's the soil or what it is. But people say, "Oh, cotton uses too much water. Rice uses too much water." Maybe they do. But you have to understand; that's a part of the economy of California. Now, there are a few orchards in northern California that to my knowledge still use the old flooding process that they used years ago. The new orchards and the new vineyards that are going in, every one of them is irrigated by drip irrigation. I was up through the Sonoma Valley a couple of weeks ago. I had to go up to the Boy Scout camp; they had some problems up there. I noticed all the new vineyards going in, and every one of them is using drip irrigation. There is a pipe running along the trellis and then a pipe going down to each vine. So farmers are conserving. You still have cotton and rice that they point their finger at and say, "Look at all the water that they're using." And they do use it. But you have to remember that with rice the only water that is used is evaporation and transpiration. With rice, the water flows in the field at the highest elevation, and then it flows down through the rice field and returns to the river. Water comes into what we call the high check, and then it gradually flows all throughout the various checks. It comes into the top check, goes in the next one lower down, and finally, from the last one, it goes into a drainage ditch and back into the river. The only water that's used is evaporation, and up in those rice fields you probably get about thirty- six inches of evaporation a year. Then you have transpiration, which is used by the plant growing. The annual use to grow a crop of rice is about 4.5 acre feet per year. One acre foot of water is 325,800 gallons. Water is required during the entire growing period, because rice grows in water. Rice is planted in the spring and usually harvested in September. So you can blame rice and cotton for excess use of water, but where can you grow the type of rice that we grow in California, and where are you going to grow our type of long- fiber cotton? In the Central Valley of California you cannot grow any other kind of crop on the land where the rice is grown. The soil type is adobe, and the land is suitable only for rice. Lage: Those are all good points. 255 McLean: Where new orchards and new vineyards are being planted, those farmers, every one of them, are developing new methods to irrigate the trees and vines. Lage: Changes are being made. McLean: Yes, they are conserving. There are lots of things that they can do. For instance, the city of Los Angeles, in the Coachella and Imperial Irrigation Districts, and a lot of those districts are being served by open canals. They're large canals, and they're not lined; they're earthen canals. Los Angeles is paying for the lining for some of those canals to gain the water that is lost. Even in the Central Valley and in northern California there are lots of the irrigation districts where the canals are unlined, and you do get losses from transpiration and evaporation; where there are earthen canals, you do get losses. The economics of lining those canals has got to be weighed against the crops, the cost of lining, and cost of water. Lage: I would think they'd be replenishing the water table, too, in the unlined canals. McLean: They do. They do replenish the water table, and when you get the losses through the sides of the canals you do get some losses that go into the groundwater table. But the point I'm trying to convey here is that I think the next decade in California, whether the drought continues or not, is going to be the most critical period that we've ever had because of the water situation. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that we've got to do something about all of these situations. What are we going to do about the salmon? What are we going to do about the smelt? What are we going to do about San Francisco Bay? What are we going to do about the delta- -the saltwater intrusion in the delta? Lage: How do you place these issues? Are they important in your mind? McLean: I think they're all equally important. You cannot consider one without the other. Lage: Can they be solved along with the water situation? McLean: They've got to be solved. If California is going to continue to growand it's going to grow; you can't stop itwe've got to solve the water problem. This means a lot of development work. It means building the Auburn Dam. It means building Buckhorn Reservoir. It means building the High Middle Bar. And it means building the peripheral canal, the large state reservoir in the San Joaquin Valley, which is a part of the water project. 256 It means building all of these facilities. Also, we may have to go to recycling water, like the district is now doing. It's going to mean that a lot of these industrial facilities that we have today will have to recycle the water rather than putting it in the sewers. This is what we're doing now at the Chevron refinery in Richmond. The district has a $20-million-dollar project to build the facilities there for the Chevron refining plant, to take the waste water from the West Contra Costa treatment plant and treat the water down to the point where Chevron can use it in their cooling process. We've got to do more of that. That saves about four or five million gallons of water a day. That's a large amount. You can do the same thing with the Union Oil Company. You can do the same thing with Exxon, and you can do it with the Shell Oil Company in Martinez. Lage: Are these things that the district helps fund? McLean: No. Exxon and Shell are not within the district. Only Union Oil is within the district. Shell is in Contra Costa County. Lage: Is Union willing to go along with something like this? McLean: Well, they're going to have to. If we're going to conserve water, all of these facilities have to be utilized. But you have to recognize that in spite of all this conservation you're still not going to meet the needs of this area unless you develop more resources. Desalinization is not practical. Lage: Is that for financial reasons? McLean: Financial reasons it costs about four times as much. Recycling costs about twice as much, but you can afford it providing you can save X number of gallons of water. These things, Ann, are going to have to be done. We're going to have to do the ultimate in every bit that we can. But what I'm trying to say is that in spite of all the conservation and everything else, you still have to develop facilities to conserve water, storage. And another thing I'll tell you, and whether it can ever be realized--. There's still a lot of water in the north coastal basin that is virtually untouched. The Mad, the Klamath, the Eel, the van Dusen rivers- -every one of those have large quantities of water. When I was working with the state Division of Water Resources we looked at those many years ago as a source of water that could be conveyed into the Central Valley. It still can be done. But environmentalists put the Eel River into the Wild [and Scenic] River Act, and it takes an act of Congress to get that out. You could take water out of the Klamath, the van Dusen, and the Mad. Every one of those has very large flows, and there is 257 somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 to 3 million acre feet of water available in the north coastal basin. Someday that's going to have to be utilized. We're going to have to develop it and bring it over into the Central Valley. But we've got to do more than that. We've got to raise Shasta Dam; Shasta Dam can be raised. We've got to build the Auburn Dam. Lage: This is a big agenda. McLean: If we're going to sustain the population growth that we have and continue our style of living--. Look at the number of industries that because of the water situation are leaving and moving to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. I don't know whether you've read about the situation in Oakland- -the number of industries, the number of people, and the number of stores that have left. Lage: Because of water, though? McLean: Well, I don't think it's entirely because of water. I think there have been a number of factors. But the big industries that are talking about future expansion are going to Washington,. Colorado, and other states where there is an ample supply of water. What's going to happen to the economy of California if we don't take care of the local water problem and solve our statewide water problems? Industries needed to employ people here are going to leave. Why are developers going to these outlying areas? Because of the water situation and taxes. Look at the developments taking place in Tracy, Manteca, Modesto, and also towards Sacramento. Look at the developments in the Benicia, Fairfield, and Vacaville areas. Why? Because of water and the cost of connections becoming prohibitive. Lage: Because they can't afford homes here. And there's not much land. McLean: That's right. Land is cheaper, water is abundant. But they're going to run into problems here, too, because they're now taking water out of the groundwater table. The first thing you know, within a few years the groundwater table is going to be depleted. This is what I say, Ann- -that in the next ten years, we've got to do something about the water in California. Some way or other the governor has to come up with a coalition to solve California's water problems . 258 XII BOARD POLICY ISSUES: WATER SUPPLY AND DEMAND, AND OTHERS Water Conservation and the Rate Structure [Interview 9: August 12, 1991 ]#// Lage: Today we're going to go on with the board period, and I thought we'd start talking about water conservation. I know there were some differences of opinion about when water conservation should be turned to and what its role was. It seems you were one of the members of the board who was most reluctant to impose conservation. McLean: That's right. I thought that, looking at the water we had in storage and also in regard to particularly stringent conservation measures, particularly proposed by Helen Burke, and also wanting to go to a much higher rate structure that would create a situation where people would have to pay more. I never felt that a rate structure was conservation-oriented. I didn't feel-- particularly for the people east of the hills, who perhaps might have a higher income than the others in the hill area here- -that a rate structure was going to have much effect as far conservation was concerned. Lage: Oh, I see. Because they have more ability to pay? McLean: Well, they are more able to pay. They have much larger pieces of property plus extensive landscaping, and they were going to retain their landscaping as far as possible. With conservation, I'm sure that to get 15 percent, which we did and were very successful, I don't think the rate structure has had anything to do with it. Historically, rate structures have never had an effect on conservation. 259 Lage: So you don't think people are that concerned about what their bill is? McLean: There might be some low income groups where that might have some effect, but most people in low income groups don't have large land areas, and therefore it really doesn't affect them. It only affects those people who have like my place here, where 1 have about a quarter of an acre , and many of the places out in the area east of the hills. It's not at all uncommon for them to have half an acre or even an acre with large lawn areas and lots of trees and shrubbery. An inclining rate is not going to affect them, because they're going to pay it. They'll complain, but they'll go ahead and pay it. There's always been a real question as to whether a rate structure has any affect upon conservation. Limitations and Successes of Water Conservation Lage: What do you think is the answer, then, to promote conservation? Or why was the district successful? McLean: Well, the conservation, of course, has been successful, there's no question about it. Conservation has been successful with the result that for the past three or four years the rate of consumption has remained about level. Previously, consumption had been increasing over the years at 5 or 6 per cent annually. I think a lot of things have taken effect, particularly like the people who installed low- flow showerheads, and they have cut down on the yard watering. I know I have; you can see my lawn. There has been voluntary cooperation. How long this can be effective is questionable. Lage: You think it's more a response to a crisis? McLean: Yes. People have responded to this, but when it rains again and we get back to a normal snowpack and a normal year's water supply, I don't think people are going to be so free about wanting to conserve. Because they have seen their lawns go dry, they have seen their shrubbery distressed. They're going to say, "Why do we have to continue this water rationing?" I hope this year, after Governor Wilson gets through with all the budget problems, he gets in and does something about the overall water problem in California. We have got to do something about it. Conservation is not going to be the entire answer. We must stop the loss of surplus water into the ocean during flood flows by building more storage to conserve the water for future use. 260 Lage: You think that we have to increase supply? McLean: We have got to increase our supply. I was just reading an article in the paper this morning in regard to the tremendous loss there has been in agriculture this year. People forget that California is agriculturally oriented. Our economy is agriculture. Even in the delta, a lot of the farmers are not going to plant beets, they're not going to plant tomatoes, they're not going to plant asparagus, they're not going to plant corn; they're not going to plant a lot of crops. The water which they are normally entitled to for riparian use they have turned over to the state for the state water bank, which could in turn be given to an urban area that needs the water. Just stop and think of the jobs that this affects. It affects not only the processing plants but the trucking industry and many, many, other labor-oriented industries. It's a domino effect. Industries also are beginning to feel this. Those that are water-oriented are moving out of California. Many have gone to Portland, Seattle, Colorado, Denver, Boise, and Nevada. They're leaving California. Think what that's doing to the economy of California. Lage: Now, on this very issue that you just talked about, did board policy change over time? It seems like conservation is an answer that came to be more accepted. Is that your view of it? McLean: We didn't enter into the drought era until five years ago, and I wasn't on the board when we had the '76- '77 drought. The board never anticipated that we would ever get into a five-year drought. Historically, we've never had a four-year drought. Well, it happened, and we've had the fifth year now. People begin to wonder, "Are we going to have a sixth year? What is the situation?" There's always an effort on the part of Helen Burke. Helen Burke has always been on this conservation orientation. Nancy Nadel was the same when she came on the board, and we also had Jack Hill. They wanted to go to extremes strict rationing and higher rates. Lage: Did this include changing the rate structure? McLean: The rate structure and everything else. The inclining block rate structure was Helen Burke 's idea. Lage: What about the gutter flooder law that was passed [August, 1987]? Do you remember that? 261 McLean: Yes, as I remember the board proposed the use of shut-off nozzles when using a hose for washing cars. Also no washing sidewalks and no flooding of the gutters when sprinkling lawns, etc. It didn't have much effect. I think the greatest effect was the advertising we had in the papers, the billboards, and the signs on buses and BART trains and stations. I think this had really the greatest effect to get people to conserve. It was effective, no question about it. Lage: Did Jerry Gilbert sign onto that enthusiastically? McLean: Yes. Lage: Do you think he did a good Job of directing the public relations effort? McLean: Yes. I think Jerry did a very good job. The board was in favor of the effort toward voluntary conservation. But Helen Burke was constantly wanting to make everything compulsory, either to fine people or something like that. Sandy and I and Mary Warren never did go along with that theory. We felt that voluntary conservation was far better to get people to cooperate. And it has proven out. This year, as you've seen, they asked for 25 percent reduction; last year I think it was a 15 percent reduction. I think this year they asked for 25 percent, and they're even going as high as 30 percent. So I think rather than force people and try to fine people and those sort of things , it is far better on a voluntary basis --that is, to try to get people to understand why it is necessary. And I think this has been very effective. Lage: People seem to have signed onto it, during the drought at least. McLean: Yes. And the district has been very successful. I'm going to be very much interested in seeing how the people are going to react when we get into some of this information that they will have on the water supply management program regarding additional storage. I have felt that conservation is not the entire answer. You have to have conservation; there is no question about that. And then it may be necessary for new construction, which of course comes under the line of conservation- -for new homes and new buildings to use low- flow toilets and to have everything in the building that will induce low flows. Rather than have high pressure in toilets, washbasins, and showers, maybe reduction of pressure as well as low- flow units are part of the answer. Lage: Is that required now? 262 McLean: No, it is not required. There are some cities that require them. Lage: It's a city ordinance, then? McLean: Yes, it's a city ordinance. If I'm not mistaken, I think Monterey has an ordinance on new construction. I don't know about Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara may have, or San Luis Obispo. Lage: Any cities within the East Bay MUD district? McLean: No. Lage: Is that something the district works with the cities about? McLean: Yes. We have a landscape ordinance now, as you know, and fact is, we've been trying to get all the cities to adopt a uniform landscape ordinance, using drought- tolerant shrubs, trees, etc. The district has worked with the nurseries and the nursery people who do that work to use drought -tolerant shrubs and to reduce the area of lawns and those sort of things. There are a number of those ordinances , but it has not really been adopted every place . I think the water industry itself is doing this. There is a Water Coalition now that is attempting to have a universal practice throughout the state --that is, to get the various water agencies to adopt something like low-flow toilets and low-flow showerheads, and then to even limit lawn areas based upon the size of the property. I think this has got to come. I think it's one of the things that will have to come, because I think conservation is in the cards, there's no question about that. But conservation is still not going to solve the problem of our water supply. We have still got to build storage, and we've still got to utilize every drop of water that we can. District Water Recycling Prolects McLean: This means recycling. We're going to have to recycle water--. Lage: From the sewage treatment? McLean: From sewage treatment plants, because there's a tremendous amount of waste water. A great deal of that, of course, is from various automatic facilities- -dishwashers , laundry, and all of those- - which all go into the waste water system. And we've got to utilize it. Of course, you have to recognize that there is a limitation to using that water. The district was one of the 263 pioneers in this; it started out with the Richmond golf course. Recently we added the Galbraith golf course in San Leandro, and we've gone to the Alameda golf courses. The real big one has been the Chevron plant out in Richmond. That site will be under construction this year. Two of them that will be on line this year will be the Willow Park Golf Club and the Chabot municipal golf course, which will be using water from Lake Chabot. Lage: Does this require a special pipeline? McLean: Yes, they require pipelines and pumping plants. The cost of the recycled water is about twice of what the regular water is. In other words, all of this requires facilities, and this costs money. But we are saving water. Most of these golf courses use upwards of a million and a half or two million gallons of water annually, or even more. The Chevron plant out there will save upwards of five million gallons per day. However, that's only a small percentage of the water they use. Chevron has been one of the largest consumers of water from the district for years, using upwards