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, <Mr. McLean displayed his intense interest in current water
policy by beginning his oral history with a discourse on the need for
more water storage — the controversial Buckhorn dam project — in the East
Bay. We then put current issues on hold and delved into the past for the
next several of our ten interview sessions. Occasional interruptions for
phone calls indicated that his interest in history coexists with a
continuing involvement in the district's water supply and storage
concerns .
Mr. McLean was born in 1903 in Sacramento. His father was member of
a prominent San Francisco pioneer family, but after his death in 1907,
McLean's mother struggled alone and with no financial resources to raise
her son. McLean's story of his boyhood- -how he dropped out of school at
age fourteen to work full time, took care of his mother during her
terminal illness, and put his life together after her death in 1921- -is a
compelling piece of social history, as well as an aid in understanding
his subsequent life and career path.
He describes his assignments in the early and mid- twenties for the
California State Highway Commission and H.M. Byllesby Company
(predecessor to Pacific Gas and Electric Company) on survey parties,
investigation teams, and dam construction in the Sierra Nevada and
creates a picture of life in the field for engineering crews and
construction workers. His detailed recollections of work on EBMUD' s
Pardee Dam and the first Mokelumne Aqueduct in the late twenties portray
a bygone era in large dam construction.
iv
In the 1930s and 1940s, Mr. McLean supervised district projects in
the East Bay, including construction of the Orinda Filter Plant and a
network of pipelines for water distribution. From 1945-1952 he was in
charge of investigations and construction of the sewage collection and
treatment facilities that ended the routine discharge of the area's raw
sewage into San Francisco Bay.
In the late fifties and sixties, he participated in planning and
building water facilities to accommodate projected population increases
in the East Bay. As manager of the Special Projects Construction
Division during these years, he oversaw construction of Camanche Dam, the
Third Mokelumne Aqueduct, Briones Dam, the Lafayette Aqueduct and Tunnel,
and the Walnut Creek Tunnel. His oral history recounts significant
advances in construction techniques on these projects, as well as
describing changes in district management policies and personnel during
these years of growth and modernization.
Following his retirement in 1968 at the mandatory age of sixty-five,
Mr. McLean built an active second career as an engineering consultant,
serving as expert witness in lawsuits and advising on a variety of
construction projects, from the BART tunnel in San Francisco to a shrimp
farm in Honduras to a pipeline in Ghana. His consulting work continues
to this day, at age eighty-nine.
In 1979 he was elected to the board of directors of the East Bay
Municipal Water District. In the following twelve years, he brought to
bear on board decisions his engineering expertise, his intensive
knowledge of district facilities, and his firm belief that continued
development of water resources projects is essential to California's
future. In his oral history he speaks candidly and with conviction about
the sometimes heated controversies regarding internal management issues,
annexation decisions, and water supply and storage policies.
Mr. McLean was interviewed at his home in San Leandro on ten
occasions from March to August 1991. The interview transcripts were
lightly edited in this office for clarity and continuity and reviewed by
Mr. McLean, who made some minor changes in wording and a few elaborations
[noted by brackets]. In several instances during the interview, he had
drawn hasty sketches to make clear design features and construction
techniques he was describing. During the editing process he prepared,
and we have included, several drawings to illustrate these sections of
the transcript. Many of Mr. McLean's papers will be placed in the Water
Resources Archive in O'Brien Hall at the University of California,
Berkeley. The tapes of this oral history interview are in The Bancroft
Library.
We are grateful to the East Bay Municipal Utility District for
sponsoring this project. They have recognized the importance of
preserving district history and documenting an important aspect of the
history of water resources development, management, and policy issues in
California.
For the introduction to this volume we want to thank James V. Zeno,
public relations and media consultant who managed Mr. McLean's four
election campaigns for the EBMUD Board of Directors.
The Regional Oral History Office was established in 1954 to record
the lives of persons who have contributed significantly to the history of
California and the West. One of its major areas of investigation has
been the history of California's water resources; a listing of oral
history interviews in this series follows. The office is a division of
The Bancroft Library and is under the direction of Willa K. Baum.
Ann Lage
Interviewer/editor
June 15, 1993
Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
vi
June 1993
CALIFORNIA WATER RESOURCES
The following interviews have been completed by the Regional Oral History
Office, a department of The Bancroft Library. The Office was established to tape
record autobiographical interviews with persons who have contributed significantly
to the development of the West. Transcripts of the interviews, typed, indexed, and
bound, may be purchased at cost for deposit in research libraries.
Single Interview Volumes
Adams, Frank (1875-1967) Irrigation engineer, economist
Irrigation. Reclamation and Water Administration. 1959, 491 pp.
Banks, Harvey (b. 1910) Director, Dept. Water Resources
-California Water Project. 1955-1961. 1967, 82 pp.
Downey, Stephen^W. (1876-1958) Attorney
California Water and Power Attorney. 1957, 316 pp.
Durbrow, William (1886-1958) Manager, irrigation district
Irrigation District Leader. 1958, 213 pp.
Gianelli, William R. (b. 1919) Director, Dept. Water Resources
The California State Department of Water Resources. 1967-1973. 1986, 86 pp.
Harding, Sidney T. (1883-1969) Professor of Irrigation, UC Berkeley
A Life in Western Water Development. 1967, 524 pp.
Jones, Herbert (1880-1970)
California Government and Public Issues. 1958, 318 pp.
Lambert, Charles F. (1887-1959) Land promoter, irrigation district official
Sacramento Valley Irrigation and Land. 1957 376 pp.
Leedom, Sam R. (1896-1971) Newspaperman, water project administrator
California Water Development. 1930-1955. 1967, 83 pp.
Leopold, Luna B. (b. 1915)
Hydrology. Geomorphologv. and Environmental Policy: U.S. Geological Survey. 1950-
1972 and UC Berkeley. 1972-1987. 1993, 309 pp.
Mason, J. Rupert (1886-1959) Municipal bond broker
J. Rupert Mason on Single Tax. Irrigation Districts, and Municipal Bankruptcy.
1958, 372 pp.
vii
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, 330 pp.
Robie, Ronald (b. 1937) Director, Dept. Water Resources
The California State Department of Water Resources. 1975-1983. 1989, 97 pp.
Taylor, Paul S. (1895-1984) Professor of Economics .specialist in reclamation
California Social Scientist. (Three volumes)
Volume I: Education. Field Research, and Family. 1973, 342 pp.
Volumes II and III: California Water and Agricultural Labor. 1975, 519 pp.
Multiple Interview Volumes
California Water Issues. 1950-1966. 1981, 458 pp.
(Goodwin Knight/Edmund G. Brown, Sr. Project)
Interviews with:
Edmund G. Brown, Sr. Attorney general, Governor of California
"The California Water Project: Personal Interest and Involvement in the
Legislation, Public Support, and Construction, 1950-1966."
B. Abbott Goldberg Dep. Attorney General, Dep. Director, Dept. Water Resources
"Water Policy Issues in the Courts, 1950-1966."
Ralph M. Brody. Attorney, manager of Westlands Water District
"Devising Legislation and Building Public Support for the California Water Project,
1950-1960; Brief History of the Westlands Water District."
William E. Warne Director, Dept. of Water Resources
"Administration of the Department of Water Resources, 1961-1966"
Paul R. Bonderson
"Executive Officer, Regional and State Water Pollution and Water Quality Control
Boards, 1950-1966."
Save San Francisco Bay Association. 1961-1986. 1987, 220 pp.
Interviews with:
Barry Bunshoft, Esther Gulick, Catherine Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin.
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. 1964-1973. 1986,
98 pp. (Reagan Era Project)
Interviews with:
Joseph E. Bodovitz, first executive director
Melvin Lane, first chairman
E. Clement Shute, Jr., first legal counsel representing the attorney general.
See also lists of interviews on Land-Use Planning and Sanitary Engineering in
California.
viii
, BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
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PROLOGUE: THOUGHTS DURING A RAINSTORM IN A DROUGHT YEAR
[Interview 1: March 26, 1991 ]##:
[The first interview with Mr. McLean took place in March 1991
during a late -season rainstorm, which he was hopeful would
mitigate the drought conditions. Before turning to historical
matters, he spoke about water supply issues.]
Water Supply and Water Quality
McLean: The water year goes from October 1 to October 1. At the
commencing of the water year, if we come up with 300,000 acre feet
or more, then that's enough to carry us over into a normal year.
It won't eliminate the drought completely, but it will give us a
cushion for next year.
Lage : What if we don't have a normal year next year?
McLean: Well, then, of course, we will have to continue rationing. We're
still in a drought. If they decide to take the American River
water from the delta, that'll fill the local reservoirs. But when
you use American River water out of the delta, you get into a lot
of problems with turbidity and pollutants. That's the reason that
you must put it into San Pablo and Upper San Leandro reservoirs,
because they have filtration plants with sedimentation basins
where you can treat the water from the delta source. You also put
other organic material into the reservoirs, which takes a long
time to eliminate when you return to the Mokelumne source. That's
why the district shouldn't use the delta water if they can get by
without it. The last time we used delta water was during the
drought of '76, '77. It created a real problem. It took four or
five years to really get the reservoirs back to normal with
Mokelumne water.
[Another option would be to construct a treatment plant in
the delta at the source of supply. This would require aeration
1This symbol (#//) indicates that a tape or segment of a tape has begun
or ended. For a guide to the tapes, see end of interview.
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
and large sediments . The plant would have to be large enough to
treat at least 200 mgd (million gallons per day) . This treated
water could then be used at Orinda, Lafayette and the Walnut Creek
filter plants, as well as the San Pablo, San Leandro and Briones
reservoirs.
A treatment plant in the delta would be a very costly project
requiring additional pumping, aeration, sedimentation and probably
odor and taste control. It is much better to take the American
River supply at the present proposed location on the Folsom South
Canal and certainly less expensive, than in the delta.]1
What happens to water quality if you use delta water?
water taste bad?
Does the
No, you get organic material with the turbidity. When you
chlorinate, you create what they call tr ihe lame thane , which is
partly carcinogenic. This is one of the problems you create when
you use delta water and then chlorinate that water because of the
high pollution.
Do we not have to chlorinate the Mokelumne water?
Yes, you have to chlorinate because of public health regulations.
But the Pardee Reservoir water, the water that comes from the
Mokelumne River, has very low turbidity, practically zero, and the
Orinda, Walnut Creek, Lafayette treatment plants have no
sedimentation basins. The Mokelumne water is taken directly into
those plants, and it's just as clear as crystal. The Mokelumne
River water comes from a granitic watershed, and there is very
little erosion. As a result, very little sedimentation comes into
Pardee Reservoir. The water is extremely low in turbidity.
Tell me what turbidity is.
Well, turbidity is muddy water.
I see. Not pathogens?
No, the water is muddy from clays or soil that is in solution,
may occur during storms and in flood waters.
It
Lage: So that means they have sedimentation?
Bracketed paragraphs added by Mr. McLean during editing process,
1/4/93.
McLean: That's right. When you get that in the local reservoirs,
particularly local runoff that comes from streets and hillsides,
it creates turbidity in the reservoir, and that's why we need a
sedimentation basin at those treatment plants. Normally the
Mokelumne water goes through filters directly into the system,
with only a slight amount of chlorination. With the other
reservoirs --San Pablo and Upper San Leandro-- where you have
turbidity, and it has to go through sedimentation basins,
aeration, and the filters before it goes into the system, that
generally requires a little more chlorine than with the Mokelumne
water.
All of the water from the Mokelumne goes through the Walnut
Creek, Lafayette, and Orinda filter plants. The Walnut Creek
plant supplies all of San Ramon, Danville, and Walnut Creek. The
Lafayette plant supplies Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda.
Then the Orinda Filter Plant, which is our largest filter
plant, producing around 200 million gallons a day of water, takes
water directly off the Mokelumne Aqueduct, and that water goes
directly into what we call the "aqueduct zone" --the west side of
the hills. That's the zone that is below elevation three hundred,
and it supplies everything from Richmond to San Leandro and a
small portion of Hayward.
Lage: Now, what do San Pablo and San Leandro reservoirs supply?
McLean: The San Pablo and the Upper San Leandro, as a general rule during
the peak summer, are only brought on-line in just very short
periods of time to make up the excess daily demand in the aqueduct
zone that Orinda can't supply. As a general rule, those plants
really don't produce much water and are used only for make-up
water. San Pablo and San Leandro reservoirs are more costly to
operate because of the chemicals required to treat the water.
Lage: Oh, I see. And do they get Mokelumne water?
McLean: They can get Mokelumne water, but only by means of tunnels from
upper San Leandro and San Pablo reservoirs.
Lage: Is that just local runoff, then?
McLean: That is local runoff plus surplus from the Mokelumne. Water can
be diverted from the Mokelumne supply into both San Pablo and
Upper San Leandro reservoirs. When consumption is low in the
wintertime and the aqueducts are at full gravity flow, 200 mgd,
the district has a pumping plant at Walnut Creek where we can
increase the flow to 325 mgd. But the minute you push the button
at Walnut Creek, you create a "load factor." If you only turn it
on for one minute, you have created a load factor with PG&E
[Pacific Gas and Electric], and you pay that for the entire year.
So you don't want to create this load factor unless you have
to pump all the year. Normally there is no need to do any pumping
for additional water. The three aqueducts will flow by gravity
about 200 million gallons a day. During the wintertime, when
consumption is low- -say 160 mgd or less- -the aqueducts are flowing
at 200 mgd. So during the wintertime, if your demand is down,
then you can put Mokelumne water into Upper San Leandro and into
San Pablo. But you have to be careful, because if you get San
Pablo and Upper San Leandro too full and then have heavy storms
where there's a lot of runoff coming from the local watersheds,
then you spill; you're wasting water. So it's a real balancing
act. You have to do a lot guessing on the weather, etc. We have
also had some lawsuits because of spill from both San Pablo and
San Leandro reservoirs.
Lage: Who are the people who do that guessing?
McLean: Well, that is done by the Water Resources people and operations
section. They are the ones responsible for operating the
reservoirs and treatment plants. They have to be on the alert at
all times. When I was talking to Wally Bishop the other day, they
were putting water into San Pablo, and he told them, "Don't put in
too much water, because we don't want to spill."
Lage: That would be terrible.
McLean: It's really all very interesting. Out at Willow Park in Castro
Valley there's a golf course on San Leandro Creek, and we've had a
law suit with Ren6 Viviani. He accused the district of filling
Upper San Leandro Reservoir with Mokelumne water. Then in 1982
the local runoff from a series of heavy storms flooded him out and
damaged the golf course. Many years ago on San Pablo Creek we had
the same thing. People living along the creek had built terraces
down close to the creek where they had a barbecue area, etc. San
Pablo Reservoir had been filled with Mokelumne water, and then we
got some heavy storms. San Pablo overflowed and washed out a lot
of these improvised areas . The people wanted damages , because
they accused us filling San Pablo with imported water "from the
Mokelumne . "
Lage : How did that come out?
McLean: The district paid some damages. So you have to be careful.
Rationale for Building Buckhorn Reservoir:
of the Aqueducts
Mitigating a Failure
McLean: As I say, it's a balancing act. In other words, when you have
gravity flow, you like to fill the local reservoirs. That's one
reason why the district needs to build Buckhorn Reservoir. We
have Briones Reservoir, which is 567 feet elevation. We have to
pump into that. We pump out of the aqueducts at Orinda and fill
Briones Reservoir, which has a capacity of 63,000 acre feet.
Lage : Do you fill Briones before San Pablo?
McLean: It can be done in combination with San Pablo. The advantage of
Briones Reservoir is that it is high enough in elevation so that
if you have a failure of the aqueducts and have to shut everything
off, then Briones Reservoir can supply the entire distribution
system, not only the Walnut Creek Filter Plant but all the other
facilities both east and west of the hills. Also, that's the only
reservoir high enough to supply Lafayette, Moraga, Walnut Creek,
and the San Ramon Valley- -the area east of the hills.
Lage: Would that be used in the case of an earthquake also?
McLean: Yes, it could be. For instance, the Hayward fault goes through
three of our tunnels: the Upper San Leandro, Claremont, and San
Pablo tunnels. Many years ago, in 1931, we had a failure in the
San Pablo tunnel. We had to go in and clean out the debris, and
it took us a year to clean the tunnel and reline the area where
the break occurred. You need reservoirs that are high enough to
supply both east and west of the hills in case we had a serious
earthquake that severed those three tunnels. Upper San Leandro,
San Pablo, and the main supply that comes in from the Mokelumne
comes through the Claremont tunnel. The Upper San Leandro tunnel
comes through the hills right near the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital,
where the tunnel comes from San Leandro Reservoir and serves the
filter plant, which is Just to the west of the Oak Knoll Hospital.
The San Pablo tunnel comes from the San Pablo Reservoir; the west
portal of it is in El Cerrito.
All of those tunnels are crossed by the Hayward fault. They
were supposed to make a survey of the Claremont tunnel this year.
Back in the sixties, when we did some work in the Claremont
tunnel, we found the fault. When the tunnel was built we located
the Hayward fault and put monuments in the tunnel on each side of
the fault area, as I recall, about twelve or fifteen hundred feet
into the tunnel from the west portal. And we found that the
tunnel west of the fault had moved several inches north. In the
bottom of the tunnel there are two brass monuments each side of
the fault. Originally the tunnel was a tangent from portal to
portal. When we surveyed the tunnel in the 1960s, we found that
it had a true S curve, showing that the west portal of the tunnel
had moved north about seven and a half inches.
\
Lage: But it didn't break?
McLean: No, it ruptured. It ruptured in the fault area. It didn't break,
but it had exposed the reinforcing steel. This area was heavily
reinforced when we built the tunnel. It was a very heavy
reinforcement, and it had exposed the reinforcing steel. The
tunnel itself was still intact. They were going to go in the
tunnel and check the movement again this year. Our measurements
show that the west side of the fault is moving north. This was in
'62, and the tunnel was completed in 1929. That is thirty- three
years, with seven and a half inches movement. [divides thirty-
three years by seven and a half inches] It shows that it's moving
about two hundredths of a foot every year. So it's now been from
1962 to 1991. [does more figuring] You multiply by twenty-nine,
and that would show that it may have moved another 6 1/2 inches if
the movement is uniform. If it has moved a half a foot since
1962, you may have a total movement of a little over a foot. So
far it hasn't severed the tunnel. At San Pablo it actually crushed
the tunnel, because where the failure occurred the tunnel was un-
reinforced concrete. The failure actually crushed the tunnel; the
crown and the roof had fallen in, and the sides were crushed.
San Pablo tunnel was plugged with the debris from the break.
There was no water going through. We noticed this over a period
of several years. The flow had kept decreasing yearly. Finally
we went in to make an inspection. There was a shaft into the
tunnel in Wildcat Creek in the Tilden Regional Park. The shaft
goes down into the tunnel, and we put a hoist in the shaft so we
could get into the tunnel. We tried to get to the break from the
shaft, but the water was so deep that we couldn't get very far.
We were able to get within about a thousand feet of the break. We
finally went in from the west portal, and that took a long time,
because we had to remove the outlet piping and everything.
We did a lot of extra work- -a lot of grouting and repair
work- -while we were there. We spent a year on the repairs to the
tunnel. We worked night and day, with three shifts a day, six
days per week to clean that tunnel out. We lined two hundred feet
with reinforced concrete where the break occurred and grouted
several hundred feet of the original tunnel.
Lage: Let's finish this discussion, and then we have to go back to the
old days. But you were explaining why we need the Buckhorn dam.
Would that be another high elevation dam?
McLean: Yes. See, Buckhorn Dam is designed to be at elevation 760 [feet].
Vater from the Lafayette Aqueduct would be pumped into Buckhorn
Reservoir; that elevation is high enough to serve the area both
east and west of the hills. It would contain 145,000 to 150,000
acre feet of water. With the other two reservoirs, Briones and
Upper San Leandro, that would give us a capacity of over 200,000
acre feet. That amount of storage would be enough, with
conservation, to provide a year's supply. This is in the event of
a complete failure of all of the aqueducts across the delta. You
would have nearly a year's supply of water that could serve both
east and west of the hills by the means of Briones Reservoir and
Buckhorn Reservoir.
Potential Failure of the Tunnels
Lage: What would we do if we had a failure of the tunnels?
McLean: Well, there you have two options. You have Chabot Reservoir,
which is very small, San Leandro and San Pablo Reservoirs --and
Buckhorn, if it is ever built. Chabot, San Pablo, and San Leandro
would take care of the area west of the hills. The area east of
the hills, you'd have to rely upon Briones Reservoir and Buckhorn.
Briones is located east of the tunnel. Buckhorn Reservoir would
supply both east and west of the hills through Chabot Reservoir.