of ten or fifteen million gallons of water per day. They're one of the district's large industrial consumers. Lage: But they can't use the recycled water for all of their needs? McLean: No, they can't use it for everything. They are using it apparently in their cracking facilities and in their cooling towers. I think they use the water over and over; that's my understanding. I'm not sure of all the mechanics. But those are areas where you can use recycled water. The cost of that plant will take a long time to pay off. Lage: Who pays for that? The district? McLean: The district is paying for it. Lage: So the district doesn't charge them twice as much for the water? McLean: No. The price of the water to Chevron will be just about the same as the regular supply. Lage: It costs the district more. McLean: Yes. However, you are limited as to where you can use recycled water. For instance, take the sprinkling that goes on along our freeways on the median strips. All of those are supplied by pipes that are connected to the regular distribution system. To use recycled water in those areas you have to go from a treatment plant that is located several miles away and build an independent pipeline to supply a few gallons of water along a freeway. The 264 answer there is not to use shrubbery or plants that require water- -to use something that can carry over from your winter rains. Use some other type of landscaping. I think in the future you probably will see some other method along our freeways that will get away from landscaping. Now, in reference to the Chabot golf course and the Willow Park golf course, those require pumping plants, and they require very extensive pipelines. If you know where the Chabot golf course is, way up on the top of the hill- -they have to put in a pumping plant at Lake Chabot. This was one of my ideas, to use the water from Lake Chabot, which is not used in the system. It's rain water or water that is released from Upper San Leandro Reservoir. Rene Viviani, the owner of the Willow Park golf course, is a very close friend of mine; I've known him for many years. He uses district water for irrigating the golf course. He said to me one day, "Here's all that water down there at Lake Chabot. Why can't we take the water out of there to use for irrigating our golf course rather than buying regular water?" I said, "Well, maybe you've got a good idea." Rene said, "Why don't you look into it?" So I talked to Jerry Gilbert about it, and Jerry said, "Yes, why don't we?" Lage : Is Lake Chabot considered an emergency storage? McLean: Lake Chabot could only be used in case of an emergency. There is no connection to the system as it is now because there is no water treatment plant there. There was a small plant, but it was limited in capacity. The only time Lake Chabot would ever be used would be in case we had a failure of our three tunnels and we had to release water from upper San Leandro into Chabot, and then we could take water from Chabot into the system. One of the problems is that it is very low in elevation. The elevation of Chabot is 215 feet, and our aqueduct zone is around 300 feet. So the only part that you would serve would be from elevation 200 down. You could get water into the areas that are below that elevation, such as Alameda and Oakland, but to get it into the aqueduct zone you'd have to pump. That is, you'd have to boost the water into the aqueduct zone; the aqueduct zone is elevation 300. Lage: So by using it for the golf course, how does it get replaced? McLean: Water flowing into Lake Chabot is either from rainfall or by release from Upper San Leandro Reservoir. They're installing a pumping plant and putting in a pipeline from Chabot to a small lake near the clubhouse. All of the water for their irrigation system comes from the lake on the golf course, and there they have a pressure pump that serves their entire golf course. So the district will pump the water over into this small lake, then they 265 will pump it out of the lake to irrigate the entire golf course, and they'll have all the water they need. The cost of the water is slightly less than using the water out of the system. The important part is that we're saving about half a million gallons of water per day from the distribution system. Lage: But doesn't that water have to be replaced in Lake Chabot? McLean: It's replaced by rain water. Chabot has a small drainage area. During times of peak flow, Upper San Leandro overflows and goes into Lake Chabot. Lake Chabot overflows sometimes, and then the water goes into San Leandro Creek to the bay. But normally the water level remains uniform throughout the year except for evaporation. Chabot is operated by the Regional Park District for boating and fishing. The district is also looking at Union Oil Company in Rodeo to see what can be done about installing a plant similar to the one at Chevron in Richmond. The cost of using recycled water is about twice the cost of regular water, and there are not many places where there is a nearby source of water that can be readily obtained for recycling. In the San Ramon Valley they have been looking at the golf courses for a long time in conjunction with the Tri-Valley Authority wastewater treatment plant and also the Contra Costa sanitary district, thinking about using recycled water from those plants for park areas. At Danville, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek there are schools and other public places with large playgrounds and park areas where they could use recycled water, as well as at the many golf courses. Those projects, unless they are located close to a wastewater treatment plant, are not economically feasible. It means separate pipelines, pumping plants, and storage reservoirs. You must have a system which is independent completely from the domestic water system. You can't use the same pipes; it has to be completely independent. Lage: So there are limitations to that recycling? McLean: That's right. There are limitations. Eventually you're going to reach a point where you're using basically all the recycled water that you can, and your increase then is going to have to be from the regular distribution system- -the regular water supply. 266 The Charged Issue of Supplying New Development out tide District Service Areas Lage : Veil, that seems to lead into a discussion about annexing- -the annexations and supplying areas outside the boundaries. That was a hot issue, it seems. McLean: Yes. Annexations were always a problem with the board. When Nancy Nadel came to the board, you had her and Helen Burke who were very much opposed to annexations. Prior to Nancy Nadel it was Jack Hill. Lage: Were these annexations within the district boundaries? McLean: Let me define the boundaries. Originally, when the district was organized, we acquired the first 200 million gallon Mokelumne supply, and that was only to take in the area west of the hills. It took in only the cities of Oakland, Richmond, El Cerrito, Albany, Berkeley, Piedmont, and San Leandro--the seven cities west of the East Bay hills [a 93-square-mile area). McLean: Castro Valley was annexed in 1931. Then, recognizing that the 200 mgd was not going to be sufficient to meet the growth, we started negotiations with the mountain counties, Amador and Calaveras Counties, for another 125 mgd. Lage: Is that million gallons per day, mgd? McLean: Yes. Our original rights were 200 million gallons per day. That's what we had when we built Pardee Dam. As time went on there were annexations in Lafayette [1931], Orinda [1934], Pleasant Hill [1941], Moraga [1948], Walnut Creek [1952], and finally into the San Ramon Valley [1958, 1964]. But prior to the time the San Ramon Valley really came in, we recognized the fact that we would not have enough water from the 200 million gallons a day to meet the district's growth. So we started negotiations with the two mountain counties in which we agreed to pay them $2.5 million each for another 125 million gallons out of the Mokelumne River. At that time we established basically what we call the ultimate boundaries. Those boundaries were drawn somewhat irregularly, following along the line of the hills, out in the San Ramon Valley, and took in partially down to about the county line. J Lage: When were lines drawn? 267 McLean: We would have to go into the records, but I think it was right after the war. At that time --and we'll have to look at the dates on that- -all of these annexations started coming in. Lage: I'm surprised they even thought of development in the San Ramon Valley. It was so remote at that time. McLean: Well, you see, what precipitated that was Walnut Creek. First we had Pleasant Hill, which came in just before the beginning of the war; we built the Pleasant Hill Reservoir by WPA labor. I don't recall when Walnut Creek came in. You see, Walnut Creek was served by California Water Service, which was located in San Jose. They still are a water company that serves a lot of little communities throughout the state. But the people in the Walnut Creek area at that time were unhappy with the water because it came out of Mallard Slough, near Pittsburgh. It was river water, and it had a very high saline content. So Walnut Creek wanted to join the district. The only way they could join the district was to form an entity within themselves, have a bond issue, buy out the water company, and then annex to the district. This took place, I believe, right after the war. I think it was during that time that the district was negotiating with the mountain counties for the additional 125 million gallons per day. This is when we drew the so-called ultimate boundaries. Well, during this period of time LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation Commission, came into being. They are the agency that, when an annexation occurs, designates who the water supplier may be. Take the San Ramon Valley; there is no other agency out there that can supply the water. The problem that you run into is that there is no other source of water for these people unless they drill a well. Lage: So either you're annexed or you don't build there? McLean: That's right. Of course, most of these areas originally had wells, but the wells have gone dry. Lage: These are all out in the Danville -Alamo area? McLean: They're in the Danville and the Alamo area. See, this [refers to map] denotes an area not served by the district. I think that may have been one that came in recently that had their own wells. We had two or three of them while I was still on the board. Here were small areas that consisted of five-acre parcels. When they went in there originally, they drilled their own wells. Now that we've had five years of drought, the wells are not sufficient. 267a EAST BAYI MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT P. O. BOX 2105S OAKLAND. CA 94613 (UiJ83i-3000 Fact Sheet April 1985 OVERVIEW EBMUD is a publicly owned mater district formed in 1923 under the Municipal Utility District (MUD) Act of 1921. Today, it serves water to 1.1 million customers and provides wastewater treatment for 600.000 customers residing in portions of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. The Water System includes a network of reservoirs, aqueducts, treatment plants, and other distribution facilities stretching from the Sierra foothills to the Bay Area. The service area of 8+6, square miles includes 20Jncorporated cities and 16 unincorporated communities in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. 3 / "7 The Wastewater System treats the domestic, commercial and industrial wastewater collected by six cities and a local sanitary district in an 83-square-mile area in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. This system is described briefly on page 7 and in a separate fact sheet available from EBMUD's Public Information Office (891-0615) or the Wastewater Department (465-3700). WATER SYSTEM The 20 cities served by EBMUD's Water System include Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Danville, El Cerrito, Emeryville, a portion of Hay ward, Hercules, Lafayette, Moraga, Oakland, Orinda, Piedmont, Pinole, a portion of Pleasant Hill, Richmond, San Leandro, San Pablo, San Ramon, and a portion of Walnut Creek. Brentwood is served water by contract. Unincorporated communities served include Alamo. Ashland, Blackhawk, Castro Valley. Cherryland, Crockett, Diablo, El Sobrante, Fairview, Kensington, North Richmond, Oleum, Port Costa, Rodeo, San Lorenzo and Selby. SAN PABLO BA Y CLAYTON DANVILLE SAN RAMON CMABOT HfS iSANJ.EANDRO CASTRO VALLEY I LORENZO HAYWARO DUBLIN WATER SYSTEM SERVICE AREA 268 The wells are going dry, and there's no water. At some of the homes, people are hauling water by truck. They didn't have enough water. Well, we had many arguments about this on the board. Lage: It sounds like one of the hottest issues on the board. McLean: It was one of the hottest issues on the board. Lage: Over whether you would take in these areas that were not part of the service area? McLean: That's right. People have the option of one or two things. Number one, LAFCO designates that there is no other water company to serve them; there's no other source of water except the district water. Basically, what they can do if we refuse is go back to LAFCO, LAFCO can go to the board of supervisors, and the board of supervisors can order us to serve them. We've never gone that far. The other action is that they can annex to one of the cities which now is served by the district, and then by law the district is obligated to serve them. Lage: So these areas were outside city boundaries? McLean: Yes, that's right. We've had many, many arguments on that. Basically, we had Helen Burke and Jack Hill, and then Nancy Nadel. Particularly after Jack had left the board, Nancy Nadel was absolutely against serving these people. Using Water District Policy to Control Growth Lage: McLean: What was their reasoning as you saw it? motivation? What did you see as their They didn't want any more development. Their policy is no more growth. They didn't want any more people within the district. Bruce Smith, a developer in Contra Costa County, built five beautiful homes that were adjacent to but right outside the district boundary. This happened about three years ago. Originally these homes had wells, but the wells went dry. They applied to the district to give them a service connection. Well, we had a long battle on the board because of that. Helen Burke and Nancy Nadel were opposed to giving them water. I've always looked at it from a humanitarian standpoint: give them the water. In other words, the amount of water that we were selling to these people was so small in quantity that it didn't amount to a 269 drop in the bucket. I think one of the last was somewhere around four or five million gallons per year. This was a group of small ranchettes that had their own private wells, and the wells had gone dry. They applied to the district for water, and of course we had another long argument about not wanting to give them water. I would have given it to them right in the beginning, because when you talk in terms of the amount of water, it's minimal. Lage: It seems like one issue when people are already established there and have been using wells, and the wells go dry. The other issue is new development. McLean: Let's take a look from the standpoint of new development. Most of these developments are within the ultimate boundaries, and we are compelled to serve them unless we declare an emergency. We never did declare one. There was a big argument about declaring an emergency during the drought, but we never did declare an emergency. It was up to the board as to whether we would serve or not. Lage: What position did the staff take on it? McLean: The staff always was in favor of serving. Lage: So it was mainly a few people on the board in opposition? McLean: It was the people on the board, and we had many arguments regarding serving water. I always took the attitude, and Sandy Skaggs and I think Mary Warren did, that these people were entitled to the water. They were within the boundaries, they had paid taxes on their property to the district for many years, and they were entitled to the water service. There was a time that the district had a very high tax rate. The people who were within the district boundaries paid a district tax, basically for the water supply. They were entitled to the water service. As long as they are within the boundaries, the district must provide service. Lage: Were these arguments brought up that the district could be compelled to serve? McLean: Oh, absolutely, every member of the board knew it. Helen Burke knew it. They knew that we had to serve them. Lage: What were the dynamics on the board? It sounds as if it was a charged atmosphere . 270 McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: Well, It was. Every time one of these requests to serve came up, it really became a knock-down-drag-out battle, you might say. The attitude from Helen Burke and Nancy Nadel was: "We don't have enough water . " But the amount of water that those people would use was so minimal it was a drop in the bucket in comparison to the overall consumption. We had the same argument over the city of Brentwood. Brentwood had a serious problem, because the water from their wells had a high concentration of nitrates. It was really ground water pollution. Brentwood was different, because they were completely outside the district's boundary. They were asking for surplus water. Well, of course, the last two years we declared that we did not have surplus water, and finally we didn't give them any. There was a period of time when it was a health problem. Their wells were very high in nitrates. The water was just not safe to drink because of the health effects on babies and elderly people. Finally we gave them a million and a half gallons per day. Again, we had another fight in the board about giving them water. * When we built the first aqueduct, the founding fathers envisioned that many of the cities along the pipeline would be served from the aqueduct. This, of course, was right in the beginning, and I do not know the reason for their thinking. On the first aqueduct we left taps where a connection could be made for a water supply. At Stockton I believe we left a twelve- inch tap, and I think at Antioch and Pittsburgh we also left taps. I don't know whether we did that for Walnut Creek, but we left taps where those cities could connect into the aqueduct. During World War II, Camp Stoneman at Pittsburg was supplied by water from the Number One aqueduct. So that was the vision? That was the vision of the founding fathers. Coming along to the issues today, where we have now a board of directors that are ant i- development, what they're really trying to do is stop development in this area by curtailing water development. I don't think they would argue with you on that, they come straight out and say it? I mean, don't McLean: This is a fact. Lage: They agree that that's their purpose? McLean: Yes, that's their goal: no more water, no more people. I don't know how you're going to stop growth. Financially, it is going to 271 hurt the entire Bay Area. It is going to affect the consumers of the district, because industries and developers that require a dependable water supply are locating elsewhere. Lage: I noticed in the minutes of board meetings that during debates over the San Ramon Valley annexations a lot of conflicts -of - interest charges were made. McLean: Well, Helen Burke and the Sierra Club sued the district. When we put in the last pipeline to serve that area, we already had one (48") pipeline and this was the second line (66"). The Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund brought suit against the district to prevent the district from putting in a pipeline that would take care of the ultimate growth of the San Ramon Valley. The people in San Ramon, Alamo, and those areas said, "Look, when you put in a pipeline this time, make it large enough to take care of the ultimate growth of the entire area." This is what we did after protests by certain members of the board. Lage: And I remember seeing in the minutes arguments between board members about the size of the pipeline. The Tri-Valley Sewer Connection McLean: I want to tell you there were some big fights, and there was a lawsuit. We won the suit. This is what happened in the Tri- Valley situation. The Tri-Valley area is that area of Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, and adjacent unincorporated areas. When they planned to put in the so-called "super sewer" from the Tri-Valley area that discharges into San Leandro Bay, the engineers at that time planned to make the sewer pipe large enough for the ultimate development of the valley- -that is, put it in now to provide fo all future development. Lage: How would you decide what the ultimate growth would be? McLean: You take in