Also, if the aqueducts were intact, water could be put in both
Briones and Buckhorn reservoirs. That could be done. You see,
Chabot is a very small reservoir, but you could take water out of
Chabot, chlorinate it, and then put it into the distribution
system. There was no filtration plant when Chabot was in use;
there were several Hyatt pressure filters for treating the water.
Lake Chabot was built by Anthony Chabot in the 1880s, along with
Temescal Reservoir, to supply the city of Oakland.
The treatment plants at
the Hyatt-type filter. They
about eight feet in diameter
They look like a big boiler,
the top, and the cylinder is
Starting with a large gravel
very small pea gravel at the
sand on top of that. That is
both reservoirs had what was known as
are a pressure filter- -a big cylinder
and about twenty feet in length,
like a big sausage. Water comes in
about half full of gravel and sand.
at the bottom, it gradually goes to a
top, and finally a foot or more of
the filter media. The collection
8
pipes are at the bottom of the gravel. Basically, water comes in
the top and goes out the bottom.
Lage: Goes through the sand and then the layers of gravel?
McLean: Yes. There were ten of these filters at Chabot. At Temescal
there were five or six filters. And at Temescal there was a
filter house on the north side of the dam. The water went out of
a pipe at the base of the dam to the filter plant and into
Oakland. That was in service when the utility district took over
the old East Bay Water Company in 1929.
But to get back to what you asked: what would we do in an
emergency? You'd have to look at the way the reservoirs are
situated. Chabot is not connected by any tunnel to the system,
but there is a pipeline out of Chabot that could be connected very
rapidly to the system. And then we have the pipeline we built to
supply the city of San Francisco with water from Lake Chabot.
H
McLean: In case we had a failure of the tunnels and a complete loss of the
Upper San Leandro, Claremont, and San Pablo tunnels, water from
Chabot- -even though it's at low elevation- -could be put into the
aqueduct zone. You need emergency pumps to serve the entire zone,
because Chabot is at elevation 227, and that serves a large area.
The capacity of Chabot is only 10,350 acre feet, but, water could
be released from upper San Leandro Reservoir into Chabot, and then
Chabot would have to be connected into the distribution system.
That would mean some pipe work. So Chabot could be used in an
emergency.
Now, Briones Reservoir is east of the Hayward fault. Briones
would be used to supply water east of the hills in case of a
failure of the tunnels. If all three tunnels failed, water from
Briones would go through the Lafayette Tunnel, through the
Lafayette Aqueduct, and through the Walnut Creek Tunnel to serve
the area east of the hills. Briones has a capacity of 63,000 acre
feet, and I think Chabot only has a capacity of 4,000 or 5,000.
We also have Lafayette Reservoir, which is very small, 4,250 acre
feet. It is at elevation 449 and could also be used to supply
water east of the hills. These reservoirs would also serve the
distribution system in the event of a failure of the aqueducts in
the delta.
Lage: It sounds like the area east of the hills is better off.
McLean: That's right. That means that in the event of a failure of the
tunnels, that water could go east, and the Chabot water could come
west. That's the advantage of it. And also you could release
water out of Upper San Leandro into Chabot. You have the capacity
of Upper San Leandro, which is about 41,000 acre feet, and Chabot,
which is 10,000; so you have 50 thousand acre feet that could be
available to the local system. Then there is Lafayette and
Briones, which could take care of the area east of the hills.
Lage : How long would the area west of the hills be able to be supplied
with that water?
•
McLean: The mean daily consumption of the district is about 215 mgd, and
the mean annual consumption of the district is about 240,000 acre
feet. That means Chabot and Upper San Leandro supplies would only
last for a short period.
If the aqueducts are in service, there is San Pablo and the
Sobrante Filter Plant. You can take water out of San Pablo
Reservoir through the Sobrante Filter Plant. San Pablo would
supply Sobrante Filter Plant, which is about elevation 300. That
could also supply the aqueduct zone. That's the area west of the
hills. So you would have another 38,000 acre feet. Briones is
60,000 acre feet, San Pablo is around 38,000, Upper San Leandro is
41,000, Lafayette is about 4,000, and Chabot about 10,000. By
going through the Sobrante Filter Plant, you could use San Pablo
Reservoir on the north end of the system, Chabot at the south end
of the system, plus storage in Upper San Leandro. Briones and
Lafayette reservoirs would serve the area east of the hills. The
Sobrante treatment plant is in operation. At Chabot you would
have to make some pipe connections and maybe put in a pumping
plant to serve the aqueduct zone. But that could be done in an
emergency. Briones Reservoir doesn't need anything. Briones
would supply both the Lafayette and Walnut Creek treatment plants.
Lage: Sounds better to live over on the east side.
McLean: Yes. You'd get 63,000 acre feet of water there, and that would
feed directly into the system.
Buckhom as an Emergency Facility
McLean: If you had a complete failure of the aqueducts by flooding of the
islands, then the supply from Pardee Reservoir is cut off
completely, and you'd have to rely upon local storage. The
present capacity, which is about 155,000 acre feet, is only about
one half of a year's supply. This is why you need at least double
that amount of local storage, and this is why Buckhorn Reservoir
10
is needed. The proposed Buckhorn Reservoir, at elevation 760, is
high enough so that it can serve the system both east and west of
the hills.
Lage: So you see it more as an emergency facility in case of a failure
of the aqueducts than as a another way to expand the capacity?
McLean: That's right. Briones would be utilized only in an emergency and
the same with Buckhorn. Buckhorn, because of its high elevation,
you would fill and leave alone. It would have a very small
drainage area, so there would be very little local runoff.
Briones is the same. It has a very small drainage area, so it is
not influenced by rains. They both get some rain water, but it's
not enough to be concerned about flooding. Briones drains into
San Pablo , and Buckhorn would drain into Upper San Leandro .
Altogether there is nearly 200,000 acre feet of standby storage if
Buckhorn is ever built. Buckhorn would have a capacity of 145,000
acre feet and Briones 60,000 acre feet. The reservoirs would
remain full except for evaporation, which may normally be replaced
by local runoff.
The other local reservoirs are used annually to take care of
the peak summer demand. [referring to files] Briones is at
elevation 576, Chabot is at 227, Lafayette is at 449, San Pablo is
at 314, and Upper San Leandro is at 460. I don't think I have the
elevation for the proposed Buckhorn. The elevation of the Walnut
Creek tunnel is 390, and Briones is the only one high enough to
get it through the Walnut Creek tunnel to serve the area over
around San Ramon. That gives us 60,000 acre feet, which is not
very much. That would last maybe six months serving Lafayette,
Orinda, Walnut Creek, Danville, and San Ramon.
Chabot, as I said, is 227 feet. The aqueduct zone, of
course, is around 300. You could get it into the lower elevations
by gravity. But San Pablo will go into the aqueduct zone. Upper
San Leandro , of course , goes in the aqueduct zone . To take care
of the summer demands and emergencies, you need more storage.
This is what we have emphasized. Unfortunately, there has been a
lot of opposition to building Buckhorn Reservoir. They say that
we don't need it. But you can't operate without storage.
11
I FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE IN SACRAMENTO
Scottish Roots: The Maclean ClamNt
Lage: Let's turn now to family history and your own early history.
McLean: Here you are [shows a picture of the chief of the clan, Lord
Charles MacLean] . His son, Sir Lacland Maclean, is now chief of
the clan.
Lage: Duart Castle. And the chief of the clan spelled it Maclean.
McLean: That's correct; that is the correct spelling of our clan. By the
way, I have met personally with him. In fact, all of my family
have been to Duart Castle. Several years ago, my daughter was
over there, then my sons went, and then my wife and I went. We
visited the castle and met the chief of the Maclean clan, Sir
Charles. We've corresponded ever since. The day that I went to
the castle- -well , when we arrived at the hotel where we were
staying on the Isle of Mull, you can look right across the bay,
and there's the castle. When I signed my name "McLean," they
said, "Oh, you are a McLean. And where do you come from?" Well,
we come from the United States, and they said, "Oh, for goodness
sakes!" And they practically rolled out the red carpet for me.
First question they asked, "Are you going to the castle?" And he
looked out the window: "Yes, the chief is there today. The flag
is up." See, that's how they tell whether the chief is in there.
So I drove up to the castle; my wife didn't want to go
because she was a little tired, but I said, "Well, I'll go." So I
drive up to the castle in my little car that I had rented in
England. In going up there, there's a parking area, and then you
go down a gravel path. Alongside this gravel path was a big rose
garden, and here was a fellow in a tweed coat, tweed pants, an old
12
tweed cap, and an old shirt on open to the waist. I said, "By
gosh, that looks like Sir Charles, the chief of the clan." And
here he was with a mower, mowing the grass. I thought, "Maybe if
I speak to him and say 'Hello, Chief!' he'd think I was crazy;
he's probably the gardener." I went on down to the castle, and,
of course, when you go there they take you all through the castle
and show you everything. It was his niece that took me through
the castle. When we got all through, I said, "Where's the Chief?"
And she said, "I think he's up at the rose garden." [chuckles]
So I went back up and introduced myself. He said, "Oh,
Walter, I'm so glad to see you," and he recognized my name. He
said, "Your son and daughter-in-law were here just a couple of
years ago." I said, "That's right." "Oh," he says, "come on
down." So down we go to the family part of the castle. Well, we
sat there talking for two or three hours . They have a book where
you sign your name, and he said, "Of course, you have to sign your
name." He comes with the book and says, "Here was when your son
and daughter-in-law were here." And then he says, "Now, come on,
we're going to go and meet Lady Elizabeth Maclean and have some
little rolls and tea." And here she was, running the tea shop.
They have a tea shop, and she was hostess. We sat down there and
talked for another hour. That was my experience at the castle.
Now my daughter is going back again this year. Unfortunately, the
chief died last year, but his son is now chief of the clan. Of
course, I'm a member of the clan. On my birthday and other
occasions I get a nice note from him.
Lage: He keeps track of people who have come to the castle?
McLean: Yes. Now, there are two clans. There are two clans. One is the
clan of Duart and the other is the clan Lockbruie. The Lockbruie
were apparently cousins or something, and they spell their name
Mclain, where the Duart clan is Maclean. Somewhere along the
line--in coming to America or something else — they dropped the
'a', and it's just signed McLean; that's the way my family always
signed it.
[tape pause]
Mother's Family in Earlv California
Lage: Let's talk about your family coming to California. This takes us
back to the Gold Rush.
13
McLean: Yes. Bruce is sending down the complete data on this. He has it
down exact.
Lage: We'll hold off on that early history, then. Should we start
today, then, with your parents and your birth? Let's do that.
McLean: Yes, we can do that. My mother was a Patterson. My mother, Sarah
Jane, was a Patterson, and my father was a McLean. Both families
came to California early. My grandfather Patterson was born in
Begger, Scotland. They came to Taunton, Massachusetts, where he
married my grandmother, Sarah Dean. They were married in Taunton,
Massachusetts. My mother was born in Taunton, Massachusetts,
which is fairly close to Boston. One of my uncles, 1 believe, was
born in Scotland.
In 1862, Grandpa Patterson came to Sacramento by boat on the
Sacramento River from San Francisco. There was no
transcontinental railroad at that time. He was a master mechanic,
or a machinist, who had learned his trade, 1 guess, as an
apprentice in the shipyards of Glasgow. Apparently he had come to
Massachusetts to work on the early railroads back there, and then
he came to California in 1862 to the machine shops, or the
railroad shops, in Sacramento to work for the Central Pacific
Railroad. He built a home in what we call Broderick [California] .
Now the post office name is Washington, but it used to go by the
name of Broderick. That's over in Yolo County, just across the
river from Sacramento. He built the family home there. When the
transcontinental railroad was completed, my grandmother came by
transcontinental railroad with six children, two girls and four
boys. In fact, it must have taken four or five days, because
railroads were pretty slow in those days. They settled in the
home in Broderick, or in Washington. I was born in that home on
July 16, 1903.
McLean Family History
[The following section was written by Mr. McLean after
consultation with his son Bruce, who is the family historian]
McLean: On my father's side, my great-grandfather, Edward McLean, was born
in 1807 in Hudson, Columbia County, New York, the son of Peter and
Mary McLean. Prior to his fourteenth birthday he moved to New
York City, where he became a member of the Johns Street M. E.
Church. Both of his parents were devout Methodists.
14
In 1830, Edward McLean was married to Elizabeth Ann Lewis,
the daughter of Richard A. Lewis, a well-known and highly
respected merchant in New York City. Edward McLean became a
prominent merchant in New York City, associated with Throckmorton
and Stewart. Apparently he accumulated considerable wealth, as at
one time the family was said to have had a large mansion with five
servants. The New York City directory of 1844-45 shows "Edward
McLean, manufacturing, 375 Broadway," and "Mrs. Edward McLean,
milliner, 375 Broadway." The 1849-50 directory shows "Mrs. Edward
McLean, milliner," at 375 Broadway. Apparently Edward McLean was
then in California.
When the news of the discovery of gold in California reached
New York City in 1949, Edward McLean decided to leave for
California. He was to take with him the most modern French
equipment for crushing the gold-bearing ore. This equipment was
unlike any of the equipment then in use in the California gold
fields. Booking passage on the SS Falcon from New York City to
the Isthmus of Panama, Edward McLean departed in 1849 for Panama,
taking with him the ore-crushing equipment, which he planned to
either sell or lease to the mining companies in California. Upon
arriving at the Isthmus of Panama, where he planned to travel by
muleback to the Pacific side, he learned that the mining equipment
was too large and heavy to be transported across the isthmus by
muleback. So he proceeded across the isthmus while the ore-
crushing equipment continued by boat around the Horn to
California. Edward arrived in San Francisco on February 28, 1849,
on the Pacific Mail SS California, which was the first ship to
arrive in San Francisco Bay following the discovery of gold.
Apparently Edward's wife, Elizabeth, and my grandfather,
Theodore, arrived in San Francisco in 1852. They had crossed the
Isthmus of Panama on muleback. While crossing the isthmus,
Elizabeth contracted yellow fever, from which she really never
recovered. This would lead to her early death at age 59 while
visiting her daughter, Emily Tripp, in Massachusetts on August 28,
1871. Her remains were returned to California by her husband,
Edward. She is buried at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in San Francisco
beside her husband and other members of her family.
Rasmussen's ship arrivals states that Miss A. McLean (Emily
A.), Miss C. McLean (Caroline), and L. McLean (Alfred?) arrived in
San Francisco on April 1, 1852, on the steamer Fremont. They had
traveled by the steamer around the Horn and arrived about two
weeks after their mother and brother, Theodore. Their mother,
Elizabeth, felt that the trip across the isthmus would be too
strenuous and dangerous, so she had insisted that they take the
longer but safer route around the Horn. She put them under the
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15
San Francisco. When they arrived In San Francisco, the local
newspaper remarked about the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Edward
McLean's two beautiful daughters from New York city. Caroline was
nineteen and Emily eighteen when they arrived in San Francisco.
The San Francisco city directory of 1850 shows that Edward
McLean owned a restaurant on Langley Lane. In 1852 the directory
indicates that he owned a boarding house on Front Street. It was
at this house that he and his wife would entertain such notable
persons as Timothy G. Phelps and Leland Stanford. Both men would
become close friends of the McLeans. They also would become close
friends with General Vallejo, the former Mexican governor of
California. The McLean family and the girls would spend many days
at the Vallejo hacienda at Sonoma.
The McLean girls all married prominent California men.
Caroline married William W. Chipman, who was the attorney for the
Peraltas, the owners of a large Spanish grant that covered the
East Bay. William W. Chipman and Gideon Augibach purchased the
peninsula of Alameda from the Peraltas for $14,000. When W. W.
Chipman passed away, Caroline married John W. Dwinelle, a
prominent author, politician, mayor of Oakland, state legislator,
and regent of the University of California. Dwinelle Hall at
UC Berkeley is named after him.
Josephine Amelia married Timothy Guy Phelps. The family home
was at San Carlos, where they had a dairy farm covering hundreds
of acres from San Francisco Bay to the crest of the hills.
Timothy G. Phelps served as a state senator in the 9th, 10th,
llth, and 12th sessions. He also served in the state assembly
during the 8th and 31st sessions. He was a representative for the
State of California in the U.S. Congress from 1861 through 1863.
He was also nominated as the Republican candidate for governor of
California in 1875. He served on the Board of Regents of the
University of California from 1880 until his death on June 11,
1899.
Amanda Amelia married Charles Swasey on December 24, 1858, in
San Francisco. Charles S. Swasey, aged 22, arrived in San
Francisco on February 28, 1852, on SS Comet from his home in
Newburyport, Massachusetts. He spend most of his life in public
service, in the U.S. Mint as assistant cashier and a similar
position in the U.S. Subtreasury. He also served as assistant
cashier of the U.S. Custom House. Charles and Amanda lived most
of their lives in San Francisco, where they celebrated their
fiftieth wedding anniversary on December 24, 1908, with their many
friends and relatives. Charles was a well-known painter, which
was his leisure-time hobby. He has many murals in public
16
buildings as well as pictures which he gave to friends and
relatives.
Emily A. McLean, the second child, born to Edward and
Elizabeth McLean in 1834 in New York City, apparently never came
west to California. She was married to a Mr. Tripp. They were
living in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, when her mother, Elizabeth,
visited her and died on August 28, 1871. Emily Tripp died about
1931 at Fairhaven, Massachusetts.
Virginia Arbella McLean was born in 1848 in New York City,
the seventh child of Elizabeth and Edward McLean. She was married
to Joseph M. Lord on December 25, 1873, in San Francisco. Because
she was so young when her mother and the other McLean girls came
to California, she is not mentioned in the ship's manifest of
arrivals, as the custom in those days was not to show small
children traveling with their parents.
Eugenie Hortense Nannette McLean was the ninth and last child
born to Elizabeth and Edward McLean. She was born in 1859 in San
Francisco, the only one of the children to be born in California.
She was married to Horace Haws, Jr., a prominent attorney in San
Francisco. They lived most of their lives in the Redwood City
area, and their family donated the land upon which the Redwood
Civic Center was built. Howard Haws, Jr., died December 19, 1894,
and Eugenie married John Bernard Schroeder, who was a very wealthy
man. He owned Schroeder 's Cafe at 240 Front Street, San
Francisco, where it is still located today.
My grandfather Edward Theodore McLean was born in New York
City in 1847. He came to San Francisco in 1852 when he was five
years old, and he spent most of his life in that area and the near
vicinity. He was married to Martha J. Harrop from Lippet, Rhode
Island, on December 2, 1867. They had six children: five boys
and a girl, Minnie, the eldest of the family. My father, Walter
Reginald, was born May 14, 1881, in San Francisco. My father was
the fifth child from this marriage.
During my grandfather's lifetime he was employed as a
printer, a clerk, and an inspector at the U.S. appraiser's store.
At the time of the 1906 earthquake he owned a drayage business at
the foot of Market Street. The earthquake destroyed his warehouse
and killed his stock of horses. Following the earthquake, he
moved to Sacramento, where he continued in the drayage business.
He remained only a short time in Sacramento and was back in San
Francisco by 1915, where they lived in the Mission district at
761 17th Street. Upon the death of his sister, Josephine Phelps,
he received the sum of $100,000, and he bought a home and moved to
910 Chula Vista Avenue in Burlingame. Martha, his wife, died of
17
pneumonia on November 19, 1928. While attending the funeral on
November 20, 1928, Edward collapsed, and he died on November 27,
1928. Both are buried at Cypress Lawn in San Francisco.
Parents' Marriage and Father's Early Death
My father, Walter Reginald McLean, was born in San Francisco on
May 14, 1881, the fifth child of Edward T. and Martha J. McLean.
The San Francisco city directory for 1901 shows Walter R. McLean
working as a plumber for a W. C. Clifford at 849 Valencia Street
in San Francisco. On May 26, 1902, Walter married Sarah Jane
Patterson Fiske, the daughter of Robert Patterson of Alameda,
California. My father was twenty-one years old at the time of
their marriage, and my mother was a divorcee aged thirty- three
years.
My mother was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, on August 28,
1869. She came to Sacramento with her mother and brothers after
the transcontinental railroad was completed to California.
Apparently she was married to a Fred Fiske at an early age. He
was much older than my mother, and the marriage only lasted a
short time.
I was born July 16, 1903, in the house that grandfather
Patterson had built in Broderick, California, in 1872. My mother
named me Reginald after my father's middle name. After my father
died, my mother added the name Walter.
My father, after marriage to my mother, became a very
successful plumbing contractor, owning both a business on 4th and
J streets in Sacramento and in Dunsmuir, Siskiyou County,
California. My father had the plumbing contract for the first
buildings at the University of California at Davis. It was while
he was working on this job that he fell from a scaffolding and was
seriously injured. While being treated for his injuries, it was
discovered that he had spinal meningitis. At that time it was
terminal, and he died on December 25, 1907. I was four years old
at that time.