to account the kind of development that will occur in the area, whether multiple or single family or industrial. To give you an example, when we were making the studies for the original East Bay wastewater treatment plant, we used models of drainage areas. Every sewer line that you have is built in a drainage area. Normally you have these ridges and high areas, and in between you have a low drainage area. Then a sewer line is installed in the drainage area, and all houses that are built up to the crest of that ridge will drain into this sewer line. The models we used for sizing the north interceptor and the south 272 interceptor, the ones that follow along the San Francisco Bay shore- -the models that we used at that time for ultimate development of the drainage area- -were models of Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, St. Louis, and other large eastern cities where they had similar population density. Then you use the projected ultimate density, the present density, and what you estimate the density will be in fifty years, and you size the interceptor accordingly. We used a high density model for both the north and the south interceptors. These were to be sized for fifty years. This was starting back in the fifties, and they were to be sized to the year 2000. The result is that the south interceptor has not developed the flow as we had estimated. We are now twenty- five years into our model, and we still have additional capacity in the south interceptor. This is why Tri-Valley wanted to come in and connect into the south interceptor, and there was enough capacity to handle the estimated Tri -Valley flows. Lage: Did Tri -Valley want to send untreated wastewater into the EBMUD system? McLean: The Tri -Valley Authority wanted to convey the untreated wastewater into the district's south interceptor, thence to the treatment plant where it would be processed, and into the San Francisco Bay outfall. They wanted to size that pipeline for the ultimate development of the Tri -Valley area. They were prevented from doing that by the Sierra Club and lawsuits. By the end of the next couple of years they will have reached the capacity of the present pipeline and outfall. This is why they are searching for another facility to discharge the additional flow from the area. They're nearing the capacity of the present outfall, and they have no means to handle the excess. This is why they wanted to come across the hills into the district's interceptor to the treatment plant. Lage: Could the treatment plant handle it? McLean: We could handle it very nicely. There is sufficient capacity in the district's facilities to handle the additional flow. The growth model we used for the year 2000 has not occurred; as a result, we have excess capacity to handle the flow from Tri- Valley. Lage: So who won the argument about whether to take on the Tri -Valley? McLean: We could have taken the Tri-Valley flows, but both Oakland and San Leandro were opposed to the project. San Leandro said, "We don't want raw sewage under pressure going through our city." Both San 273 Leandro and Oakland threatened to sue Tri-Valley if they went ahead with the project. They didn't want this sewer in either city. Lage: Do you think it presented engineering problems? McLean: No. It was all political. They didn't want Tri-Valley discharging their wastewater into the district's system. Lage: Where did the original sewer line come from? McLean: The original sewer comes from the Tri-Valley wastewater treatment plant to a pumping plant through a pipeline across the hills and into the San Leandro Bay outfall discharge. Lage: All treated? McLean: Yes. It is treated effluence. Because of the lawsuits that were brought against them, it prevented the Tri-Valley Authority from building the pipeline and outfall to the ultimate size for the entire Livermore Valley. They should have built the sewer line and the outfall large enough to take care of the ultimate development of the Livermore Valley. If they had been able to do that, it probably would have cost them only a very small amount of money to add five or six inches to the inside diameter of the sewer. In order to take care of the development which is occurring there --they have reached the capacity of the present facility- - they have to go through the San Ramon Valley to the north into Suisun Bay. The present plan is to connect the Contra Costa Sanitary District's sewer line in the San Ramon Valley to the district's wastewater treatment plant and the outfall into Suisun Bay. The Contra Costa treatment plant will have to be enlarged to handle the additional flow from the Tri-Valley district. To take the flow from Tri-Valley through Contra Costa Sanitary District will cost many millions of dollars more than their original plan of going to San Leandro Bay. Just think how much this has cost the people in Livermore Valley who were prevented by the Sierra Club and the EDF lawsuits from adding a few inches to the original sewer. Lage: Perhaps what you're saying is that making it difficult for them doesn't stop growth. McLean: It didn't stop growth. That's what they tried to do; they tried to stop growth by limiting size of the sewer line. They tried to do the same thing on the 580 highway by limiting the amount of traffic with a diamond lane. The same thing has happened with the 274 sewer line. This is the same thing that happened in the San Ramon Valley when they tried to stop us from putting a large pipeline to Alamo and San Ramon, so that it would only take care of the present growth rather than the expanded growth. Limits to Controlling Growth in the Bay Area Lage: As someone who has lived here for so long, what do you think about all this growth? McLean: I don't know how you can control the growth in this area. We're trying to control growth, the Sierra Club and the environmentalists are trying. What is this doing? It is forcing people into automobiles to live in Fairfield, Tracy, Manteca, Modesto, Stockton, and Lodi, where they can find affordable housing. My grandson was compelled to go to Tracy for a home for him and his family. Finally, he's gone to Portland; he's gotten out of here completely. He was head meat cutter for Safeway, and in order to have affordable housing they had to go to Tracy and then to Portland, Oregon. What this has done is force people into automobiles, driving miles away, where we have to increase the size of our highways. In West Oakland and a lot of other areas we could demolish a lot of the single family homes that are virtually worthless, put in multiple family dwellings where people can afford to live, and keep the people living within the core cities. Think of the cost of developments that are taking place in areas such as Tracy. First they're going to be faced with water and wastewater problems, whereas within your core cities you have all the necessary facilities. When I was in England and other European cities, I saw them demolishing five- and six-story apartment buildings to be replaced by fifteen- to twenty-story apartment buildings. McLean: Affordable housing, that's what's needed within the core cities. You're creating more air pollution; you have more automobiles for people to get to the workplace. Get on any one of our highways on a workday. Go to Walnut Creek. I had to go to Walnut Creek on a consulting job that I had a month ago, and I had to be at the office in Walnut Creek at eight o'clock in the morning. Every day I would get tied up fifteen minutes or more trying to get through 275 the Caldecott Tunnel. This happens both going east in the morning and coming west at night. Proposed Merger with Contra Costa Water District Lage : I was confused about the issue of either coordinating or merging with Contra Costa' a water district. That seemed to be under discussion throughout your whole period on the board. McLean: Ve had meetings on that subject for a long time. I was a member of the liaison committee. Craig Randall was the president of the board of Contra Costa Water District. Sandy Skaggs was our president. When I came on the board we had many meetings. We had them for three or four years. There was discussion of a merger of the two agencies. I think it would have been good for both districts; that's my personal opinion. I was in favor of it, and I think Sandy was also in favor of it. Lage: Now, their water quality was not the equal of EBMUD's? McLean: Their water comes out of Rock Slough, which is delta water from Lake Shasta, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water. They were very anxious to get district water. Of course there would have been some problems, but I think it would have been good for both districts. Lage : In what way? McLean: For the district from the standpoint of development and income. The district has lost industries here within our original boundaries. All of the canneries that used to be here have left. Heinz has left, General Foods, Gerber, and all of thpse have moved to Tracy and elsewhere. They were large consumers. Contra Costa County Water District is basically domestic consumers; they don't have many industries. They have a few along the waterfront, but they're not large consumers, with the exception of Shell Oil company. I guess they serve Shell Oil, but I don't think there are many other large consumers that are served by the Contra Costa Water District. This would have been a good base of revenue for the district. In addition to that, it would have extended the district boundaries out to take in the eastern areas of Walnut Creek. These areas should have been within the district's boundaries to begin with. 276 Lage: So Just part of Walnut Creek is within district boundaries? McLean: Yes, that's right. There's a line through Walnut Creek--! don't know Just how it cane to be, but it was probably the area originally served by the California Water Service Companywhere one side is Contra Costa County Water District, and the other side is the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Lage: So in a sense you're saying that having more consumers can be good for the district financially? McLean: Yes. Lage: Does it keep rates down? McLean: Keep rates down. And we had plenty of water. Lage: But not when the drought started. McLean: Well, of course if you look at it from a drought condition, you still could have used the Rock Slough supply. This probably would have precipitated the requirement for additional storage. Probably we would have built the Middle Bar Project, and we might even have built Buckhorn and Pinole Reservoir. Lage: It would have forced--? McLean: Yes. Lage: What about the Los Vaqueros Reservoir? McLean: I have always been in favor of the district participating in that. Lage: That was the Contra Costa Water District reservoir? McLean: Yes. They are going ahead with that. Lage: And do they want the district to help build that? McLean: Yes. Lage: And then share it? McLean: We gave them some money. I seem to have the figure of around $100,000 that we gave them to participate in the studies. I've always been in favor of the district participating. It's Just another source of supply in an emergency, if EBMUD ever got into a situation where we had some problems of supply. I've always felt that a large agency such as the district ought to have alternate 277 sources of supply. Things can happen. Normally nothing is going Co happen; the aqueduct has held up for fifty years or more. But it's always good to have another source of supply. Los Vaqueros would have been that. I've always felt that the district should have participated in it to the extent of 150,000 or 200,000 acre feet. It does pose problems for the district to use that water. But in an emergency you use whatever is available. Lage: It's not of good quality? McLean: It is not as good a quality as the Mokelumne or American River supplies. However, the operation of Los Vaqueros Reservoir is to obtain the water from Rock Slough when there are peak flows-- during the wintertime when the water has much less salinity, when you have less sodium in it- -and then store it, which is good. It's a good deal. The problem the district [EBMUD] would have using this supply is that if they wanted to supply the aqueduct system, you have to recognize that the Walnut Creek, Lafayette, and Orinda filter plants do not have sedimentation basins. Any use of the delta water, taking water out of the delta or out of Rock Slough, you have sedimentation problems. So to use water from Los Vaqueros Reservoir, you'd have to build a pretreatment plant to reduce the turbidity of the water. Contra Costa may have to do that. You'd have to build a pretreatment plant large enough to take care of the capacity of Walnut Creek, Lafayette, and Orinda filter plants. Those plants now take the water directly off of the aqueducts. The turbidity in Pardee Reservoir is practically zero less than tenwhereas the delta water is very high. Lage: So there are a lot of problems? McLean: There are problems with the use of a supply from Los Vaqueros, but our district serves 1,250,000 people. Accordingly, you've got to have means to obtain an additional supply. I've always said we need the American River supply. We need the American River supply for emergencies and also for our future water supply. Lage: Is the quality of the American River water better? McLean: The reason we chose the American River water is that it has the same high quality as the Mokelumne River. That can be taken directly into the aqueduct system and the three filter plants east of the hills. Anyway, I have always been in favor of Los Vaqueros, and I hope the new board will participate in Los Vaqueros Reservoir with Contra Costa Water District. 278 Lage: It's not a decided issue yet, then? Is it still ongoing? McLean: As far as I know. I don't think there's any definite agreement. The Vet Weather Prolect Lage: I also wanted to get your comments on the wet weather project. McLean: The wet weather project now is pretty well underway and nearing completion. Lage: Did that have conflicts or problems associated with it? McLean : No . Lage: It's designed to end the frequent overflows of raw sewage into San Francisco Bay during storms, is that right? McLean: The north and the south interceptors were built for just the regular wastewater flow to the year 2000. That's the way they were sized, based on our studies. Because of old city sewers and many, many cases of building roof downspouts and drains being connected to existing sewers, we had a tremendous infiltration problem. That infiltration problem, which occurs in many of the older sewers, exceeds in many cases several times the capacity of the interceptor sewers. Lage: So the rain flows directly into the sewers, is that the idea? McLean: Yes, that's right. The excess water goes into the interceptors. Consequently we had to provide for the excess flow, because the treatment plant couldn't handle the excess. You reach the capacity of the sewer and the treatment plant. We had to construct overflow structures where we intercepted many of the large city outfall sewers; Fruitvale Avenue was one, there was one at the Embarcadero , and there were another two or three sewers from Berkeley. When you had a severe rainstorm, a heavy storm, you would get all of the water from the city sewer lines, and the interceptor would overflow into the bay. We would have discharges into the bay of raw sewage several times a year. It was untreated sewage with all the rainwater flowing into the bay from these overflow structures . 279 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Because of the Clean Water Act, EBMUD was issued cease and desist orders to stop the overflows. There is a fund, called Super Sewer Fund, to permit the district to go ahead with what is known as the Vet Weather Program. Is that federally funded, then? That's federally funded, and the state of California also participates. I think 75 percent is federal, 12.5 percent is state, and then a similar amount is from the local entity. The district has then gone ahead with the Wet Weather Program, which is now nearing completion. In addition, the cities have also had to repair many of their large collecting sewers. There's the Foothill Sewer and also the Grand Avenue sewer, where they had to replace the old sewers because of the poor condition and infiltration. Previously these sewers (twenty-seven of them) all discharged into the bay, and the infiltration was not a problem. Why does the city pay for those rather than the district? Well, because these are city sewers. The ones contributing to this infiltration were some of the very large sewers in the city, where ground water seepage and rainwater entered where joints were poor. So those are owned by the city and not by the district? That's right. They were built by the various cities, and each city was responsible for them. The cities are responsible for the water entering the interceptors. This is why we had to build the Fruitvale retention basin near the coliseum. Storm water is retained in the basin until the main treatment plant can handle the flow from the retention basin. The excess flow goes into the retention basin, is released into the sewer after the storm has passed, and flows in the interceptor get back to normal. Then you can treat the water and discharge it out through the regular outfall. All of this work is under construction. They have a contract that was just awarded recently for the Point Isabel plant. The Point Isabel plant is going to handle all the flow from the north. The retention basin being built at the wastewater treatment plant is the one that was supposed to be constructed in the Emeryville area. J There seemed to be a controversy about where that should go . me about that. Tell Well, it was originally designed to be put in the area near the Judson Steel Company in Emeryville, right near the Bay Bridge interchange structure. 280 Lage: Where 880, 80, and 580 all come together? McLean: Yes, where 580 and all of them come together. To the right hand side of that there's a piece of vacant property that I think used to belong to the Key System or Santa Fe railroad. It was an excellent site for the storage basin, because the north interceptor goes by the west side of the property. The advantage of this location was that when the north interceptor was full, with the surplus wet weather flow coming in, it would flow into the basin. Then after the storm had passed, it could be released into the interceptor to enter the treatment plant. Mary Warren was against the location because she said that the city of Emeryville expected to develop that area as a bio plant. Nancy Nadel stirred up the neighbors to the south of the area, so they protested to the district. Lage: Did it have some odors associated with it? McLean: No, these wet-weather basins are covered; there's no odor. This particular one would have been covered and landscaped. In fact, at one time they considered using the roof of it for a parking area. Because of the opposition from Emeryville and the neighborhood to the south, they forced the district to construct it at the treatment plant. The basin has been built in an area at the treatment plant that was needed in the future to expand the plant. This change of location cost an additional $12 million or more to move it over to the treatment plant site. And the real problem is that it has taken up space that ultimately will be needed for the plant itself. Lage: So that was another issue that you lost? McLean: That was another issue that I lost. I fought for putting it over in Emeryville, and so did Skaggs ; but Mary Warren and Nancy Nadel were against it. I don't remember who else was against it. Anyway, the board voted to go to the treatment plant. I was very much disappointed, because I think it was a mistake to occupy the limited space at the treatment plant. That space will be needed in the future for additional facilities of the wastewater treatment plant. Lage: Is there anything to say about the composting project? Finding a market for that sludge? 281 McLean: They only compost a small portion of the sludge, but it has been very successful. They have always found a very ready market for it. Lage: Why do they only compost a small part of it? McLean: Because there is no demand. In other words, we're about meeting the supply and demand. In the Central Valley we'd have a larger market, but our market here is limited basically to local landscape organizations. I use the compost; I can show it to you in all my flower beds . Through one of the local nurseries here , I think I have bought twelve to sixteen yards of it. But it's a supply and demand situation, and so far I don't think the market has expanded much beyond the district's boundaries. It's an excellent material for mulch. It keeps the weeds down and saves on water. I think if the district was located in an area where you had a larger market, it would be all right. They've expanded some, but they are limited also in space when it comes to handling it at the site. But with the amount of tonnage that comes from the plant daily, it's difficult to process all of the sludge. More on the Need for Middle Bar Dam and Buckhom Reservoir Lage: The next topic I've written down here was hydroelectric plants. We talked about Middle Bar. McLean: Yes. We were looking forward to proceeding with the construction of Middle Bar project. At that time the district was threatened with a lawsuit from Amador County. We also had protests from the white water rafters, and there were local protests against the project. Lage: What about Railroad Flat? Was that a similar problem? McLean: Railroad Flat, that's a small project, and it wasn't the most viable project. Had we built Middle Bar- -there were many benefits. Lage: Middle Bar was a big project. McLean: Middle Bar was a big project. It was a high dam located at the headwaters of Pardee Reservoir, at the upper end of Pardee Reservoir. It would have provided many benefits which I felt were essential in addition to the water supply. It would have given us a high pool in Pardee where we could obtain maximum gravity flow in the aqueducts at all times. 282 Lage: So it was for water supply as well as for hydroelectric power? McLean: Yes. The Middle Bar project would have controlled the full flow of the Mokelumne River. The reservoirs that we have on the Mokelumne do not provide the full control of the maximum yearly peak flows. As far as the average flow is concerned, the present reservoirs are sufficient. But we have had some very tremendous floods. In '86 we had a peak year. We had over a million acre feet or about twice the mean annual flow in the Mokelumne River. The mean annual flow is about 750,000 acre feet, whereas the peak flow that we had during those floods was 1,200,000 acre feet. H McLean: The PG&E reservoirs at Salt Springs and Lower Bear reservoirs hold about 150,000 acre feet. Camanche holds 420,000 acre feet, and Pardee will hold 210,000. So there was a surplus of several hundred thousand acre feet of water that went to waste. If you had Middle Bar reservoir, which would contain about 400,000 acre feet, you would be able to store that water to carry over into drought periods. Lage: If you had that, would you not need Buckhorn? McLean: You need Buckhorn. Don't confuse Buckhorn Reservoir with the Mokelumne River storage. You need Buckhorn for local storage. Lage: But I thought that was to get wet weather water. McLean: That is intended for the American River water supply. The reason you need Buckhorn Reservoir is because you have to have some storage for the American River water because of Judge Hodge's decree regarding the time that the district can take that water. You can take American River water for use here within the district only for a short period of time, from about April 1 to July 1, when there is surplus flow in the American River. In order to store 150,000 acre feet of water, you've got to have storage for that water, because all of the other district reservoirs would be full or filling. Lage: But if you have the Middle Bar, would you need the American River water? McLean: Oh, absolutely. Lage: It's not enough even if you control the full flow of the Mokelumne River? 283 McLean: You need Buckhorn for local storage. In the event of a failure of the aqueducts across the delta or a failure of the tunnels. Additional storage is needed for the distribution system, both east and west of the East Bay hills. Pardee or Middle Bar reservoirs don't serve the distribution system. If you have a failure on the aqueducts, you've got to have local storage to carry over until the aqueducts can be repaired. Problems vith the South Soillvav of Fardee Dam McLean: The benefits from Middle Bar- -there would be a high pool at Pardee. Maximum hydrogeneration. It alleviates the problems that we have with the south spillway. The south spillway at Pardee Dam has always been a problem. Every time you have an overflow at the Pardee spillway, debris that is washed from the hillside at the base of the spillway blocks the main channel below the dam. It stops the hydrogeneration. The last time we had an overflow was way back in the sixties. That time it completely blocked the river below the dam and flooded the powerhouse. It took us four or five months to remove all the debris from the river at the base of the dam and open the river channel . Lage: Was that a problem with the original engineering concept? McLean: It is a problem, yes. Many studies have been made to correct the condition, and all are very costly. But we have taken the risk instead of actually correcting it. Every time there is an overflow, even a small flow, it washes the hillside and keeps sliding the debris into the river. We should have built a different type of a spillway, but we've lived with it. Fortunately, we've been able to control the river over many years. Since Pardee Dam and spillway were built we've had about three spills in which the river was blocked below the dam.' If we ever get the maximum storm flow that the spillway was designed for-- 120,000 cubic feet per second- -you'd have a real problem on your hands, and you could have a problem with the safety of the dam. Pardee is a concrete arch gravity dam. Every dam, whether it is an earth-filled dam, a concrete dam, or a gravity dam, has to have a means to relieve hydrostatic pressure under the base of the dam. To prevent that pressure, we have a drainage system within the dam itself. Earth- filled dams and concrete dams have drainage systems. In the base of Pardee Dam there is a series of pipes to intercept all of the seepage from the reservoir and convey the water to the stream channel below the dam. This drainage system is located near the upstream base of the dam and extends across 284 the base and the abutments, system is measured daily. The amount of water flowing from the Lage : Does it flow into the spillway? McLean: It flows out into the river. If you get a high tail water on the base of a dam where that pressure is not relieved, you get an uplift pressure on the base of the dam. And from that can come a dam failure. Lage: So if the spillway is blocked, that would occur? McLean: If the river is blocked and the drainage system cannot function, then you get uplift pressure on the base of the dam, and you have a failure. The famous dam that failed, the St. Francis Dam near Los Angeles that was designed by the Department of Water and Power, had this same problem. In this case the center of the concrete dam actually tipped upstream, and the entire dam collapsed, sending a wall of water down the canyon. There were nearly three hundred people killed. Lage: I think you told me about that. McLean: The failure of the St. Francis dam in 1929 was due to uplift pressure under the base of the dam. Lage: So is that something you suggested be corrected at Pardee? McLean: Oh, yes, absolutely. This is one of the problems that I have mentioned to the engineers, because they're planning to raise Pardee Dam forty feet or more. If they raise the dam as planned, they will have to provide for a new spillway and abandon the present spillway. That will prevent further erosion of the hill at the end of the present spillway and any further blockage of the river. Lage: Do they agree with this? Are they listening? McLean: They listened to me; I don't know whether they've agreed with me. The location of a new spillway will be a problem if they proceed with raising Pardee Dam. The south abutment is another problem. Originally Pardee was designated as an arched dam. After the contract was awarded for the construction, exploration of the south abutment showed serious faulting of the rock. As a result, the design was changed to an arched gravity dam. During construction, the south abutment was grouted very extensively with cement grout to fill the seams in the rock. A new spillway and the foundation for the south abutment will be real problems if Pardee Dam is raised. 285 Other Issues: Fluoridation. Watershed Rangers. Watershed Protection Lage: Shall we turn to some side issues that seem to occupy the board? One would be fluoridation. Did you get in on that? McLean: Yes. I was on the board when the fluoridation issue came before us. Lage: Did the board take a stance on that? McLean: Yes, the board agreed to go ahead with the fluoridation. 1 think that was the one of the few issues where the district actually agreed with the public. Lage: Was there public pressure? McLean: There was considerable public input on fluoridation Lage: Was it on both sides of the issue? McLean: On both sides, yes. We had both the pros and cons, and I think from all the testimony and letters that we had, the board decided to put the fluoridation issue on the ballot for the consumers of the district to vote on it. Lage: Did it go to a vote? McLean: Yes. It went to a vote of the people, and they voted for the fluoridation [November 5, 1974). Lage: That really is public input. McLean: Yes. I think it was unanimous on the board that we would put it up to a vote of the people, and the people voted for it. Lage: Did you have a personal opinion about it? McLean: I've always been kind of neutral. I've always felt that there are other means to accomplish fluoridation. Actually, it's the younger generations who benefit most from it- -that is, the youngsters up to the age of fifteen. I have never believed that you should subject an entire population to benefit a few. You have fluoridated toothpaste and other means that are just as beneficial, rather than going through not only the cost of fluoridating the water supply but subjecting the entire population 286 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: to It when it doesn't do the older generation any good. Although fluoridation doesn't cost very much, it is a cost additive. Why subject a public water supply to an additional cost when the benefits are only for a small portion of the population? But you did feel that going along with the public vote was a good way to resolve it? Oh, yes. Sure. I think that was one of the logical ways to do it. You mentioned you were on the liaison committee with the East Bay Regional Parks. Yes. And I saw reference in the minutes to a lot of controversial things about watershed rangers. I didn't quite understand what all that was about. One of the first issues we had was the arming of EBMUD rangers. The district has always patrolled the watershed lands. We still do; we still patrol them. But the district rangers not only did maintenance, they devoted a lot of time to patrolling and looking for trespassers and unauthorized persons in district lands. Were they unarmed originally? They were unarmed originally. When did they decide it was necessary to arm? 1 forget the exact date, but the rangers felt they had to be armed for their own protection. I saw it mentioned first in the minutes in 1982. about right? Does that sound Yes, I think that's when it was, about '82. The board began to take a pretty hard look at their request to carry firearms, because then they really became peace officers. In discussing the issue, we found that the board of directors would be personally responsible for the action of the district's rangers. If one of the rangers got into an argument and shot somebody, the board of directors would have been personally responsible. There was some lengthy discussion on this subject between the rangers, staff, and the board of directors. Lage: It srmnded like there was a lot of public input on that issue. 287 McLean: Yes, there was. Lage: Vere people for or against it? McLean: Most of the people were against the rangers having firearms. They were against arming any of those people. There was a lot of controversy in regard to the need for firearms . Lage: Was it the staff that felt they should be armed? McLean: No, the staff took a neutral position on it, but the rangers themselves wanted to carry the firearms for their own protection. Lage: I see. They felt the need. McLean: They felt that they needed the additional protection. In case of a confrontation with a hunter who was carrying a gun, they would be unarmed. Every once in a while you have people poaching and hunting deer and other game on the district's properties. The rangers tried to give us this story about confronting a hunter with a gun, they would have no way of protecting ourselves, and they would be killed. That, of course, was a good argument. Lage: How was it resolved? McLean: Actually, there is a duplication of services between ourselves and the regional park district. All of the district lands really are contiguous to or more or less integrated with the regional park district. The regional park district has a regular police force; their people are regular policemen. They have a helicopter and a short-wave radio for instant communication, and they are on duty full time. Finally it was resolved by having an agreement with the park district that they would do all of our patrolling and emergency response where they could dispatch the helicopter for emergencies. That's the way we finally resolved it, by turning over all of police patrol duties to the regional park district. Lage: Did they then take on your watershed rangers? McLean: Well, some of the rangers went to the park district. They took those who wanted to do only the armed patrolling. We gave them the opportunity to transfer. I do not remember how many of them transferred; perhaps there were a half dozen of them who elected to go to work for the regional park district. The remainder of the rangers stayed, and they still patrol the district's watershed lands , but they are unarmed . Lage: And then they call in for help if they need it? 288 McLean: Yes. Well, they're at the San Pablo and Lafayette recreation areas, and they do maintenance work as necessary. They are not permitted to carry any firearms. They no longer have the policing duties; that has all been taken over by the park district. Lage: Was that satisfactory to the populace? McLean: It's worked out very well. Of course, the district people can call in the regional park district for a police officer or the helicopter if needed. Mary Varren and I were on the liaison committee with the park board, and we met about every couple of months to review the costs. It worked out very well; I think it's a good arrangement. Lage: Any other areas that you had to work on in that committee? McLean: No, that was basically it. We did have some discussions in reference to particularly the properties along Redwood Road that drain into the Upper San Leandro Reservoir. Some of them are contiguous to the park district, and some of them are contiguous to the EBMUD district. There's always been a problem of contamination from the dwellings. Both districts have an agreement that whenever the opportunity would occur, either the regional park district or the water district would buy the land and get rid of the residence. There's a good-sized population living in there, and all of the residences have septic tanks. Any effluent from the drainage fields flows into San Leandro reservoir. Lage: Are we talking about the little community of Canyon? McLean: It's the Canyon community. That has always been a problem. The district always had a policy that whenever any of those properties were available, the district would buy them. I don't know how successful we've been through the years, but some have been acquired. That community has been a nuisance not only to the regional park district but also to the EBMUD district. There were horse stables also, but the horse stables are all gone now. Recently the park board bought an old stable area there. Over the years both districts have had the policy of eliminating or getting rid of any property within the drainage basin of the district's reservoirs. 289 Fithing and Boating on District Reservoirs Lage: You've mentioned fishing at the reservoirs. When did the policy to allow fishing on the reservoirs come about? McLean: The East Bay Water Company and the district [EBMUD] had a policy of no fishing in any of the reservoirs. There was a bill that went through the legislature to open the district's reservoirs for fishing in the fifties, before I came on the board. Staff and management discussed this for a long time, and finally we recognized that we would have to agree to it and provide access. After I finished the wastewater project, one of the first reservoir recreation projects I worked on was Pardee. There we received money from the state fish and wildlife fund. That was to provide a boat launching rarap and the means of access, sanitary facilities, water supply, and facilities for opening Pardee Reservoir for fishing [opened to the public in 1958). Then we opened up San Pablo [1973]. We did very few improvements at San Pablo. There weren't many improvements required, because that was leased to a concessionaire, and the concessionaire provided most of the facilities. The district did some of the workbuilt the access road and picnic areas and a few other facilities. At Lafayette Reservoir we constructed all the facilities, including a beautiful building. District personnel operate the Lafayette Reservoir recreation area, and it is used largely by people from the local communities [opened 1966]. Lage: Without a concessionaire? McLean: Without a concessionaire. Lage: How does that compare with San Pablo? McLean: Well, of course, it's a much smaller reservoir. It does get a tremendous amount of usage, particularly from Lafayette, Orinda, and Walnut Creek. Lage: And the district manages it all right? McLean: Yes, the district has done all right in the management. However, you have to understand that none of these recreation areas have ever been money makers. I don't know how much is in the budget this year, but the district normally contributes about $5 million or more annually to these recreation areas. Lage: So they don't even break even? McLean: They don't even break even. 290 Lage: So you consider it a public relations asset? McLean: That's basically what it is, public relations. San Pablo and Lafayette are used extensively. A lot of the people come from different areas. Lafayette is used mostly by local people; Pardee is used considerably by people from Stockton, Sacramento, Lodi, and those areas. It gets heavy use during the summertime. Problems vith Recreation at Camanche Reservoir McLean: Camanche Reservoir [opened 1966] has been a kind of a problem because of the drought years and the low water. Originally it was leased out to two concessionaires- -one for the north and another for the south. They built all the improvements. Because of the lack of attendance, they finally reached the point where they were nearly bankrupt a couple of years ago. The district finally had to take them over. Now we lease all the facilities to concessionaires . Originally there was a tri- county board composed of Amador, Calaveras, and San Joaquin counties to oversee the Camanche recreation area. Lage: 1 see. So you had the other counties involved? McLean: We had the three counties in it originally. They wanted to participate, and we turned that over to the tri-county board. The facilities were all leased out to concessionaires, and they built most of the improvements. Because of several years of drought that we've experienced and the low water, attendance has declined. The other thing is that the summers are so hot at Camanche that a lot of the people from the valley go to the mountains; they go up to Strawberry, Lake Tahoe, and Silver Lake. Lage: To get away from the heat. McLean: To get away from the heat. Consequently, Camanche Reservoir is more or less left out during the heavy usage. Also, the water's been so low recently that there is no way to launch boats . Use at Camanche Reservoir recreation area has been rather limited. When the reservoir was full, there was a lot of use. But it never was enough to repay the original costs for constructing the facilities. Finally it got to the point where the concessionaires could not continue, so the district had to take it out of their hands . 