Because of the strong religious beliefs of my father's
family, the difference in the age between my father and my mother,
and she being a divorcee, we were never welcomed into the family.
Up to the time that my mother became seriously ill in 1920, we
religiously made the trip each year from Sacramento to San
Francisco to visit our relatives. We would visit with Uncle Ed
18
and Aunt Annie McLean, see my grandfather and grandmother for a
short time, and be told by the others that they would be out of
town. Uncle Robert and Uncle Clarence both had children my age,
but during the many years that my mother and 1 went to visit, 1
never saw one of my cousins. I never met Uncle Robert's or Uncle
Clarence's wives during their lifetime. After my grandparents
died, Uncle Robert McLean was the executor of their estate. I was
an heir through my father, and at that time I got to see Uncle
Robert .
[end of written section]
Mother's Work and Terminal Illness^
Lage: You were the only child?
McLean: That's right. My mother was a housekeeper, didn't have any
skills. From then on she worked as a housekeeper. She never
married again. The only time she came close to getting married
was apparently through correspondence. She'd never met the man,
and I can't even remember his name, but she had a proposal of
marriage from a very wealthy man in the Philippine Islands. It
was of course frowned on by my family for her to marry someone who
had just corresponded by pictures. But it happened that very
close friends of ours, Harry and May Crevelling--he had gone to
the Philippines as a superintendent for the government on the
building of the fortifications in the Corregidor Islands. They
had gone to the Philippines sometime around 1909 or 1910. These
friends of ours- -I always called them aunt and uncle, but they
were not really related- -someway or other had become acquainted
with this very wealthy landowner, I guess a millionaire.
Lage: Was he an American who settled there?
McLean: He was American, and he had investments --large holdings and
everything—over there. He was unmarried. My mother was at that
time in her late thirties. He sent money for my mother and me to
come over, and they were to be married.
Lage : That was quite an adventure .
McLean: Yes, it was. We went to the Philippines. We left here, as I
recall, on the first of August of 1912 and went over on a Japanese
boat; it was known as Chyo Maru. It took us thirty days to get
over there. We stopped at Honolulu, Nagasaki, Kobe, Shanghai, and
19
Hong Kong; we stayed two or three days in Hong Kong. Then we took
a smaller boat to the Philippines. When we got to the
Philippines, this man whom my mother was to marry had been in a
very, very serious automobile accident, and he was paralyzed and
crippled; he was completely paralyzed.
In the meantime --it was very interesting, because they were
to be married shortly after we had arrived- -my mother had ordered
the wedding dress from a Philippine tailor. My family still has
that wedding dress. She had ordered the dress to be made by a
tailor over there so that she'd have it when we got there, and
they were to be married immediately. Well, when we got there,
this lady- -I call her my aunt, Aunt May—broke the news to my
mother that this man was hopelessly crippled. Apparently she had
visited him, and he was under very intensive care. He would never
be physically able to get around or anything else. Of course, my
mother was broken-hearted for all this to happen.
Some way or other, why, they finally decided to call off the
wedding. So there she was with all the new clothes and the new
wedding gown and everything else. She was devastated. There was
a small settlement made; I don't know what it was, but my mother
did receive, I know, enough money to get back to the United
States. He had paid for our passage over, and we had looked
forward to living in the Philippines for many years to come. So
there she was, left with nothing, you might say.
We left the Philippines sometime along in early November in
1912, because we had Thanksgiving aboard the ship. We came back
on the transport Logan; it was a U.S.S. transport ship. Harry
Crevelling was working for the government and was able to get
passage for my mother and me back to San Francisco by means of
this transport. We arrived sometime around the first of December.
My mother was in kind of a difficult position, because she'd gone
to the Philippines with the intention of marrying, and now she had
to start all over again.
Before we went to the Philippines she had worked for my uncle
Alex Patterson, who owned a couple of butcher shops in
Sacramento- -had a big butcher shop in Oak Park. He had lost his
wife a year or so before and had one child, a boy, the same as my
mother. Apparently, he had talked my mother into keeping house
for him. He had a large house in Oak Park, and we lived there.
This was a large enough house that my mother took in room- and -
boarders, which was quite common in those days. I think we had
two or three who lived in this house. It was a big house on a big
piece of property.
20
We had a barn, and he used to keep horses. In those days,
the delivery of meat and everything was by horse and cart, or
really a horse and wagon; it was kind of a little butcher wagon.
We had a hired man who used to come every day and take care of the
yard, milk the cow, take care of the horses when the horses had to
be taken care of, put hay in the barn, and everything else. I
know that there was a surplus of milk, because I had a little milk
delivery route. I had a little wagon that I would pull around.
My mother used to put the surplus milk in a little bucket that
lard came in; it would hold about a half gallon of milk. I used
to deliver maybe a half dozen of those around the neighborhood at
five cents for each one of these buckets full of milk. We lived
there until we went to the Philippines.
Lage: Was that a fairly comfortable life?
McLean: Oh, yes. That was very good. After we came back from the
Philippines, my mother went to work for a Mr. Hill. He had two
children at that time, Virginia and Herbert. Herbert was the
eldest, and Virginia was in my class at school. My mother worked
for Mr. Hill for, oh, two or three years.
Lage : As a housekeeper?
McLean: Yes, as a housekeeper. But we didn't live with them. At that
time my mother was renting a small place where she and I lived.
She used to walk up there to the house, which was just a short
distance. And then I used to have dinner with them at night.
We'd have breakfast at home, and she'd go up there and make the
beds, do the washing, clean the house, and fix dinner for Mr. Hill
and the two children. I would go up and have dinner with them at
night. After she finished the dishes and everything, why, we'd go
home to our own place .
Mr. Hill finally married—and this must have been about
1919 --and they moved from there to another house. My mother then
worked as a saleslady for women's undergarments. It was called,
as I remember, the Leona Garment Company, and I think they were
located back East. She used to have a kind of one-piece garment.
It served as a brassiere, underskirt, and panties, and I think
they called it a three-piece. She developed a little business on
that.
Lage: Did she go to people's homes, or did she have a little store?
McLean: She'd go to people's homes and sell them directly. She had a
fairly wealthy clientele; they'd buy three or four of these at one
time.
21
Lage: Did she enjoy this kind of work?
McLean: Yes, she enjoyed it because it gave her more time at home. During
this period of time, when she used to carry one of these satchels
around with her, with her garments- -this must have been about late
1919 or early 1920- -she began complaining about a pain in her
side. I don't think she had, to my knowledge, ever been to a
doctor, because she was always very healthy, all during her life.
But I finally talked her into going to a Dr. Wells.
Lage: How old were you about this time?
McLean: Well, I guess I was sixteen. I was working, because I quit going
to school when I was fourteen. I happened to know Dr. Wells
because I was classmates with his sons in school, and they lived
just a short distance from us. She finally consented to go and
see Dr. Wells. Well, Dr. Wells told me that my mother apparently
had a very serious illness, and he sent her to a Dr. June Harris
downtown. I went down with her; I took her down there. And she
was diagnosed as having cancer of the uterus at that time. While
my mother was in a room putting on her clothes, the doctor said,
"Walter, your mother is not going to live very long." He said,
"You'd just as well steel yourself to this, because she could last
two or three months, or she could last longer than that. But
you're going to have to understand that she can no longer work,
and she's going to have to go to the hospital quite frequently."
Lage: Did he tell her this as well?
McLean: No, no. She was never told.
Lage: Oh, my goodness! That's an interesting way of handling that.
McLean: Well, in those days, I guess you didn't do that. She was never
told, and she always believed that she would be well.
Lage: So you had to keep up her spirits?
McLean: Yes, that's right.
Lage: That must have been awfully hard as a sixteen year-old.
McLean: Well, I'll tell you, it was tough, believe it or not.
Lage: Not just caring for her, but being the emotional support.
McLean: She was home for a while; I cared for her for a while at home.
Then she used to go down to my cousin's in Vallejo. She would go
down there, and she'd stay for maybe a week or a couple of weeks,
22
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
or something like that. My uncle Alex had an automobile, and we'd
take her down in the automobile, and then we'd go down and get
her. But she really started to go downhill, and in the last five
months or so, why, I finally had to put her in the hospital,
because I couldn't care for her any longer, and there was no way
that I could get any help. Well, 1 did; before she had to go to
the hospital, I did. In fact, it was a girl that I later married.
I got her to come over and clean house and be there with my
mother .
While you were working?
While I was working. But finally she got to the point where she
just had to have care constantly, and I put her in the White
Hospital in Sacramento. I forget what it was, but it might have
been fifty or seventy- five dollars a week. She was in the
hospital, I guess, for two or three months before she finally
passed away, and I had to borrow money from my Uncle George, my
mother's brother; I borrowed two hundred dollars from him to pay
hospital bills and so on and so forth, which I had to pay weekly.
Were they very well off, any of these relatives?
Well, Uncle Alex was. The ones in Oakland were very well off.
But you didn't have a close enough tie to get some financial help?
Even my grandparents and my aunts and uncles here in San Francisco
really never accepted my mother because, going back to the old
Presbyterian days of the church, they were very much against my
father marrying a divorcee. That was a stigma in those days.
Although we used to visit them once a year, and this is one duty
we had that my mother always insisted on- -that we come and see my
grandparents and the other relatives.
Even after your father died?
After my father died, yes. We would make the pilgrimage
[chuckles], if you want to call it that, to San Francisco,
down by train- -
Come
McLean: We would stay with Uncle Ed and Aunt Annie. Now, Uncle Ed and
Aunt Annie were much more friendly to my mother and me than the
rest of the family.
Lage: Was Ed your father's brother?
23
McLean: He was my father's brother, yes. He was a painting contractor;
they were all in the contracting business. Uncle Robert was a
general contractor; he always used to buy Pierce Arrow
automobiles. His wife was Catholic.
Lage: That probably wasn't looked upon too favorably, either.
McLean: Do you know that all during my life I never met her? She refused
to see my mother or me. Uncle Robert later became very, very
friendly to me, but my mother had died by that time. Every time
we would come down and try to see Uncle Robert and Aunt- -I can't
remember her name --they always had an excuse, that they were going
out or she had some other engagement, something like that. And
for my entire life, I never met her.
Lage: I would think that your father's family wouldn't have accepted her
because she was Catholic. Did that happen at all?