291 The district has had to put quite a bit of money back into the various facilities. The restrooms were all going to pieces; they hadn't maintained them. Some of the toilets were not functioning, windows were broken--. ii McLean: The district has had to take care of the maintenance which the concessionaires had neglected to do. Consequently there has been a considerable additional expense the last couple of years on Camanche. Whether it will ever be a tremendous success is hard to say, particularly if the drought continues. Boaters used to do a lot of water skiing on Camanche, which is not permitted on Pardee Reservoir or any of the local reservoirs. Camanche Reservoir was ideal for water skiing when it was full; it has a large surface area that is excellent for skiing. Lage: You don't worry about the affect of boating on the water quality? McLean: Camanche is not used for a public water supply. Camanche was built to store water for the Woodbridge Irrigation District, the riparian owners along the river, and the Woodbridge Water Users Association, which had prior water rights on the Mokelumne River. The district does not take any water from Camanche. All of EBMUD water comes from Pardee. This is why we prohibit water skiing and swimming at Pardee . Lage: Is Pardee big enough for speed boating? McLean: Yes, Pardee would be large enough. But it's prohibited there because of the potential risk of polluting the water. Camanche was for irrigation only. Prior to constructing Camanche Reservoir we had to store enough water in Pardee to take care of the riparian owners, the fishery downstream, the Woodbridge Irrigation District, and all others who have rights to water from the river. Today the river losses are such that in order to get the full entitlement to the people downstream, we have to nearly double the flow that is released from Camanche to the Mokelumne River. If we had to store this water in Pardee, there would be very little water left for the district's water supply. That's why we built Camanche Reservoir. When Camanche Reservoir is full, it holds water enough for nearly two years of supply for the irrigation districts and riparian owners. Camanche holds twice as much water as Pardee. Camanche holds 420,000 acre feet, where Pardee only holds 210,000. 292 XIII BOARD ISSUES: PERSONNEL AND OTHER INTERNAL POLICIES Instituting Affirmative Action Policies McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: Let's talk just briefly about affirmative action. Yes. The board has always had a policy of affirmative action, and I believe that the district's affirmative action record was good. I resented very much- -one of the problems we had on this board was Helen Burke, Jack Hill, and Ken Simmons constantly advocating more minority participation in the district's contracts and work. Ken Simmons was a strong proponent of affirmative action. Ken Simmons was a strong advocate for the use of more minorities, particularly Afro -Americans . He always felt there should be a higher priority for minorities. Simmons always emphasized the use of more African-Americans, to the extent that he wanted to reject contracts if the contractor did not have the specified minority participation. He was concerned about the policies of your contractors as well as the district. That's right. I have never felt that we should ever have a quota system. Everybody should be on an equal basis; in other words, qualifications should be the criteria, rather than saying you've got to hire a certain percentage of Asian Americans or other nationality. What viewpoint actually prevailed? Did you turn down contracts because of contractors' minority hiring records? 293 McLean: I don't think there was ever a time when we rejected a bid or proposal because of affirmative action. Staff usually screened all bids and proposals and came in with a recommendation to the board. You see, the problems you have with contractors are different than hiring personnel. With the district you can establish a policy where you can employ people to conform to the affirmative action program. But with contractors you have to recognize that they do not have control over the people they hire. Most contracting organizations have a permanent staff of a fixed number of estimators, foremen, truck drivers, and office personnel. This is only a small portion of what they need when they go on a job. If they get a job from the district, whether it's an office building pipeline or whatever it happens to be, they go to the union hiring hall for the remainder of the personnel they need. Lage: And they take what is given them? McLean: They take whoever is sent to them from a list. They really don't have any choice. Whatever is sent out to them they have to take, if they are a union contractor. Trying to control the contractors' affirmative action virtually becomes an impossible task. When a contractor bids on a job, he will list minority firms as subcontractors. Every contractor today has a list of minority firms that they use. They can be Hispanic, women-run firms, Asian, Afro -American, or a combination. When the minority firms need electricians, plasterers, painters, roofers, pipe workers, welders or any other classification, they obtain them out of the union hall. They take whatever the union hall sends them, regardless of nationality. What Ken Simmons wanted was a quota system. The entire time I was on the board, Ken was always insistent about the role of the black community. He wanted to go to a system based on the population of the different races within the district. Because there was a high percentage of blacks, in the affirmative action program you would have X number of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and native Americans. The board overruled Ken Simmons' proposal, but generally it was on a four-to-three vote, because Sandy Skaggs , Mary Warren, and I saw that we would have some real problems with the contractors' associations. Lage: Who on the board would have been your fourth vote? McLean: Ken Kofman and later John Gioia. But Ken Simmons, you couldn't make him understand. He, Helen Burke, Jack Hill, and Nancy, when she came on, were all oriented to hiring more Afro-Americans. 294 Lage: Were they more concerned about blacks than about women, Hispanics, and Asians? McLean: Yes. Ken Simmons particularly was mostly for blacks. His idea was that you should have more blacks even with the district. District Employment of Minorities Lage: What about minority employment of district personnel? McLean: The district has done very well. I forget what the percentage of minorities is now. We received regular reports from Jerry Gilbert. We've never been up to what Ken Simmons thought we ought to be, but the district has a fairly good cross section of all minorities. Don Jackson, who is head of maintenance and operations, is outstanding. 1 believe he came from BART. Ruth Foster, who was secretary to the general manager, and Artis Dawson are both exceptionally fine people. They're all black and really highly qualified, which I think is excellent. My personal feeling is that anyone coming into the district should be on an equal basis and should be qualified. If they are qualified, I don't care whether they are black, Asian, Hispanic, or white. I think they've all got to meet the same qualifications. I have never been able to feel that because the district is a public organization there should be a difference between them and any outside organization. Lage: Do you think the district should make an effort to find the minority workers who are qualified? McLean: Absolutely. Well, the district has always had a recruiting program to find them, and I know there's been a terrible lack of Afro -American engineers. They are just not available. The greatest number of minority engineers come from Hispanics, Asians, Chinese, and Japanese. Lage: I didn't know so many Hispanics--. McLean: Oh, yes. We've had Hispanics; there are Hispanic engineers. I've worked with Hispanics in the private sector in the consulting business, and they're good. I think the Asians are tops, particularly the Japanese and the Chinese. Even in the private sector you'll find a lot of Asians. There are more Asians- - Japanese and Chinese- -and even East Indians. But few blacks. I only know of one black engineer, Jeff Milliard, who is now employed by the district. 295 Lage: That makes problems recruiting, doesn't It? McLean: Yes. Veil, I don't know the reason, but they apparently don't have the technical background; there are very few in engineering. You'll find them in the business sector, but they're not in the technical field. Lage: Well, maybe it has to start down in the school level. McLean: Yes, that's where it starts. I think it starts right in the elementary schools and in the high schools. The district has even tried going to high schools to encourage them to take the engineering and mathematical subjects. They just don't seem to have the interest for the technical subjects. Difficulties of Bonding Minority Contractors McLean : Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: 1 think the district has had a good recruiting program, particularly with minority contractors. They have tried very hard to get minority contractors to submit proposals on district work. The big problem that many of the minority contractors have is that they do not have the bonding capability. They haven't established a good bonding experience, and they cannot get a faithful performance bond or other types required by the district contracts. Is this like an insurance policy for them? You see, on any public works contract you have to put up what they call a faithful performance bond. It's a bond that says you are going to complete that contract. If you don't complete that contract, the bonding agencies have to complete the contract. Not so much Hispanics , but when it comes to blacks , very' few are able to get bonding. Did Ken Simmons deal with this kind of problem? on how to deal with it? Did he have ideas He's never dealt with it, no, because I don't think Ken, to begin with, realizes what the problem is. In the private sector, in my consulting work, we did a job for the Oakland schools at one time. There were two or three minority (black) subcontractors who wanted to bid on the job. They went so far as to ask the Oakland school department if they wouldn't bond them. You really defeat the purpose of bonding if the agency does the bonding. 296 Lage: Is it a state law? Is the bonding required? McLean: It's a state law that on any public work of this type you have to have a faithful performance bond. Lage: It oust be hard to get started- -to start up a contracting firm. McLean: That's right; you have to have gained a reputation and be well financed. Lage: But how do you get a reputation when you are a new firm? McLean: That's always the big question. I guess the thing is to work long enough as a subcontractor under a contractor. The general contractor has to have the faithful performance bond. A subcontractor can work for another contractor unless the general contractor requires a bond of him. On many large jobs, if a subcontractor has a contract for one million dollars or higher, the general contractor may require a bond from him or some type of signed agreement that he will finish the work. If he doesn't finish the work, he has a bond that's responsible for completing the work. There have been a few large contracts, and one of them was the Caldecott Tunnel --the first Caldecott Tunnel. I believe it was Kaiser Construction Company that had the contract, and they had some real problems in that tunnel. They walked off the job, and the bondsmen had to finish the tunnel. Lage: That's not good for the reputation. McLean: True. But this minority situation--! read that the district, on some of these contracts, is encouraging minority contractors, women-owned organizations and particularly the Afro-American minorities, to bid on district work. This is the new board. The new board is very much oriented toward minority contracting. Lage: But it seemed that your board did a lot for minorities. McLean: True, we did a lot of work with them. We did everything we could to encourage them to bid on district work, but many minority contractors bidding on district work are unable to obtain a faithful performance bond. 297 Comparable Vorth Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: What about the issue of comparable worth? for women's jobs within the district. That's related to wages The district certainly looked at that problem. I have always believed in comparable worth. I've always believed that women should be paid for whatever type of work they do. If they work alongside a man, and they're both painters, they should be paid the same wage. However, you get into some gray areas when you start to compare, we'll say, an executive secretary with some other type of position. With a more laborer-type position? Yes, something like that. It's a little difficult to say, "The secretary should be paid as much as this person out in the field because they're both performing a skilled function." One is doing one type of work, and the other is doing another. That confuses me a little bit; I haven't been able to reconcile that. But I can say that where two people are doing similar types of work they certainly should be paid comparably. And I think the district has attempted to do that as much as possible. It is a little difficult to say that a secretary ought to be paid as much as a skilled automobile mechanic or similar situations. I have a little difficulty relating that theory of comparable worth. And I think the board also had that same problem. It presents more problems. Yes. I think we'll stop here, because we'll have to come back, and we might as well be fresh. A Controversial Contract Award Decision//// [Interview 10, August 20, 1991] McLean: In all of the years that I was on the board, most of our meetings finished by four -thirty or five o'clock. During the process of the award for the furniture and the partitions in the new building, there was a bid submitted by a black firm from Oakland. The bid they had submitted for the partitions and the furniture 298 was about $600,000 lower than the next bidder. The reason for that was that they had not submitted their bid in accordance to the plans and specifications but on an entirely different type of furniture and partition. The result of it was that there was a large delegation from the community, comprised mostly of blacks, who were protesting the award to anyone other than the firm that had submitted this bid. It was a long session, with speakers from the Oakland community. Among them were Paul Cobb and a number of other prominent persons . The meeting went on for several hours. There were twenty-five or thirty speakers who got up and spoke before the board, and as a result it was getting into the evening hours. Finally the attorney, Bob Hadow, asked for a recess and a closed session to consider the bids. Mr. Madow told the board that they had only two alternatives: either award the contract to the next responsible bidder whose bid was based on the plans and specifications or reject all bids. Those were the only alternatives. We could not award the contract to this black firm that had submitted this lower bid, because the bid did not comply with the plans and specifications. Lage: Was it drastically different? McLean: Yes. It was an entirely different material and everything else. The board deliberated on the alternatives and then went back into regular public meeting. The board rejected all bids. I think it was close to nine o'clock that night before we got out of the board room. That is the latest board meeting ever during my tenure on the board. Lage: Why did the board decide to reject all bids instead of deciding to award it to the low bidder who was in conformity with the specifications? McLean: Well, the next bid was about $600,000 higher than the one that had been submitted by this other firm. I never liked to re-bid work, because it's just like playing poker. You've already revealed your hand, and you've told everybody about what the price is. However, we did reject all the bids. About three months later we received bids again on the same plans and specifications, and a Hispanic firm from Sacramento bid the job and was awarded the contract. I don't recall what their bid was in comparison to the previous bids, but as I recall it was more favorable than the original bid. 299 That was one of the longest meetings we ever had. Sometimes the board meetings might go to six o'clock, but that was very rare. Lage: What time did they begin? McLean: Always at 1:15. We'd start at 1:15, and then we'd go until we finished the agenda. Most of the time the meetings went rapidly. There were many times when we were finished by two or three o'clock in the afternoon. Value and Problems of Public Involvement in Board Policy Neighborhood Objections to Building Buckhom Dam Lage: You had a lot of meetings, I noticed in the minutes, that were public hearings and seemed to be pretty fiery. McLean: Yes, some of them, particularly when we were on the water management program. Most of those meetings were scheduled at night. We had one at the Oakland Center, another at the Kaiser building, and one in Walnut Creek. However, those were scheduled for seven or seven- thirty at night. The one we had in the Kaiser auditorium was a long session. The house was full, standing room only. Lage: Now, what was the issue there? McLean: That was in reference to the EIR [environmental impact report] -- that is , the water management plans . Lage: On the Buckhorn Dam? McLean: On Buckhorn Dam and Reservoir, yes. We really had a fiery session on that. Lage: Were both sides represented? McLean: Both pro and con sides were represented. There was a lot of opposition to Buckhorn Dam, particularly from the people in Castro Valley. Their protests were in regard to the traffic on Redwood Road. The study of traffic conditions is required by the EIR. On earth- filled dams you have a lot of imported material, what is known as drainage material. On the back of the dam there's a gravel drainage blanket for relieving the pressure on the dam. On the upstream face of the dam you have rip rap rock for slope 300 protection. All that material had to be imported for Buckhorn Dam. Altogether it required a million tons or more of that material, and that has to be hauled in over roads during the construction period. Because of the Redwood School on Redwood Road, there was a tremendous amount of protest about the truck traffic . One of the things that was very interesting to me was that back in the late seventies we built the new Upper San Leandro Dam. The original San Leandro Dam [1926] was a hydraulic fill. The clay core of the hydraulic fill had never completely dried. Tests were made at the University of California when we studied the dam for seismic forces, and the tests showed that in case of an earthquake we could have had liquefaction in the core, and the dam might have failed. We had lived with this for many years. With San Pablo Dam, also one of the early hydraulic-fill dams (1919) , because there was ample room on the abutments we were able to reinforce the dam both on the upstream face and the downstream face. With Upper San Leandro Dam, because of the very narrow area where abutments for the dam were located, it was impossible to strengthen the upstream and the downstream face as we were able to do at San Pablo. Consequently, in order to provide the storage for the Upper San Leandro Reservoir, we had to go downstream between a quarter and one-half mile to a new site and build a new dam. The interesting part about it is that this new dam had about the same quantities as the proposed Buckhorn Dam. At several meetings we had in reference to Buckhorn Dam, I questioned a lot of the people, particularly the principal of the Redwood School. First I asked him how long he'd been at that school, and I think he'd been there twenty years or something like that. I said, "Do you remember when we built Upper San Leandro Dam about seven or eight years ago? Do you remember all the hauling that occurred .on Redwood Road at that time?" He said, "No. I don't remember it." This was very interesting, because I questioned several people about this , and none of them remembered the trucking on Redwood Road during the period the dam was under construction. Lage : It was the same road? McLean: Yes. And all the quantities were virtually the same. We hauled continuously- -concrete, rock, and gravel- -and none of those people remembered. It proved to me that today, because we have these EIRs and public meetings, people imagine the negative things. Suddenly we have these waves of protest, many times brought about by a small group. When the new San Leandro Dam was built we didn't have to have the impact report and public hearings. 301 Consequently, we went ahead and built the dam, and nobody paid any attention to the project. The environmental impact report process costs the taxpayers millions of dollars annually in preparation of the reports, public hearings, and delays to the work. Personally, I have felt it is a waste of time and money. Lage: As a board member, do you see the public hearing as a way to try to convince the public or a way to hear what the public is thinking? McLean: I've always believed that public meetings are good, but I think what actually is happening today is that people get all disturbed over something that really, if they didn't know about it, wouldn't even bother them. I don't know how you can overcome it, because our present EIR process requires public meetings and hearings. As soon as you get the public involved, then you have all this reaction. I certainly believe that public meetings are good to inform people of the project and to listen to their problems. After all, they are really shareholders, and they should know what the district is doing. However, it only takes half a dozen or less individuals among a group to arouse the people , and then yoil've got a whole wave of reaction against the project. This was proven to me very definitely on the Buckhorn-Castro Valley situation along Redwood Road. Lage : Were you able to make an impact by that kind of comparison that you put forth? Did people listen? McLean: No. Here was a dam that people didn't even know had been built. It was under construction for over two years, and we were hauling concrete, drain rock, and all kinds of material. There were trucks going up and down Redwood Road, and people paid no attention to them. But here you have a report that says there's going to be a truck every so many minutes, and right away they conjure up a large truck full of rock that will be traveling past their school and making noise. The traffic that goes past there day after day, you know, they don't pay attention to it. And they never paid any attention to it when we built the original dam in 1979. I don't know the answer. I think public meetings are good, but sometimes they stir up a lot of problems that people really, if they didn't know about it, wouldn't pay attention to. Lage: It did seem, over your period on the board, that the level of public involvement increased. McLean: Absolutely. Helen Burke and particularly Nancy Nadel have always been great ones for public meetings. I certainly agree; I think a public meeting is good, but I believe that many times the final result is just the reverse to what we hope it would be. 302 Lage: What is the hope? McLean: Many of the big projects that we've built- -Briones Dam was one, and many of the other large projects that we have built- -for Briones we had to haul large quantities of imported material, with trucks going back on forth on the San Pablo Dam Road. We never held public meetings on those. It was our Job to build the dams, tunnels, and pipelines for the public water supply, and we never held a public meeting. Objections to Adeline Yard and Lafayette Maintenance Center McLean: Once you get into public meetings, like cases like the Adeline office and maintenance yard, the north intercepter wet weather basin, and also the proposed East Area Center at Lafayette- -for all of those we held many public meetings, and the animosity, the resentment against these projects was stirred up by one or two individuals. In the Adeline situation we could have got by very well with only a negative declaration. Lage: What is the situation at Adeline Street [former site of EBMUD headquarters ] ? McLean: We could have got by with a negative declaration, which would have cost very little or nothing. An EIR was required because of the local protests, and as a result it has taken over a year to complete the report. The EIR has just been completed. Here is a situation where there has been a maintenance yard in this location since 1913. This was the maintenance headquarters for the former East Bay Water Company. These people are protesting about it because they don't want a maintenance center located there , even though all of that area is zoned industrial. There are a few houses around there, but they really don't belong there. These houses are remnants from a community that has become an industrial area. There's the Pacific Pipe Company and many other industries in the area. Breuners used to have a warehouse right across the street from the district office. The city of Oakland wants to purchase the district's Oakport property. That is land that the district owns, a part of which is used for pipe storage west of Highway 880, across from the Oakland Coliseum. The Coliseum wants to buy that for parking and other uses. It is too valuable for warehousing and pipe storage. I forget what the value of the property is, but I believe it is somewhere around five or six million dollars. 303 The district has leased one piece to a large trucking company (Comozzi). Then we have a storage yard for pipe, hydrants, and other material . But the property is too valuable for pipe storage. They can realize a substantial sum of money from the sale. In addition, it is a poor location for storage facilities. At Adeline, with the maintenance people being able to move into what was formerly the headquarters office, a lot of the adjoining property can be vacated of the trailers and parking, and the area can be used for pipe, hydrants, and many other materials that we normally store at Oakport. Furthermore, the advantage of having the storage and all of the other facilities in one area is that it is the most accessible to the freeways. Also, you have all personnel in one location. Materials stored at Adeline are . needed everywhere in the distribution system. Trucks can come in there for material, travel to Richmond, to the South Area Center, or east to Lafayette and Walnut Creek; it's a good central location. Whereas Oakport is accessible to only one freeway, which is very heavily traveled at all times. Lage: But, again, we're talking about public input. McLean: That's right. Lage: Is the public in the neighborhood of Adeline a problem? McLean: Yes. The people in the Adeline area are opposed to a maintenance yard. I believe Nancy Nadel generated this, because she lives in Vest Oakland, and the people there have protested having a maintenance yard at this location. This has been a maintenance area for seventy-odd years; this was the maintenance headquarters of the former East Bay Water Company, and it hasn't changed. All we did was buy the property across the street and build an office building. The maintenance yard, which takes in that entire block between Adeline and Magnolia, has always been used for that purpose. We could have got by very cheaply with a negative declaration. Instead, we have to go through an EIR with the public hearings, which has cost the district more than the negative declaration. Lage: But you don't think the EIR was required by law? McLean: We could have gotten by with a negative declaration. It was not required by law because there already was a maintenance center. That's the same as with Lafayette. Lage: Yes, what happened at Lafayette? * McLean: We had a maintenance center at Lafayette as early as 1929. 304 Lage: Was it near the reservoir? McLean: At the time the Lafayette Reservoir was built, we had a maintenance center north, across the street from the reservoir. That was the headquarters for the division that handled the maintenance of the aqueducts from Lafayette to Indian Slough in Contra Costa County. We had both a maintenance building and a storage building. The headquarters office was near the base of the dam. Now the people in the Lafayette area don't want it at this location. There is a costly lawsuit against the district to determine whether the district, under the Utilities District Act, has to obtain permission from a city in order to build a maintenance facility. Lage: So you wanted to build a new facility on the same ground? McLean: We wanted to build a new facility in the Lafayette water treatment plant area. We have a large available area, and we want to build the maintenance facilities there. That is the most economical location, according to the district's studies, as far as ingress and egress to the service area. The district conducted a series of studies to determine the most feasible location. We studied sites in Danville and Walnut Creek. At present the district has a very small area in the center of Walnut Creek, but that is not large enough for present and future needs . Lage: How did the board line up on that? It is a very different community from the Adeline community. McLean: The board as a whole voted to go ahead with the Lafayette Center, after all the studies and the EIR showed it was the best location. The result was that the city filed a lawsuit against the district to prevent the district from building the maintenance facility. The suit was settled in favor of the city of Lafayette, pending an appeal by the district. The district has been courteous by going to the city, having a public hearing, and meeting with the planning committee. Then we get all these protests from the people. It is costing the district millions of dollars annually just because of these situations. Many years ago, when I first came to the district, we went ahead and built the project. We got the necessary building permit and proceeded with the work without all the cost of EIRs, public hearings, etc. Now, you can say this is good, or it's progress. I sometimes question whether it's really necessary, because the cost of all of this is coming out of the taxpayers' pockets. The EIRs on any one of these projects is costing the district millions of dollars. 305 Lage: Before the EIR requirements, when you were designing and building new facilities, did you take into account the feelings of the neighborhood where you were working? McLean: We always notified the city and the residents in the immediate area. I'll give you a good example. When we built the north and the south interceptors on the wastewater project, we went down Wood Street. We had a wide, deep trench in. The first thing 1 did, when we had the drawings and specifications complete and ready to go to out to bid, was to sit down with the Oakland city engineer, the fire department, and the police department. Those people were concerned about traffic, fire access, and police protection. We held many meetings about their concerns. We learned what they wanted us to provide for crossings, etc, and we provided those facilities. We also notified the people living along Wood Street by sending letters to everyone as to when construction was going to be in progress. We never received any protests. Lage: Did you make an effort to accommodate--? McLean: Absolutely. If someone needed a driveway access, we made provisions for them. Or we told them, if the street was going to be closed on such and such a date, that they should take account of this. We also sent notices to people of street closings and also had people contacting the residents daily if there was anything unusual going on. Costs of the EIR Process Lage: So you think you don't need the EIR process in order to be sensitive? McLean: Well, it seems to me, having seen both conditions, that the environmental impact process has had the result of bringing people into a situation about which they know very little and having them become adversaries. It takes only one or two people to stir up the rest of the people on the situation, and the result is that we have an adversarial situation that creates a lot of problems. We built many large projects where we never had to prepare EIRs or hold public hearings. a McLean: We never had a lawsuit on any one of the large projects, and some of those streets were really torn up. There was no access at all, 306 because we were right in the middle of the street. Having worked in both eras --the non EIR and with the EIR- -maybe the EIR, the public meetings, and the public hearings and all are good. But I seriously question if we haven't gone to the other extreme. It is costing people millions and millions and delaying or stopping many projects that are urgently needed. Lage: It is costing a lot of money. McLean: Yes. The Long Overdue Administration Building in Oakland's Chinatown Lage: Okay, let's talk a little bit about the new administration building, which seems also to have been a bit of a controversy- - the location of the building, and now I understand there's some concern about the costs. McLean: I Have always believed that the district needed a building where everybody could be together. This building is long overdue. First, the building at West Grand and Adeline, which was built in 1952, should have been built large enough for future growth or provisions made to enlarge it in the future. When it was built, it was not large enough to contain the full staff at that time. Also, it was in the wrong location. That area is an industrial area. I don't know why they chose that location. Louis Breuner was president of the board at that time, and the Breuner warehouse was right across the street. Whether this was an influence or not, I don't know. Furthermore, the building is on a concrete pile foundation. That location was an old arm of the San Francisco Bay. The pile foundation is not strong enough to sustain another addition. There is no elevator. It was a very frugal design. All of the furniture and equipment in that building had to be carried up and down flights of stairs, which to ray estimation was stupid. There was not enough space to contain the entire staff. There was no thought of future needs of the district. The minute they moved into that building, it was too small. I was always a strong advocate during my tenure on the board, of having a building located in the center of a transportation network where it was accessible not only by automobile but by mass transit. And the building should be large enough to take care of future expansion. Consequently, I was always a strong advocate for the new building. I was not entirely enthusiastic about the 307 location that was chosen for this new building; I thought we should have gone further uptown, near the Kaiser Center. There was vacant property there, or we could have acquired suitable property. I felt that further uptown was an ideal location, but the board finally settled on the location in Chinatown as a result of the insistence, I think, of Mary Warren and Ken Simmons. They were strong advocates to get in the Chinatown area. Lage: In the redevelopment area? McLean: In the redevelopment area. Also the city of Oakland wanted us down in the redevelopment area, and we got the property from the city of Oakland. That was part of the idea of locating there. Lage: Was that choice itself a controversial one? McLean: Well, not too much. I don't think there was much discussion on it. I had my opinion on it; I don't know how Sandy Skaggs stood on it. My opinion was that we should have been uptown. I think it was a better location, although the transportation situation wasn't as good as it is in the redevelopment area. 4 The redevelopment area is a good area for transportation. Of course, they didn't provide parking space for all the employees' cars. The unfortunate part of it is that there's been a very strong reluctance among a lot of the employees to use public transportation. Whether this transition will take place is hard to say. Personally, if I were working as a staff member there, I think I would ride BART or other public transportation. Lage: Is it close to a BART station? McLean: Oh, it's right across the street from a BART station; it's about a block and a half from the Fourteenth Street BART station. Lage: It's just getting people accustomed to taking it. They weren't really accustomed to taking public transportation at the Adeline site. McLean: I have my office in San Francisco at 580 Market Street, and I'm right near the Montgomery Street BART station. You think I would drive over to San Francisco? I can go to the San Leandro BART station and catch the train, and I'm in my office in San Francisco in thirty minutes . But the trouble is, the people working for the district have become so accustomed to driving their cars and parking in that open area near the Adeline offices that's it's going to take a long period of time to change the habit. The result is that the 308 district has contracted for a shuttle bus at a cost of $140,000 per year to provide transportation for employees from 22nd and Adeline up to the new building. Lage: You mean they're going to park at Adeline and take--? McLean: They're going to park at Adeline and take a shuttle bus up there, and the district is paying for the shuttle bus. Lage: That does seem ludicrous. McLean: It's ludicrous in my estimation. There are key personnel who have district cars, and space has been provided for them. They also provide visitor space, but because of the cost of providing parking space in a building like this, it becomes prohibitive to provide for everybody who works for the district. The result is that a large percentage of the people have to park at 22nd and Adeline and take a shuttle bus to the main office. That will cost the district a substantial sum of money annually, and this is going to continue until they get the people divorced from their automobiles and taking public transportation. Lage: Were there other problems with the new building besides the parking? I think I heard about cost overruns. McLean: Well, there has been a large cost overrun, and I can't tell you why. There were delays, that's one thing. They got into a lot of hazardous material, but I think the city of Oakland is supposed to pay for the removal of the hazardous material under the building. But that delayed the project a lot. Then they had some damage due to the Loma Prieta earthquake. That dislodged some of the panels on the outside of the building and also some windows. They had to do some additional work on those items. The cost overrun I think has been ten or twelve million dollars. What the details on all of them are, I don't know. Regardless of the cost, I think the important issue finally, after sixty-nine years, is that the district has a building which is large enough for all of the staff and all of the people who are connected with the headquarters group. In addition to that, they at least have the communications systems and everything else all together in one place rather than having them scattered all over the country, you might say. In addition to that, there is ample space for expansion in the future --in other words, when the time comes . This building has only nine stories. It was supposed to have twelve stories, and they were going to lease out any vacant areas for office space. I am not sure of the reason, but they finally 309 cut off the three top stories. Whether this was good or not, I would question. I don't think we can predict what the future holds and what might happen in the long run. As you know, there was talk for a long, long time of merging with the Contra Costa County Vater District. I sat on that committee for a long time, and we used to have regular meetings and talks about consolidating with Contra Costa. Whether that would be a good move, we don't know, but it might have been to the advantage of both agencies, because the areas are so contiguous. There might have been a real advantage to consolidate with Contra Costa. Also, at one time there were discussions of Hayward joining the district. Lage: And all this would require even a bigger building. McLean: The day may come when the additional space would be needed. At present, San Francisco now supplies Hayward. Hayward uses about 25 to 40 million gallons a day. Hayward originally was going to come into the district, and then they decided to connect to San Francisco. The day may come when San Francisco is going to reach the limit on their water supply. If that time comes, I doubt they will continue to serve Hayward. At that time there's going to be a real demand for the district to serve them. Lage: It seemed from the minutes that there were people on the board who were opposed to the idea of a new building altogether. Is that right? McLean: Absolutely. Helen Burke, Nancy Nadel, and Jack Hill. Lage: Did they want to stay on Adeline? McLean: Jack Hill and Helen Burke were strongly opposed to a new building. They were very much opposed to it. Lage: What was their thinking? McLean: Well, I don't know. They said we should add to the building at the Adeline site, either build upwards or go outward. When you analyze that building, it was unsuitable to try to expand. Number one, there was no elevator. To get additional area, you would have to triple the capacity of the existing building. And how would you do it? You would have to enlarge horizontally, go out into the lot and build just two stories all the way through. You couldn't increase the height of the present building, because the foundation is not adequate for any additional stories. Furthermore, it's in a very poor location. It's isolated. The transportation is poor; you have no basic transportation to the area except buses. If you expanded horizontally, you would 310 use up parking space, and therefore you isolate employees who drive to work. There might have been a few of them who would take the bus, but there are only one or two buses that serve that area. It was impractical to try to add to the present building and to take care of all the personnel that are needed. The new building consolidates the Oakland business office, the construction group, and those people who were scattered around in buildings in the area. People have never taken into consideration the lost time when they have to travel back and forth to the cafeteria or to a trailer or other building. We have never counted the lost time for people going from one area to another to meet with their supervisor or go to the cafeteria. This has cost the district millions of dollars over the years. Well, it was impossible to expand at the old site, and still there was strong opposition to the new building. Helen Burke never voted for a new building; she was opposed to it, and also Jack Hill. Nancy Nadel was also opposed to it. And as far as criticism about the overruns, I don't know too much about what they were, but we had a competent engineer on the project, and I'm sure all of the overruns have been carefully documented and can be justified, because if they couldn't be justified, why, they wouldn't be paid. This is not at all uncommon in projects, because many times you run into unforeseen difficulties. Foundation conditions are one of the most prevalent problems when it comes to construction work. You can never predict what your foundation conditions are going to be. Lage: So then if the contractor runs into foundation trouble, he's justified in adding on--? McLean: Oh, absolutely. Justified in what we call a change order. These are very common. Also, who knew that we were going to run into a lot of hazardous material at this office building? As I understand it, there had been a cleaning works and perhaps a gasoline station there, and when they commenced excavation for the parking areas, they found hazardous material. All that material had to be cleaned up and removed, and that delayed the general contractor. When a contractor is delayed, particularly if he is held up from proceeding with his work, he has a staff on the job, his office, trailer expense, telephone, overhead, and all of those items that he has to be compensated for. This is beyond his control. The sooner you get it cleaned up, then he can proceed with his work. All of those items create extra costs. 