McLean: No, apparently it did not. My grandparents were very strict
Presbyterians. But they did accept me as the offspring of their
son, and they did accept my mother. We'd come and see them, and
we'd come and see Uncle Clarence and his wife, and Uncle Ed; we'd
always stay with Uncle Ed. Ue'd come down and stay for two or
three days and try to see all of them. But Uncle Robert and his
wife, why--. Even after my mother died, none of them attended the
funeral. The only ones who attended the funeral were my mother's
folks , the Pattersons .
Lage: Did you write to them during the period of her illness, or did you
kind of lose touch?
McLean: No, no. I often thought afterwards about the struggle I'd had,
and how I had to borrow money from Uncle George to keep my mother
in the hospital and all of that. And then I had bills that had to
be paid after she died, but I went to the bank and borrowed money.
1 went to what was then the American Trust Company; it's now Wells
Fargo. I went in there as a youngster of seventeen. I said,
"I've just got to have money, because I'm not making enough money
to pay for expenses." By gosh if the manager of the bank didn't
give me a note , and it took me two or three years to pay off that
money .
Lage: Do you know what he considered when he gave you that loan?
McLean: I don't know what he looked at, except just my face, I guess, and
my honesty. I had to borrow after my mother passed away; why,
there were bills and everything else. I didn't want to go back to
Uncle George, because I had already borrowed two hundred dollars
from him. Uncle Alex never offered, and had a big butcher
24
business and slaughterhouse,
me--.
None of them of ever offered to give
This is how I put my life together.
Lage: Did you have any bitterness about the fact that you had these --?
McLean: No, no, no, I didn't. No. I made all the funeral--. My mother
had a life insurance policy, one of these policies that I don't
think you see anymore, where the agent used to come around every
week and collect fifty cents or a dollar, or something like that.
I think my mother had an insurance policy of --it couldn't have
been more than five hundred dollars. Of course, that was quite a
bit. It was enough to pay most of the funeral expenses. She was
buried where my father is. My grandparents bought a big family
plot where all the children could be placed when they died. In
fact, I was talking to my cousin the other day about it. He was
going to go up and get information from the headstones for the
Patterson family; it was a big city cemetery in Sacramento. This
was Grandpa Patterson, and he bought this big family plot, and my
mother and father and many of the family are all buried there .
I sold most of the furniture for fifty dollars, and I went to
live with people by the name of Jacksons. They had a boy just
about my age .
Lage : You boarded with them?
McLean: I boarded and roomed with them. The boy and I, George, shared a
bed together. Fact is, his father had made a large bedroom
downstairs. It was a two-story house, a basement and then the
upper story. It was a big, high basement, and he fixed a large
room down there. Of course, in those days we didn't have a
telephone or radio or anything else, you know. We shared this
room together. I lived with them until I was married to Margaret
Sherman.
Lage: How was your mental outlook? Did this adversity get you down?
McLean: No. It didn't bother me in the least. I was very much interested
in working and, as I said, I was very much interested in going to
school . This was one of the things that bugged me ; I wanted to
get more education.
25
Recollections of Youth and Family in Sacramento
Lage: Tell me a little bit more about what your mother was like before
her illness.
McLean: She was a very wonderful, caring person. She thought of my
welfare constantly. Gosh, she just was one of the finest persons
that you would want for a mother. She never forgot my father.
This is one thing I always remember. Every Sunday we took the
street car down to the cemetery. In those days in Sacramento you
lived near a street car. We would get on the street car and go
with a bouquet of roses to put on my father's grave. This rented
house that we lived in had lots of roses. Of course, roses are
very common in Sacramento. This was one of the things that I had
to do- -take care of the lawns. There were big lawns, and, my
gosh, instead of being able to get out and play with the rest of
the kids, I had to cut the lawns when 1 was going to school and
when I was working, and in those days we worked until Saturday
noontime .
Lage: So you didn't have much free time?
McLean: I didn't have much time, and I had to take care of the lawns.
Then there were two big palm trees in the front of the house that
I had to cut. There were roses all around this house. Of course
roses bloom all summer in Sacramento. Every Sunday, right on the
dot at about nine o'clock, my mother got up and got all dressed
up, and I got dressed up, believe it or not- -necktie and
everything else. And she, with her bunch of roses, went to my
father's grave and put a bunch a roses on the grave.
Lage: Did she talk to you about your father?
McLean: Not very much, no. Not very much, so I knew very little about
him. From the cemetery we would go over to the old house in
Washington- -or Broderick- -where my Uncle John and Aunt Lizzie were
living, and we would have Sunday dinner. We'd walk across the
bridge, take the streetcar down to where it stopped, near the
Southern Pacific station, then walk across the bridge and over to
the old home and have Sunday dinner. And then walk back again,
take the street car, and go home. This happened every Sunday of
my life while my mother was alive and before she went to the
hospital.
Lage: You had a real routine. You really didn't have free time.
26
McLean: Now, we never went to church, but she was very religious. In
other words, Sunday was a day of Sabbath, and you recognized that;
you didn't play cards, you didn't do this, and you didn't do that.
Lage: But you didn't go to church? Did she say why she didn't go to
church?
McLean: I did go to Sunday school. And in going to Sunday school I got
into a Boy Scout troop that was run by the minister of the
Methodist church in Oak Park. But going to Sunday school didn't
keep me from going with my mother to the cemetery every Sunday.
After I got out of Sunday school, which was about eleven o'clock
in the morning- -of course I was all dressed up, and she was all
dressed up in her finery and every thing- -off to the cemetery we
would go with a bunch of roses or a bunch of flowers .
Lage: Did you accept this as a ritual?
McLean: Yes, I accepted it. I'll never forget, because Sunday morning was
a special breakfast. You'll laugh at this, but baked beans was a
special Sunday morning breakfast. We'd have a big dish of baked
beans, or we'd have a piece of salmon. My Uncle John used to be
both a fisherman and a market hunter. They used to catch salmon
in the Sacramento River; they kept nets in the Sacramento River.
In those days they couldn't sell what they called the salmon
bellies; that's the piece that's the sides of the salmon. They'd
cut these off in big slabs, and my mother used to salt them down
in a crock. This would keep indefinitely, as long as it was kept
down under the salt water. So once in a while, when we didn't
have the baked beans, she'd pull out a chunk of this salmon belly
and wash it in fresh water, steam it for Sunday morning breakfast,
and we'd have that with a cream and egg sauce. That would be
Sunday morning breakfast, with toast and the creamed salmon with
egg sauce. So there were two Sunday morning breakfasts. We'd
either have baked beans, or we'd have salmon.
27
II ON-THE-JOB TRAINING: FROM DELIVERY BOY TO ENGINEER. 1915-1924
Dropping Out of School in Seventh Grade to Support Family
Lage : Now, you left school in seventh grade. Was that because you
needed more money?
McLean: That's right, because my mother wasn't making enough money.
Lage: Even before she was ill?
McLean: That's right. She wasn't making enough money to pay our rent and
our food and buy clothes and everything else. Of course, I was
growing up in those days. I remember paying fifty dollars for an
overcoat one time.
Lage: That seems incredibly expensive!
McLean: Yes, and I had that coat for years, I can remember. While I was
going to school, there was an Italian shoemaker in Oak Park. In
those days if somebody had a pair of shoes to be fixed, a delivery
boy would pick them up and take them to the shoemaker, and then
he'd deliver them again. That was the standard way of doing
things. So I became his delivery boy. I got to use a bicycle,
which was a big deal in those days. The bicycle had a little
basket on the front and a little basket on the back. He'd give me
the address, and I'd ride around to the house, pick up the shoes,
and bring them in to be fixed. When I got out of school at three
or three -thirty in the afternoon, I'd go over to the shoemaker and
get the bicycle, deliver the shoes, and maybe pick up a pair to be
fixed. I did that for, oh, two or three years.
Then one summer during school vacation I got the opportunity
to go to work for the Blueprint Company in Sacramento. For that I
28
was paid the whole sum of five dollars a week. I'd get a gold
five dollar piece, and that was for a week's work.
Lage: Was that pretty good money?
McLean: Oh, that was good money in those days, you know. They'd always
give it to me on Saturdays. Well, that would allow me to go to
the shows and do everything else that I wanted to do. Then when
the war came along [World War I], why, these different men went
off to war, and they closed the Blueprint Company. This is when I
went to work for the State Highway Commission.
Lage: Was this full-time employment?
McLean: Yes, that was full time.
Lage: There was no compunction against hiring someone as young as you?
McLean: No.
Lage: No laws against dropping out of school?
McLean: No, there were no laws against it. I think I was fourteen years
old, something like that.
Lage : Did your mother encourage you or hope that you could go back to
school at some time?
McLean: I don't think it ever became a subject. But I felt the lack of
it. As soon as I could go to» night school--! think I spent half
my life going to night school.
Lage: Was that after your mother died?
McLean: That was after my mother died, yes, at the old high school at 16th
and J .
With the State Highway Commission. 1917-1923
McLean: My mother died in '21, and I was working for the state highway
since 1917, when I was fourteen years old.
Lage: Had your job changed from delivery boy?
29
McLean: Yes, I got into doing a little different type of work there. As I
was telling you earlier, after my mother died, Allen [J.] Wagner
kind of took me under his care .
Lage: Now, tell about Allen Wagner, because we didn't talk about him on
the tape. What was his position?
McLean: He was the office engineer for the State Highway Commission, and I
was directly under him. When my mother died in March of 1921,
Allen said that 1 should get out and learn a little more about
engineering. Of course, I'd been in a room where they were all
engineers, and I saw a lot of drafting going on. The fact is, I
got so that I was doing a little bit of drafting myself.
Lage: Did they train you little?
McLean: They were training me. They were training me to index and do a
lot of other things. Allen took me under his wing and encouraged
me to get into this and also encouraged me to go to night school
and get mathematics.
1921 Survey Party in Lassen County
McLean: When my mother died in '21, Allen decided that I should go out in
the field party, survey party, and that's when I went to Lassen
County with a survey party. That was in April of 1921.
Lage: So this would have been surveying for a highway that was under
construction?
McLean: Yes, and we were also surveying for a location for a new highway
from Red Bluff via Susanville to the Nevada state line, over the
Fredonyer Pass and down through Susanville to a place by the name
of Doyle, which was on the Nevada state line. I spent the entire
summer there.
Lage: What kind of work did they have you doing?
McLean: I started out as what we called a stake puncher. [chuckles] Then
it finally got so I was rodman on the level crew, under a fellow
by the name of Carl Kinyon. Carl was the chief of the level
party, and I was rodman on the level party. Carl Kinyon later
worked for me on Pardee Dam and in Oakland.
Lage: You're going to have to tell me what rodman on the level party is.