311 Sandv Skaggs as EBMUD Board President Lage: Let me just change gears here for a minute. Give me some idea how you assess the role of Sandy Skaggs and his position as president for so long. McLean: Sandy, to my estimation, was one of the outstanding board presidents that the district ever had. I've always had a great deal of admiration for Sandy. I didn't always agree with him; 1 think there were many times when we could have gone ahead with something, and he felt that, to get a majority of the board, we had to shelve it. But 1 don't recall many such cases. Sandy did an outstanding job; he carried out his board position as president very well, and we needed him. Lage: How did he handle what seems like a bit of animosity and certainly conflict on the board? McLean: Well, there were some clashes. Helen Burke and Sandy clashed many times. That was quite common, and I think Sandy handled it very well. He didn't clash with any of the other members. I think he clashed with Jack Hill on some occasions where there was disagreement, but most of the disagreement was between Helen and Sandy, and a lot of this was over public meetings, night meetings, and similar issues for which she was a great advocate. Helen was great for bringing in the public. I don't know what her background was or the reason for it, but she wanted the public involved in practically everything. Sandy and I disagreed. I've always felt that the more you get the public involved, the more problems you have . Lage: How did Sandy handle moving the meetings along when they got cantankerous? McLean: He would go right ahead with them. As I said earlier, most of our meetings were through by four or five o'clock at the very latest. We'd start promptly at 1:15, and we'd move right through the items very quickly. Usually there wasn't too much debate on the items, and they would go through. Lage: Was there an effort made to get a consensus position, or was the minority--? McLean: As a general rule, we had pretty good consensus. Although there were controversial issues and, as I say, a lot of the controversy we had was between Helen Burke and Sandy. 312 Lage: I noticed there were a lot of charges back and forth of conflict of interest. McLean: Yes. Helen always charged Sandy of conflict of interest because of his relation to the Blackhawk development. Lage: What was his relation? McLean: He had been an attorney for some of those subdivisions in the San Ramon Valley. Helen always used to challenge him on conflict of interest, and he used to challenge Helen with conflict of interest because she worked for EPA [Environmental Protection Agency]; so there was a little controversy between the two of them. I have a great admiration for Sandy. He did an outstanding job. He took us through a period in which the district came out very well, and I don't think there were any issues that weren't solved properly. We accomplished a lot during the twelve years that I was on the board. Lage: How well or how closely did he work with Jerry Gilbert? McLean: He worked very close with Jerry. When I was vice president, we always had a breakfast meeting prior to the regular board meeting, usually at a small restaurant in Lafayette. We would go over all of the items, either the same day or the day before the meeting. Lage: Just you and Sandy? McLean: Sandy, Jerry Gilbert, and I. We'd go over the entire agenda for the meeting. 1 thought these meetings were good. I know that when Mary was vice president, she also attended the meetings. Ken Simmons was vice president, but I don't think he ever attended any of those meetings with Sandy. I attended every one while I was vice president; I was vice president three times while I was on the board. We went over what the issues were, whether there would be any controversy, and how we would handle it. I think this was very helpful, to go over the meetings agenda. In general, we had very little public input. Lage: Little public input on most issues? McLean: That's right. We had very little input on most issues. Oh, once in a while you would have someone appear before the board, but it was generally very short. Very rarely would we have any major controversy. Lage: So we remember the controversial things, but there was a lot that wasn't? 313 McLean: Yes, that's right. I thought Sandy handled meetings very well. I don't think we ever had any real problems as far as the meetings were concerned. The Board's Role in Labor Negotiations^/ McLean: Each time that labor contract negotiations were going on we met with the staff. We met with Jerry Gilbert and with the professional labor negotiators. It is my opinion that it is absolutely wrong for the board to become involved in labor negotiations . Lage : You mean actually the hands-on type of involvement? McLean: The hands-on type, which the present board did. Lage: They met with the--? McLean: Oh, absolutely. They met with the labor union, and I think that is absolutely wrong and should be avoided under all conditions. First, these negotiators are professionals; that is, the people representing the union, particularly the top people with the union who go into these negotiations, are professional people. These things are not new to them, where the board of directors are neophytes when it comes to negotiating with the professionals. The result was that the unions got practically everything they wanted. They got their 3 percent increases for the next three years and also benefits equal to 1.1 percent for the same period. Lage: I wonder why the board got involved this time? McLean: Because the labor unions elected these new people. Lage: Oh, they went out and--? McLean: I understand that the labor people went out and walked the precincts for them and contributed financially to their campaign. Lage : Which members were supported by labor? McLean: Nancy Nadel was supported by the union. Cohen, Flashman, and McKenney were all supported by the unions. That's absolutely wrong. The board is a policy-making board and should not become involved with union personnel; that is a staff Job. We had a hands -off policy. I think the board president should be censured 314 Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: Lage: McLean: for that. They should not have anything to do with the unions; that is not policy, that is getting down into the operations. In the minutes , the previous board seemed concerned with trying to improve relationships with employees. We were always concerned about improving relationships. I was very much in favor of that, and I think all the other board members felt the same. Was there a lot of animosity between management and labor? I think there was. There was some animosity between the top-level management and the unions . The unions made many demands . We had several issues that took place. One was in reference to a supervisor for the laboratory at the wastewater plant. They have three sections down there, as 1 recall, in the biology section of the lab. And no supervisor. Veil, there was a fellow there who was one of the top biologists or chemists, and Ually Bishop wanted to make him the supervisor over the other three units. The union very much opposed that arrangement, because every time you take a person out of the union ranks and make him a supervisor, then he's no longer under union control; he becomes the supervisor. Anytime there was any change to a supervisorial position, the union loses a dues-paying member. Ve had a lot of controversy in reference to this change. The union protested these promotions every time; there were lengthy discussions on it. However, the board went ahead with the staff recommendation, regardless of all the protests by the personnel of both unions. There was animosity between the board and the unions because of that. During the strike [May 1985], whenever we had a closed session on union relations it was only between the professional negotiator, staff, and ourselves; the board never met with the union negotiators, which this present board has done. I think it's absolutely wrong. Also, I see that the BART board is meeting with the unions. This is wrong. Now, what was Jack Hill's role? about Jack Hill. You were going to say something Jack Hill and Helen Burke were in sympathy with the union cause. Whenever we had one of these closed sessions in regard to the progress of contract negotiations, Jack Hill would meet with the presidents of the two unions and tell them everything that went on in the closed sessions. That violated his role as a board member. That was absolutely wrong. As a member of the board, I know the 315 unions never approved my reelection. I appeared before them at each election and spoke to them, but they turned me down every time. Lage: So this was sort of routine, to go to them for an endorsement? McLean: Every time I was up for reelection, they requested that 1 appear before them for their endorsement. I answered their questions, but they never endorsed me. They endorsed my opponent every time, and they lost every time except this last one. The Board's Responsibility to the Public McLean: I have always felt that the board should never be beholden to the unions . A board member is there to serve the people and not the unions. That is the role of the board. 1 was elected by the people. Every one of the board members has been elected by the people. My duty is to the constituents of Ward 7 who elected me. I'm sure all of the board members felt that way. 1 can't answer for them all; I know Sandy and Mary Warren felt the same responsibility. I always believed that. I would not want to be beholden to the unions. 1 felt that my role as a member of the board of directors was to see that the district carried out its function as a public agency --public water agency, public utility- -for the benefit of all the people within the district, to watch over the finances and see that rates were kept reasonable . Any money that was spent was well accounted for. I never at any time ever violated any travel regulations . 1 know that every one of the board members watched the expenses very carefully whenever we went to a meeting. I went back to Washington, D.C., once on business for the district with Sandy Skaggs and Mary Warren. I have gone to some of the waterworks meetings, but every time I went to one of these I was conscious of being a public servant. As such 1 watched my expenditures, my travel expenses. 1 can truthfully say that there wasn't at any time one nickel that wasn't spent on business. I went very few times while I was on the board. You can look at my expense accounts over the years, and they were the lowest of all the board members. I read in the newspaper the other day about some of the AC Transit board members who spent $32,000 on travel during the year. I just can't believe board members spending public money like that. I believe that a member who is elected by the people- - Sandy Skaggs, myself, and every other one of the board members-- 316 has a duty ia to the people who elected him. I hold myself accountable for the expenditures of the district, and my job as a board member was to see that the district was run properly and not extravagantly and that everything was carried out in the most business-like manner possible. Lage: And you felt the board as a whole met that standard? McLean: Yes. 1 felt that Sandy Skaggs and Mary Varren and all of us were very conscious of that. What concerns me very much, though, is that this new board is oriented to the district's unions. 1 read in the board minutes where John Rohan, who's president of the local union, appears before the board and requests various concessions. This is wrong, to my estimation; these requests should come to the staff and not to the board. Lage: Veil, you had union representatives appearing before the board, too. McLean: Well, yes, but if there was a controversy with the union, that was immediately turned over to the staff for a report. The board itself never got into this. We kept our hands completely clean of the union, and this is the way it should be. In other words, these are staff problems. If it were a controversy between staff and the union, let them work it out. It should be worked out by them. The board has nothing to do with that. I see this new board getting into these situations, which they have no business doing. lage: Running the day-to day--. McLean: Absolutely. And this bothers me. I have been reading the minutes of these meetings, and it alarms me, the issues that they're getting into that are staff-related. Boards are policy-making bodies. You have a staff to run the day-by-day operations, and that is their job, not the board's Job. Lage: Now, did Sandy Skaggs as president have to point that out? McLean: Absolutely. Yes, many times. He always had any issue with the union referred to the staff. Lage: It was something that the board had to be reminded of? McLean: Well, I don't think Sandy ever reminded us of it; I think Mary Warren, John Gioia, and I recognized that, and we kept a hands-off policy. I can't say that this was true of Helen Burke and Jack Hill, because they were sympathetic to the unions. 317 The unions were always trying to get the board to listen to their problems and controversies among themselves, staff, and Jerry Gilbert or themselves and Wally Bishop. The union wanted to get the board involved, but Sandy Skaggs would not tolerate it. We'd listen to them, yes, and Sandy would say, "Refer it to Jerry Gilbert for a report." Or to Wally Bishop for a report. And that's the way it should be. The board should not get involved in those things ; because the minute you get into these issues, they bypass the staff, and they come to the board every time. The minute the board begins to take over the problems of the union, you're putting yourself into a staff position and not a board position. The board is a policy-making body, and it should be hands-off on any of these other issues. Lage: That's a good thought to end our discussion of your service on the board of directors. [See following pages for materials relating to Mr. McLean's retirement from the EBMUD Board of Directors.] Transcriber: Rita Bashaw Final Typist: Judy Smith , 3,18 Final Statement of the EBMUD Board ' - f Directors tti January 8, 1991 when the new Board of Directors takes office, a new era will begin. 67 years ago, in 1923, the first Board of Directors of this District went to the Mokeluime River to obtain an adequate supply of high quality water that would serve the East Bay communities through this century. They fought hard in the Courts to obtain the water rights. In 1924 the people voted the bonds to construct Pardee Dam, and the aqueduct to deliver this water to the East Bay. On June 23, 1929 the first Mokeluime water was turned into San Pablo Reservoir. At that time there was less than a 30-day supply remaining in the company's reservoirs. All of the subsequent Boards have carried out the policy of the "Founding Fathers", which was to provide a high quality, low cost water to the District consumers. I am happy and proud to have been both a member of the Engineering Management Staff for 41 yeer:- and a rember of the Board of Director? for 12 years. My 53 year association with the District will leave e legacy of ayjeducts, daiit, filter plants, reservoirs, the waste water treatment plant, the interceptors and outfill sewer. All of these facilities will carry the District into the next century and I am proud to have participated in these accomplishments. During the 1960 's it became apparent that the water supply froru the Kokelumne River would not be sufficient to supply the District's needs beyond the year 2000; a search began for a supplemental supply of water to serve the District well into the 21st century. As a result of this investigation, the American River source was selectee! as meeting the criteria of the Mokelumne. During this period the Bureau of Reclamation was searching for contractors to purchase the- water that would be impounded by the Auburn Darn to be constructed on the north fork of the Anerican River. Accordingly, a contract with the Bureau was signed in 1972 to take this water from the Folsom south canal. After 18 years of litigation, in April of this yearAthe District was finally granted the right to take 150,000 Ac ft, 134 MOD from the American River. I believe it is essential that the necessary facilities be provided to make this supply available to the consumers during this decade, otherwise severe water shortages will occur. The District has been the leader in California in pronoting the use of reclaimed water, private wells for landscape irrigation, drought tolerant plants and other innovative ideas to reduce consumption. However, regardless of the District's conservation efforts, the growth within the District boundaries will soon exceed the historical safe yield of the Mokelumne water rights. (21$ o 00} M.G, Q This is my last meeting as a Board Member and I am proud to say I have never missed a meeting during the 12 years I have held office. To the best of my ability I have carried out the Board's policy at all times to provide and maintain a secure, high quality water for the lowest possible cost to the ratepayers of this District. In closing i want to thank the District for a rewarding and satisfying lifetine career, it has been my pleasure to serve with some of the finest men and wcmen in public service -- the employees past and present -- of the District. Thank you. Approved as to Form & Legality 319 General Counsel RESOLUTION NO. 32419 COMMENDING WALTER R. McLEAN HONORING HIM FOR HIS MANY YEARS OF SERVICE TO THE EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UnLITY DISTRICT Introduced by Director Skaggs; Seconded by Director Simmons WHEREAS Walter R. McLean has reached a unique milestone as the person with the longest cumulative service to EBMUD S3 years; and WHEREAS during more than 40 years as an EBMUD civil engineer, Mr. McLean served this District with dedication in a career spanning the period in which most of the foundation facilities of the District were created. He returned to serve another 12 years as a member of the Board of Directors in times when remarkable innovations were achieved in both water and wastewater; and WHEREAS among the cornerstone facilities bearing his personal engineering contribution are Pardee Dam; the first and third Mokelumne Aqueducts; Upper San Leandro Dam, Reservoir and Filter Plant; Briones Dam, and the Lafayette Tunnel and Lafayette Aqueduct; and WHEREAS during his Board service, Camanche Power Plant and Pardee Power Plant #3 were designed and completed; many improvements in storage, pumping and distribution capacity were carried out to enhance water pressure and firefighting reserves district-wide; ozonation and other technological improvements to water treatment were implemented to reduce the amount and cost of chemicals needed and improve the quality of water served; the OP/NET (Operations Network) system was implemented; and WHEREAS the Water Supply Management Program was adopted by the Board, leading to the on going Water Supply Improvement Projects, helping to assure a healthful and reliable water supply for the future; the American River supply lawsuit was at last resolved in EBMUD's favor; a Computer- Aided Mapping program was put into operation; and a New Administration Building was planned, constructed and soon will be occupied; and WHEREAS at Wastewater, commercial success continues with the CompGro soil amendment produced from recycled sludge; a cogeneration facility supplies half the energy needs of the Wastewater Treatment Plant; an Infiltration/Inflow program is eliminating stormwater overflows through renovation of storm and sanitary sewers in seven communities; the new Oakport Wet Weather Treatment Plant is in operation, new stormwater storage facilities are under construction at the main treatment plant, and recycled wastewater is in use at Galbraith Golf Course in Oakland and at Richmond Golf and Country Club, reflecting the support and continued interest of Mr. McLean in technical innovation; and WHEREAS Mr. McLean, in bis professional career at EBMUD, as an engineering consultant, and with his Board leadership, including three terms as Vice President, has earned the esteem of his peers in the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Public Works Association, East Bay Engineers Club, and his associates and fellow board members, and was awarded lifetime membership in the American Water Works Association; - 1 - 320 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Directors of the EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT hereby expresses its deep gratitude to Mr. McLean for his unprecedented years of outstanding service to the District, and wishes him well. Unanimously ADOPTED this llth day of December, 1990. AYES: Directors Burke, Gioia, McLean, Nadel, Simmons, Warren and President Skaggs, * NOES: None. ABSENT: None. ABSTAIN: None. 1 Sanford M. Skaggs President ATTEST: Paula E. Mai com Secretary A98C.11 -2- 321 Volume 20. Number 25 Public Information Office December 14, 1990 This LOG honors the contributions and aspirations of our four departing directors, in thanks for their guidance and dedication to EBMUD. Walter R. McLean Walt McLean has reached a milestone that perhaps no one will achieve ever again~53 years of service to EBMUD and its customers-first for more than 40 years as a civil engineer, then for an additional 12 years on the Board of Directors. His goal, as an employee and later as a board member, was "to assure a high-quality water supply into the next century. That's why we went to the Sierra for the Mokelumne River water, why we went to the American River." One of the greatest District accomplishments, he feels, was "the conclusion of the American River lawsuit (the decision) that the contract with the Bureau of Reclamation is valid. We're going to need that water before the end of this decade." He has great affection for EBMUD. "I don't know of any place...with such a fine group of people." His satisfaction with his professional life shows as he lists projects he helped to build. "My name is on nearly everything, starting with the first aque duct, Orinda Filter Plant, the third aqueduct and the wastewater plant I worked on Pardee Dam. lam very proud that I was able to play such a role." There were disappointments, of course. "We had studied a new dam at Middle Bar (on the Mokel umne River a few miles above Pardee Dam). The Board turned that down because of pending law suits from Amador County. That was one of the biggest disappointments I ever had." Nevertheless, "relations with the mountain counties are better now. One thing that improved relations was the recreation area at Pardee. Now, they're willing to join (with EBMUD) on groundwater studies." Some projects give special satisfaction. One is the new centralized administration building. "I wish I could say how much it has cost over the years for our offices to be scattered about," he muses. "When I worked on SD- 1 the man in charge was on 16th street (the original downtown offices), the design office was near the Paramount Theatre, and I was above the old meter shop where the cafeteria is now! You can imagine the hours.. .wasted." Describing the more recent scattering from the Adeline Street offices, he says "It's been enor mously inefficient We should have had (the new building) 15 years ago!" McLean, who at 87 is still active as an engineering consultant, has earned the esteem of his peers in the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Public Works Association, East Bay Engineers Club, and his associates and fellow board members at EBMUD, and was awarded lifetime membership in the American Water Works Association. Like the projects that remain as his true monument, Walt McLean is long-lasting, and one of a kind. 322 TAPE GUIDE- -Walter McLean Interview 1: March 26, 1991 tape 1, tape 1, tape 2, tape 2, insert, tape 2, tape 3, tape 3, side b not recorded Interview 2: April 3, 1991 tape 4, side a tape 4, side b tape 5, side a tape 5, side b Interview 3: April 17, 1991 tape 6 tape 6 tape 7 tape 7 tape 8, side a side b side a side b side a tape 8, side b not recorded Interview 4: April 25, 1991 tape 9, side a tape 4, side a insert tape 9, side a resumes tape 9, side b tape 10, side a tape 10, side b 1 11 18 22 30 35 38 53 62 70 72 75 84 93 100 103 107 111 111 119 127 tape 13, side b not recorded Interview 6: May 21, 1991 tape 14, side b insert, tape 16, side a tape 14", side b resumes 131 138 142 144 148 158 167 170 175 182 323 tape 15, side a tape 15, side b Interview 7: June 5, 1991 tape 17, tape 17, tape 18, tape 18 tape 19 side a side b side a side b side a tape 19, side b not recorded Interview 8: August 5, 1991 tape 20, side a tape 20, side b tape 21, side a tape 21, side b Interview 9: August 12, 1991 tape 22 tape 22 tape 23 tape 23 tape 24, side a side b side a side b side a tape 24, side b not recorded Interview 10: August 20, 1991 tape 25, side a tape 25, side b tape 26, side a tape 26, side b not recorded 183 192 195 199 206 212 218 221 229 237 245 255 263 271 279 288 294 302 310 324 INDEX- -Walter R. McLean Aiken, Ralph, 176, 178 Alameda County Central Labor Council, 228 Amador County, California, 247- 248, 281, 290 American River, 282 as a potential water supply, 235, 240, 246-247, 253, 276- 277 American Water Works Association, 170-171 Ames, Art, 225 Anton, Walt, 240 Armour Company, 212-213, 216-217. See also Greyhound Corp. Artukovitch, John, 184-185 Atkinson, Lynn, 72, 79-80 Atkinson Construction Company (Atconco)r 72, 78-80, 86 ' Atkinson, Guy F. , 72, 79, 80 Auburn Dam (proposed), 196, 255, 257 Bailey, Paul, 61 Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), 220-223 Bechtel Corporation, 80, 86, 136, 151-153, 155, 161-162 Berkeley Steel Tank and Pipe Company, 69-70 Bethel Island, California, 208- 212 Bidwell Bar Reservoir (proposed) , 61-62, 64 Bishop, Wally, 4, 239, 253, 314, 317 Bjornson, Blair, 106, 108, 111 Black and Veatch Company, 127, 200 Blanchard, Francis, 149, 191 Blueprint Company (Sacramento) , 27-28 Bonneville Dam, 86 Boulder Dam, 79-80, 84, 101 construction of, 84-85, 92 Brentwood, California water pollution in, 270 Breuner, Louis, 195, 225, 244, 306 Briones Dam, EBMUD, 135-136, 165, 241 storm damage to (October, 1962), 166, 168-169 Briones Reservoir, EBMUD, 2, 4, 7-10 Broderick, California descriptions of, 13, 17, 25 Broughton, Jack, 82 Buckhorn Dam, EBMUD (proposed), 5, 7, 9-10, 227, 235, 246, 255, 276, 282-283 opposition to, 299-301 Burke, Helen, 227-228, 232, 239- 241, 258, 260-261, 266, 268-271, 292-293, 301, 309-312, 314, 316 Burns, Bill, 163 Byllesby, H.M. Company, 38, 44, 61, 63, 67-68, 177. See also Pacific Gas and Electric Company . Calaveras County, California, 248, 290 Caldecott Tunnel, 296 California, future water requirements of, 252-257 California and Oregon Power Company, 46 California Public Utilities Commission, 152 California State Department of Water Quality Control, 130 California State Division of Dam Inspection, 168-169 California State Division of Fish and Game, 42-43, 252 California State Division of Water Resources, 4, 61, 94, 101, 197, 256 California State Highway Commission, 28-35, 69 325 California State Industrial Accident Commission, 82, 84 California State Water Resources Board, 242 California State Water Project, 61-68, 178, 193, 196-197 California aqueduct, 61 origins, 61 Oroville Dam, 61-62 Shasta Dam, 61, 85-86, 92 survey parties, 63-68 California Water Service Company, 138 Camanche Dam, EBMUD, 136, 165 construction of, 153-156 danger of dam failure, 154, 156-157, 159, 160-161 geological problems, 153-155 proposal and planning, 153 Camanche Reservoir, EBMUD, 148- 149, 282, 290-291 Caples Lake "(Twin Lakes) Dam, 37, 48-60, 61 Carnes, Keith, 253 Carrasco, Jorge, 252 Carrington, Bert, 194, 225, 226, 239, 240 Castro Valley, California, early history of, 233 Cen-Vi-Ro Corporation, 205-206 Central Valley Project, 177, 196 Chabot, Anthony, 7 Chabot Reservoir, EBMUD, 7-10, 102-104, 148, 264 civil engineering concrete technology, 77, 84-87, 92 design, sewer interceptors, 278 electrical protection against corrosion, 222-223 filtering devices, 7-8, 108-109 hydraulic technology, in aquaculture, 212-217 pipeline construction techniques, Africa, 219-220 sewage collection systems, 209- 210 slide rules, 143-145 surveying techniques (1920s), 29-31 tunnel construction, 179-181, 221 use of models in planning, 271- 272 video cameras, use in surveying, 209-210 wastewater treatment plants, 209 water well backflow devices , 232-235 see also East Bay Municipal District Utility Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) , 115 Claremont Tunnel, EBMUD, 105, 107, 110 Clean Water Act, 279 Coast Counties Gas and Electric Company, 67 Cobb, Paul, 298 concrete technology, 77, 84-87, 92 Consolidated Western Steel Company, 174-175 construction camps, 1920s conditions in, 54-60, 83, 90- 92, 97-99 descriptions of, 30-35, 74, 83 Contra Costa County Water District proposed merger with EBMUD, 275-277, 309 Contra Costa Sanitary District, 273 Coolidge Dam, 79, 82, 90 Crevelling, Harry, 18-19 Crevelling, May, 18 Crockett Pipeline, EBMUD, 111- 112, 138, 244 Crockett Reservoir, EBMUD, 112 Crowe, Frank, 101 Cutler, Sam, 71, 74, 100, 102 dams construction of, 48-53, 72, 75- 87, 153-156, 158-162, 283, 299-300 failures of, 167-168, 284 326 Danville Pumping Plant, EBMUD, 136, 140 Davis, Arthur P., 73, 87-89, 186- 187, 191, 243-246, 249, 251 Davis Reservoir, 67 Dawson, Artis, 294 DeCosta, Joe, 146-147, 155-156, 172, 181, 240, 245, 251 Diablo Dam, 79 Diemer, Dennis, 239 Dingee Reservoir, 102 Driggs, Ed, 87 Driggs, Denny, 111 Duart Castle (Scotland) , 11-12 Early, Fred Jr. , Construction Company, 179 East Bay Water Company, 105-107, 110, 244, 302-303. See also East Bay Municipal Utility District. East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) Adeline Street maintenance yard, 302-303 administration building, 306- 310 annexations, 244, 266-268 Board of Directors, 194-196, 225-316 passim operations of, 238-240 public relations, 315-317 staff relations, 311-313 bond issues (1958), 146 and California's water supply, 196-198, 227 construction bond practices, 80 contractors, damage assessments, 181-184 contractors, efficiency of, 229-230 contractors, relations with, 121-122, 293, 295-296 environmental issues, 197-198, 232 expansion of, 138-143, 187-188, 246 fishing and recreation, 289-291 labor unions, 230-232, 313-315 Lafayette maintenance yard, 304-305 lawsuits, 175-179 management changes, 187-192 organization of, 93-94 personnel, 87-90, 94-96 affirmative action, 292-295 comparable worth, 297 contractor bids, 297-299 population growth, projected, 137-143 rangers, arming of, 286-288 rate structure, 236-237, 258- 259 recreation areas, 146-147 sewage systems, 123-126, 187- 189, 278-279 Special District One, 123-134, 187-188, 305 construction projects, 130- 133, 305 formation of, 123-126 personnel, 126-128 planning and design, 128-134 survey operations, 62-67 tunnel construction, 5, 179-185 water policies, suburban growth, 268-271, 273-275 water recycling efforts, 262- 265 water services outside district, 266-268 water treatment plants, 1-3, 5 See also individual projects: . Briones Dam and Reservoir; Buckhorn Dam (proposed) ; Camanche Dam and Reservoir; Chabot Reservoir; Claremont Tunnel; Crockett Pipeline and Reservoir; Danville Pumping Plant; Lafayette Aqueduct, Dam, Filter Plant, and Reservoir; Middle Bar Dam (proposed) ; Orinda Filter Plant; Pardee Dam and Reservoir; Pardee Tunnel; Railroad Flats Project (proposed); San Pablo Dam, 327 East Bay Municipal Utility District (cont.) Reservoir, and Tunnel; Sobrante Filter Plant; Temescal Reservoir; Third Mokelumne Aqueduct; Ultimate Mokelumne River Project (proposed); Upper San Leandro Dam, Reservoir, and Tunnel; Walnut Creek Filter Plant and Tunnel; Wildcat Aqueduct in World War II, 115-118, 120- 121 East Bay Regional Parks District, 148, 238, 265, 286, 288 Eastman, Hart, 183-189 Echo Lake Dam, 38-41 Edmonston, A.D. ("Bob"), 36-37, 48, 54, 61, 94, 96, 101, 177-178 El Dorado Canal, 39, 47, 61 El Dorado Hydroelectric Project, 36-37, 44-47, 57 Environmental Defense Fund, 246, 271, 273 environmental impact reports costs of, 305-306 value of, 299-301, 303-305 Feather River, 61-67 Ferris, Tully, 189, 192 filtering devices Hyatt-type filter, 7-8 osmosis plant, 109 rapid-sand filters, 108-109 fluoridation, see water, fluoridation of Folsom South Canal, 2 Foster, Ruth, 294 Fulton, R.F. Company, 200 Gilbert, Jerry, 234, 236, 238, 240-246, 248-251, 261, 264, 294, 312-313, 317 Gioia, John, 293, 316 Goethals, George W. , 89 Gordon, Berney, 162 Grand Coulee Dam, 86, 92 Greeley and Hanson Company, 127 Greeley, Sam, 127. See also Greeley and Hanson Company. Green, Art, 108, 112 Greyhound Corporation, 216, 217. See also Armour Company. Grizzly Valley, 67 Grunsky, C.E., 93-94, 97 Hague, Thaddeus, 87, 107, 147, 189 Hamman, Leroy, 244 Hanna, Frank W. , 87-88, 186-187, 191, 243-244 Hanson, Hugo, 177 Harder, Orin, 149, 156, 163, 191, 247 Harlow, Frank, 74 Harnett, JohnS., 192, 240-241, 244-245, 250-251 Hayward fault, 5, 8 Hercules Powder Company, 112-113 Hill, Jackson, 236, 241, 260, 266, 268, 292-293, 309-322, 314, 316 Hilliard, Jeff, 294 Hitchcock, Ted, 225-226, 240 Hodgkins, Whitey, 106, 111 Honduras, social conditions of, 215, 218 Hoskins, Fred, 36, 61 Hunter, George, 105-106, 108 hydraulic mining, 63, 72 hydroelectric dams, operation of, 44-47, 65, 149-150 Jackson, Don, 294 Jenno, Joe, 177 Johnson, Ham, 74 Kaiser Construction Company, 80, 86-87, 136, 296 Kaiser Steel Corporation, 200-201 Kennedy, Robert C., 87, 126, 187, 190, 245-246 Kettlewell, Bill, 79-80 Kinyon, Carl, 29, 33 Kofman, Kenneth, 241, 293 328 Lafayette Aqueduct, EBMUD, 100- 101, 136, 165 Lafayette Dam, EBMUD, 100-101, 244 Lafayette Filter Plant, EBMUD, 2, 3, 109, 136, 277 Lafayette Reservoir, EBMUD, 8-10, 148, 289, 304 Lafayette Tunnel, EBMUD, 105, 107, 135-136, 164-165 Lappin, Jim, 69, 71 Larkin, Don, 240-241 Lassen County, California description of (1920s), 29-35 Laverty, Gordon, 241 Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), 267-268 Longwell, John S., 69, 71, 73, 87-88, 93-96, 99, 101-102, 111, 117, 149, 177-178, 186-191, 195, 243-246, 249, 251 Los Angeles "Aqueduct, 89, 172 Los Vaqueros Reservoir (proposed) , 276-277 Loughland, George, 37, 48 Luthin, John, 106 Macdonald, E.L., 71-72, 74, 88, 93-97, 164-165 MacLean, Lady Elizabeth, 12 MacLean, Lord Charles, 11-12 MacLean, Sir Lacland, 11-12 Madow, Bob, 298 McFarland, John, 181-182, 187- 192, 240, 243-246, 250-251 McLean, Edward, 13-15 McLean, Edward Theodore, 16, 17 McLean, Sarah Jane Patterson, 17- 27 death, 22 illness, 18-19, 21 marriage and early life, 17 travel to Philippine Islands, 19 work as housekeeper, 20, 27 McNevin, Bill, 194, 224 Middle Bar Project, EBMUD (proposed), 148-153, 195-196, 247-249, 255, 276, 281-283 Miller and Lux Land Corporation, 250 Miller, Mike, 86, 101 Mokelumne Project, EBMUD, 244 Mokelumne River, 1-4, 104-105, 107, 135, 140, 142, 197, 282, 291 Morrison and Knudson Company, 163, 170 Moses, William P., 239-240 Mulholland, William, 89, 167 Municipal Utilities District Act, 231 Munn, James, 87-88, 186 Murdoch, Bob, 132 Nadel, Nancy, 232, 253, 260, 266, 268, 270, 280, 301, 303, 309- 310, 313 Netland, Lars, 71 Newport News Shipbuilding Company, 70 North Reservoir, 114 North Marin Water District, 242- 243 O'Shaughnessey, Michael, 89 Orinda Filter Plant, EBMUD, 2-3, 102, 104, 138, 277 construction of, 104-111 Pacific Gas and Electric Company, 4, 39. 41, 47, 67-68, 149-152, 197, 282. See also H.M. Byllesby Company, Coast Counties Gas and Electric Company, Western States Gas and Electric Company. Paff, Don, 177, 241 Painter, Ben, 61, 64, 66, 177 Pardee Dam, EBMUD, 69, 71, 244, 247-248 construction of, 57, 60, 74-90, 99-100 problems with, 283-284 Pardee Recreation Area, EBMUD, 145-146, 191 Pardee Reservoir, EBMUD, 2, 9, 29, 149-150, 277, 281, 291 329 Pardee Tunnel, EBMUD, 69-71, 99 Pardee, George C. , 88, 194 Patterson, Alex, 19-20, 22 Patterson, George, 22 Paul, Roy, 112 Peripheral Canal (proposed) , 196 , 255 Peterson, Ed, 220 Phelps , Timothy J . , 15 Philippine Islands, 18-19 Pinole Reservoir (proposed) , 276 Pleasant Hill Reservoir, 114-115, 267 prostitution, 56-60 Railroad Flat Project, EBMUD (proposed) , 281 Raines, Harold, 181-182, 249-250 Randall, Craig, 275 Reynolds, Jon Q. , 239-240, 242 Robinson, Howard, 225 Rohan, John? 316 Roosevelt Dam (Arizona) , 87 Root, Darrell, 126, 189-190 Rutledge, Phil, 166 Sacramento, California, 1900- 1920s, 17, 19-28, 35 San Joaquin County, California, 248, 290 San Pablo Filter Plant, 105 San Pablo Reservoir, EBMUD, 1-4, 7, 9-10, 102, 289 collapse of tunnel (1931) , 5-6 Selby Smelting Company, 112 Shasta Dam, 61, 85-86, 92. See also California, State Water Project. Sherman, Roy, 36 Sherman, Margaret Sierra Club, 228 S imraons , Kenne th , 295, 307, 312 Skaggs, Sanford, 229, 231, 239, 241, 248-249, 269, 275, 293, 307, 311-313, 315-316 Smith, Bruce, 268 Smith, Cliff, 111 24, 35 271, 273-274 239, 241, 292- Sobrante Filter Plant, EBMUD, 9, 136 Sons in Retirement (Sirs), 236 Spink, Charles, 177 Standard Oil Company, 111 Stanford, Leland, 15 Steel, Clive, 68 Stephens, William J. , 189 Stokes, Ernie, 83 Stolte Construction Company, 179 surveying practices, 29-31 Swasey, Charles, 15 Taylor, Ed, 106, 108 Tecopa Irrigation District (Kern County, California), 253 Temescal Reservoir, 7-8 Third Molelumne Aqueduct, EBMUD, 170-175 construction of, 174-175 cost -saving innovations in, 170-173 Tibbets, Healy, 133 Trahern, Bill, 71, 74, 100, 106- 107, 115, 147, 171-173, 189 Tri-Valley Sewer Connection, lawsuit in, 271-274 Tronough, Ted, 111 tunnels, construction, drilling technologies in, 179-181 turbidity, water, 2, 3 Tuthill, Louis, 85, 87 Twin Lakes Dam. See Caples Lake Dam. Twohy Brothers and J.F. Shea Company, 69 Ultimate Mokelumne River Project, EBMUD, 141 Union Oil Company, 112 United States Army Corps of Engineers, 115, 130, 222 United States Bureau of Reclamation, 85, 87, 141, 231, 204 United States Environmental Protection Agency, 232, 312 United States Federal Power Commission, 37, 195 330 Upper San Leandro Reservoir, Zeno, James V., Sr. f 225-227 EBMUD, 1-3, 7, 9-10, 102, 104, 264-265, 288, 300 Upper San Leandro Filter Plant, EBMUD, 105 Veatch, Tom, 127. See also Black and Veatch Co . Viviani, Ren<, 4, 264 Wagner, Allan J., 29, 35 Walnut Creek Aqueduct, EBMUD, 135, 165 Walnut Creek Filter Plant, EBMUD, 2-3, 5, 109, 136, 277 Warren, Mary, 229, 231, 261, 269, 280, 293, 307, 312, 315-316 water, fluoridation of, 285-286 water conservation and EBMUD water rate structure, 258-259 and publie relations, 261 and residential development, 257-258, 262 and residential use, 259-261 in agriculture, 253-255, 260 in industry, 256 Way, Ted, 239 Western Pacific Railroad, 63 Western States Gas and Electric Company, 36, 38-39, 41, 44, 54, 67. See also Pacific Gas and Electric Company] Whipple, Ed, 82 Wilbur, Lyman, 87 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, 256 Wildcat Aqueduct, EBMUD, 104 Wittschen, Ted, 249 Woodbridge Irrigation District, 135, 142, 291 Woodruff, Bob, 163 workers, construction projects background of, 59-60, 82-84, 90-92 WPA, 113-115 work place safety, 81-84 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 113-115, 188, 267 Wright, Charles J., 224-226 ANN LAGE B.A., University of California, Berkeley, with major in history, 1963 M.A., University of California, Berkeley, history, 1965 Post-graduate studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1965-66, American history and education; Junior College teaching credential, State of California Chairman, Sierra Club History Committee, 1978-1986; oral history coordinator, 1974-present Interviewer/Editor, Regional Oral History Office, in the fields of conservation and natural resources, land use, university history, California political history, 1976-present. 1 18445 u.c