30
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
As rodman, you hold a rod. You take the profiles or the cross
sections for road surfaces. You have a rod that is six and one-
half feet, and when you extend it, it goes up to thirteen feet or
so- -what they call a level rod. This is how you take profiles and
cross sections of what the topography of the road is going to be.
Were you a young person who was very good at doing what he was
told?
Oh , yes .
Or were you the sort who asked a lot of questions?
remember?
What do you
Well, I was there to learn. And, of course, I wanted to learn all
I could about it and asked questions. I got so that I knew how
they put the notes in the field books. We had a fellow in the
office who would plot all this up on drawings. In those days
everybody would participate in reading the notes, or what you call
reducing notes. In the field you just take the notes and write
them down in the field book. Then you have to convert those to
elevation, and we used to do this at night or on weekends. The
field books would be passed around to different ones that were
working on the crew, and we would reduce the notes. I got so that
I knew how to take field notes and how to reduce them. I also
learned to plot the notes on paper, and then even to how to work
out what we called the traverses from the survey notes . I got so
that I could do all that.
Life in Construction Camps: Tents, Meals, Baths, Dances)1///
Lage: Tell me about your living and working conditions during this
summer in Lassen County.
McLean: Our first camp was at a construction site at a place known as
Devil's Corral on the Susan River. That was near the Fredonyer
Pass, on the road between Red Bluff and Susanville. We had a
large party there. The chief of party was a fellow by the name of
Mr. Sites. I think we had fourteen men altogether on the party.
We stayed at a large construction camp, what they called a day-
labor camp at that time, where a lot of the work was being done by
the State Highway Commission itself. They had some trucks from
World War I, and they had a large mess hall. We stayed at that
camp for probably about a month and a half or two months.
31
After we had finished the work from Devil's Corral down to a
distance of about four or five miles above Susanville, we moved
our camp down to an orchard on the east side of Susanville. Then
we set up our own camp.
Lage: With just your crew?
McLean: Yes. We had a cook, a lady by the name of Mrs. Beaver. She did
the cooking for us. We had a big cook tent, and we all ate in the
cook tent. The chief of party, Mr. Sites --his wife stayed with
him, and then we had about four other tents for the rest of the
party and one tent for an office. We camped there, I guess, for
another couple of months, until we had worked down the valley,
going down to Doyle.
The next camp we had was at Janesville, and there we camped
in some open ground to the west of the town. From that point we
surveyed down to the town of Doyle , which is supposed to be right
close to the Nevada line. That's where we ended our work for that
year. It was late in the fall; the weather was getting pretty
nasty, and we'd had snow two or three times. So we disbanded the
party, and I was sent back to Sacramento to work in the main
office that winter.
Lage: What was living in these camps like?
McLean: Oh, it was pretty primitive. Each one of us, of course, had a
cot, and there were three of us to a tent. The tents were about
twelve by eighteen, twelve by twenty, something like that. In one
corner we had a big stove. That was to keep us warm, because it
used to get pretty cold up there.
Lage: Were you on a tent platform, or you were on the ground?
McLean: At the camp at Devil's Corral we had wooden platforms. At the
camps at Susanville and down at Janesville, as I recall, we just
had dirt floors; we didn't have any planks. And we had to do our
own moving. When it came time to move camp, why, we would all
pitch in. Everyone would pitch in. We had a big truck that we
used to travel in, and we piled everything in there. Of course,
the first thing that we erected would be the cook tent.
Lage: Most important.
McLean: Yes, that was important, to get the cook tent up. And there was
quite a bit to move, because she had a wood stove for cooking, and
then she had a bunch of benches that we had to move.
Lage:
Did she have a lot of heavy cast-iron cooking equipment?
32
McLean: Well, yes. She had a big array of pots and pans and everything
else. Then we had water buckets. You have to remember, we didn't
have any ice in those days. We had one of these coolers that we
used to hang up outdoors .
Lage: What was that like?
McLean: Well, it was a screen cooler with burlap over the sides, and then
there was a pan that you would fill with water. The water would
drip down over the burlap and keep it cool.
Lage: It must have gotten pretty hot during the days there.
McLean: Yes, you bet it did. It got hot up there. But the interesting
part about it was that most of our staples would come from the
division office in Redding. They would make a delivery to us
maybe twice a month. Most of the stuff that came to us in those
days was in large quantities: a hundred pound sack of potatoes, a
hundred pound sack of sugar, a hundred pound sack of flour. We'd
get a hold of one of these whole rounds of cheese. Our fresh
meats, eggs, and milk the chief of party would buy locally. He
had a petty cash account, and he would buy the fresh food. But he
was limited as to what he could pay for things. One of the
interesting parts about it was that to buy beef, to stay within
what he was supposed to, he had to buy either a front quarter or a
hind quarter, something like that. Well, of course, you can
imagine- -even fourteen or sixteen men or seventeen men trying to
eat a quarter of a beef within the time before it began to get a
little green.
Lage: I should think so, with no refrigeration.
McLean: The first thing that would happen, of course, is that we'd eat all
the steaks that we could. Then we'd get down to roast. Then,
finally, we'd get down to stews. Not having any refrigeration, by
the time we got down to that, why, the stew meat would begin to
get a little bit green. But we survived.
Lage: Was there a lot of grumbling and complaining, or was that just
what went with the territory?
McLean: No, no. We were all pretty young, you know. We took it in our
stride. To get a bath- -when we were in Susanville, in those days
every barbershop had a bathtub or a couple of bathtubs, you know.
If you wanted to take a bath, you'd go into Susanville and go to a
barbershop. I think for fifty cents you'd get a Saturday night
bath. That would last you all week. We were working in the
summertime down in Doyle, and the Susan River flows down through
that area. It'd be in the middle of the afternoon on the way back
33
to camp, and we'd peel our clothes off and go into the Susan River
with a bar of soap. That was our bath. Ve didn't have to try to
devise something when we were at Janesville, because at Janesville
there wasn't anything. There was just a stage stop there, and I
don't recall even a store.
But, as 1 say, we were a young bunch of fellows. Ve were all
in our late teens or early twenties, and we survived. One of the
instances I remember, we were living in the back of this family
place. It was kind of a ranch with an orchard, and there used to
be chickens running all around our camp; we had chickens all
around the place. The sage hen season opened on September 1.
Lage : What season?
McLean: Sage hen, sage grouse they call it. They're wild birds. We had
seen lots of them all over the area, but up towards Ravensdale,
which is about fifteen or twenty miles north of Susanville, that
was a big area. So when the season opened, several of us decided
to go hunting. We had our shotguns with us. We decided to go
sage hen hunting, and I guess we killed a dozen sage hens.
Later we were all sitting around one of these tubs out in
front of the camp, picking the sage grouse. Mrs. Beaver was going
to cook them for dinner that night. It was a Sunday, the only
time we had a chance to go out, and all these chickens were all
running around. We had a fellow by the name of Pat Greer, and
Carl Kinyon says to him, "Pat, if you grab one of those chickens,
I'll wring his neck, and we'll pick them." So Pat reached out and
grabbed one of the chickens and handed it over to Carl. Carl
wrung its neck, and we picked the chicken. Mrs. Beaver, the cook,
was of course quite naive. When we sat down to eat, she had these
great big platters of hot food ready, and she sat down with us.
She says, "You know, I can't understand. Among all those birds,
there was one that was all white meat." And she says, "I can't
understand this." The guys looked at each other and snickered a
little bit- -polite, you know. We never told her that it was one
of the chickens that ran around in the yard where we were staying.
Lage: What kind of men were you were working with? They were young, you
say. What kind of an education did they have?
McLean: There were three of them that were taking engineering at the
University of California, and the other fellows mostly, I guess,
had started with the highway commission as rodmen, chainmen. The
instrument man on the location party was named Van Rosenthal . The
head of the level party was called by the name of Carl Kinyon. We
were all happy-go-lucky young fellows in those days. We had
34
really a lot of fun together. Ve used to take in all the dances,
you know.
Lage: In the local communities?
McLean:
Lage:
McLean :
Lage:
McLean :
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean :
In the local communities, in Susanville, Janesville, and all the
little communities around. In those days they used to have an
orchestra that would play at each one of the places . Of course ,
in most of the places about all they had was a schoolhouse.
They'd line all the chairs up against the wall, and they would
usually start about seven o'clock. Ve would dance all night. You
went home at sunup. Every night .they'd play at a different place.
They would play at Janesville or at Doyle or at one of the other
places around, and everybody just followed the dance band around
to the different communities. None of us had an automobile, and
to get to the dances we used take the survey wagon. Somebody
would drive it. There no windshields or anything else on it. It
was a World War I aviation truck. In the back part there were
seats along the side where we would sit. There was room enough
for about three or four fellows in front, with a driver and a
couple of other fellows sitting alongside him. We used to take
that darned thing around to the dances, down to Janesville and
other places. Sometimes it was cold riding.
Would they be on Saturday nights?
Yes , the dances were always on Saturday nights .
belles or gals would show up, you know.
All of the local
They were probably glad to have you fellows along.
Yes. We were the only single men around. We never missed a
dance. And then on Sunday they used to have baseball games,
made up a ball team of the fellows in the party, and we'd go
around on Sunday and play at all the little towns around the
valley- -play the local group, you know. It was a lot of fun.
I'm amazed at how vivid your memories seem.
ago . Right?
Yes, 1921, seventy years ago.
We
This is seventy years
You do have quite a memory. Have there been things through the
years that helped you remember, like pictures and whatnot? Or
does your memory usually go right back to that event?
Probably the latter. I think it's just the fact that I have
remembered. I think I remember those things better than I
remember something more recent. I used to have some pictures of
35
the men on the field party. I don't know if I can even find them
among all my pictures back here.
Return to Sacramento:
Sherman////
Night School and Marriage to Margaret
McLean: Ve finally completed all of the survey work to the California-
Nevada border in mid- September 1921, and that's where the job
ended. They were going to disband the survey party and send the
members to different parties to spend the winter. I kept up
correspondence with Allen Wagner all during the time I was in
Lassen County, telling him what I was doing. He then told me he
would arrange for a transfer to bring me back to Sacramento,
because one of my aims was to get back to Sacramento so that I
could work in the office and go back to school at night. So he
got the transfer for me, and 1 came back to the headquarters in
Sacramento, under him again. There, as a kind of an apprentice, 1
learned to do drafting. If I remember right, I think I was
getting about $125 a month as a junior draftsman.
Lage: Was that a fairly substantial wage at the time?
McLean: That was a good wage in those days. And then I started back to
night school. I guess I went to night school until 1923. Well,
I was there in Sacramento until 1923. I came back in '21 and
worked for two years in the office.
Lage: What was Mr. Wagner like? Did he have a family of his own?
McLean: Oh, yes, he had a family of his own. He had a couple of boys and
a couple of girls, as 1 recall. He and a fellow by the name of
Mr. Bean, who was a draftsman that I worked under, taught me all
that I knew about drafting and engineering calculations. Then I
was married to Margaret Sherman in '22.
Lage : How old were you then?
McLean: I was nineteen. [chuckles] But I was much older than my age.
Lage: Yes, I can imagine! Had your wife had more chance for education?
McLean: No. She had graduated from grade school, from a little country
school fourteen miles above Placerville. To go to high school in
those days she would have had to live in Placerville, but there
36
was no place for her to go to high school. So her education ended
after grade school
Lage: It wasn't uncommon, I'm sure.
McLean: It wasn't uncommon in those days, because she lived on an apple
ranch fourteen miles above Placerville.
Instrument Man on El Dorado Hydroelectric Prolect. 1923
McLean: Margaret's brother, Roy Sherman, who had been married to a girl in
Nevada City, had gone to work for the Western States Gas and
Electric Company. They were building the El Dorado Hydroelectric
Project. Roy and his wife were living on the project, and the
engineer in charge of all of the surveying work on this particular
project was a fellow by the name of Fred Hoskins . Fred Hoskins
had known my wife and had known her aunt and uncle when she had
lived with them. Roy told me they were looking for more engineers
to come and work on the project.
Lage: Could you call yourself an engineer by now?
McLean: Well, I guess I could, to a certain extent. At least a surveyor,
anyway. I got in touch with Fred Hoskins, and with my background
- -having surveying and having worked there in the office in
Sacramento --why, I just fell right into a job as an instrument
man, which paid $175 a month, which was big money in those days.
I was only getting $125 from the state at that time, in the
office, and I wanted to get in the field and get on construction.
Lage:
McLean:
So I took the offer that Fred gave me, and up we went to live
with my wife's folks, because their home was right alongside the
forebay dam project. In fact, it was being built within walking
distance of their home. We lived with them all the time that I
was working there. I fell right into the swing of things. And
because I had done all this office work and everything, why, I got
in and worked extra time when there was work to be done.
You worked extra time with the paperwork?
With the paperwork at nights, you know, plotting cross sections
and all that sort of thing, because the other fellows had never
experienced this, and I was lucky enough to have done a lot of
this. The next thing I know, Bob [A. D.] Edmonston (who later
became state engineer) was looking for an assistant on the
37
construction of the Caples Lake dam and spillway. At that time we
called it Twin Lakes. He propositioned me into going up with him.
Lage : This is after El Dorado was finished?
McLean: No, this was still part of the total project. This was in July
1923. I had been on the lower part of the project --the forebay
dam, the penstock, and powerhouse- -from April to July, when Bob
talked me into going to Twin Lakes to work as assistant to
Mr. Loughland, one of the top engineers. Bob said, "How soon can
you get ready?" [chuckles] And I said, "Well, I guess I'll pack
a suitcase, and away I'll go. I'll have to take a bedroll along
with me." "Well," he said, "I'll come and pick you up tomorrow."
Lage: You had to be ready to go on this job!
McLean: Yes, that's right. The next day George Loughland comes down with
his automobile and gets me, and I left the work there with Fred
Hoskins . I guess Fred had recommended me for the job; I don't
know. But off I went to Twin Lakes. I guess it was about the
middle of July, because they were just getting underway with the
construction because snow had been so late that year. I reported
to Bob at Twin Lakes and stayed until that job was finished. Ve
finally left there in a snowstorm on October 22, 1923.
By that time the forebay project had been finished, but they
were still working on the powerhouse. I went back to the
headquarters about fourteen miles above Placerville, and I went
back into the office to prepare all of what was called the federal
filing drawings. In those days, when you finished a project you
made basically what we call today "as-built" drawings. In those
days they were called federal filing drawings, because the project
was licensed by the Federal Power Commission. It depicted all the
drawings of the project- -that is, the dams, the pen stocks, the
pipelines, storage reservoirs, etc. All of these drawings went to
the Federal Power Commission in Washington, D.C., and were filed
there as final drawings . I was put in the office to make these
federal filing drawings. I worked all winter on that. In the
meantime, Bob was down at the powerhouse and finished up the
powerhouse .
38
Investigating Echo LflVi? Dam. 1924M
McLean: The following summer- -this is '24- -after the snow had cleared off
of the mountains in May, the Byllesby Company wanted to
investigate the feasibility of raising the dam at Echo Lake.
Lage: And did the same company have the rights?
McLean: Yes, they had the water rights to Echo. The parent company had a
couple of names. It was known as the Byllesby Engineering and
Management Corporation, and it was also known as the H. M.
Byllesby Company. The Western States Gas and Electric Company was
a subsidiary of the Byllesby Engineering and Management
Corporation. When I first went up there on the El Dorado project,
it was under Western States, but the parent company was the
Byllesby Engineering and Management Corporation. So the following
spring or the early summer of '24, they wanted to investigate the
raising of the dam at Echo Lake.
Lage: Tell me a little bit about that.
McLean: The first dam was built by an early hydraulic mining company for
mining near Placerville. Echo Lake originally drained into Tahoe
Lake valley and into Lake Tahoe. Echo Lake is on the crest of the
Sierras. Apparently an early hydraulic mining company that did
the hydraulic mining in the area of Placerville saw the potential
of damming Echo Lake, raising the water level, and diverting it
over into the drainage area of the south fork of the American
River. This must have been done during the 1870s or 1880s, when
hydraulic mining was permitted. It was a very small dam, and they
built a tunnel through the ridge into the south fork of the
American River drainage and diverted the water to the Highway 50
side. Instead of draining into Lake Tahoe, they diverted the
water over to where it now flows , into the south fork of the
American. The water then was diverted out of the south fork of
the American at Kyburz and into a ditch that followed pretty much
the way the highway follows the river, down to where they used it
for the hydraulic mining around Placerville.
Lage: They measured how much water they took out of Echo, and then they
could take that same amount- -
McLean: That's right. Water rights law permitted the diversion of water
from one drainage basin to another for beneficial use. It went
into this tunnel, and then into the river. Then they built a
diversion dam at Kyburz, right there at Kyburz, and diverted the
39
water into an earthen ditch known as the El Dorado Canal.
Apparently it was dug by hand; it was a very small ditch.
When Western States Gas and Electric cane into being, and
they wanted to build the El Dorado Hydroelectric Project, they
needed the water supply from the ditch, but the ditch was then
serving the city of Placerville as a water supply. There was a
reservoir above the city of Placerville which was the terminus of
the ditch. I can't tell you now whether the ditch was then owned
by El Dorado Irrigation District or not; I don't know when the El
Dorado Irrigation District even came into being. But I do know
that the Western States Gas and Electric Company apparently bought
out the water rights and the rights to this ditch before they
started the El Dorado project, because when we built the forebay
dam, which is the terminus of this ditch, we had to put in a
diversion work to divert the water out of the forebay dam for the
city of Placerville. The city had the right for sixteen hundred
miner's inches.1
So then the Western States Gas and Electric Company built a
new dam at Kyburz , and the diversion ditch that went from Kyburz
down to the forebay dam, which was around twenty -five miles in
length, we lined with concrete. That ditch discharged into the
forebay dam, about fourteen miles above Placerville; that was for
the powerhouse. From the powerhouse we built the wood- stake
pipeline, the surge tank, and then the penstock that went down to
the powerhouse, plus the powerhouse itself. That was all part of
the El Dorado project, which today belongs to PG&E [Pacific Gas &
Electric Company] ; PG&E bought out Western States Gas and Electric
Company .
Lage: But the Echo Lake part was a very small part of all this?
McLean: Yes. This is when we went back in 1924 to decide whether it was
feasible to raise the dam at Echo Lake.
Lage: Now, how many feet were you thinking of raising the dam?
McLean: I think it was about ten feet. That would have meant building a
dam above the existing dam There are two lakes there, an upper
and lower, and it would have flooded both the lakes. There would
have been one large lake if the dam had been raised. It would
have been a pretty big undertaking. Evidently- -costwise and
everything else- -they decided it wasn't feasible, so it was never
JA miner's inch is equal to a square inch of water flowing from a
wooden diversion box that is inserted into a larger ditch or stream. It is
equal to one -fortieth of a cubic foot/second of flowing water.
40
done. Raising the dam would have increased the capacity of the
lake, and apparently there wasn't sufficient runoff or snow melt
to Justify the cost.
Lage: But the water is still diverted the same way?
McLean: The water is still diverted the same way; they still divert water
out of Echo Lake into this tunnel. And then there are also two
other lakes that discharged into the south fork in the American
River above Kyburz. There's the Twin Lakes dam and the Silver
Lake Dam, both still a part of this whole El Dorado hydroelectric
project.
Lage: Do you remember what it was like in 1924 at Echo Lake? There's an
Echo Lake oral history project, so I'd like you to add to that
with your picture of what it was like.
McLean: Well, it was pretty primitive. There were a few cabins around
the lake, all on the south side. I haven't been there since I
left there in '24.
Lage: Did you camp there for a while?
McLean: Yes, we camped there for three to four weeks.
Lage: And there were a few cabins?
McLean: Yes, there were some cabins, and there was that boys' camp up on
the upper lake.
Lage: Well, raising that lake ten feet really would have played havoc
with those cabins.
McLean: It also would have flooded out the boys' camp. I'll never forget
when we came up to the boys' camp with the survey party; I was at
the head of them, because I was running the party. Boy, that camp
director came raring out of the building, "What are you doing
here?" I said, "We're carrying out a survey to raise the lake."
He said, "Raise the lake? That's going to flood us out!" I said,
"Well, I'm only following orders." But he was going to throw us
off the property. Of course, it would have flooded them if the
lake level were raised. The only cabins that were there--! think
there were four or five of them that went on the south side of the
lake, and they were quite high above the water. At the upper lake
was only this boys' camp; I forget the name of it now. I think
it's now a Boy Scout camp.
Lage: Well, it was, and now it's been done away with. On the lower lake
there is a very old log cabin, and it's built way up the granite
slabs. It was the first cabin, we were told, and it was built up
there because the owner had been told that the water was
eventually going to come up right to the foot of his cabin.
McLean: Well, there were four or five cabins along the south shore. They
were built quite high, up in the timber.
Lage: They might have been told about these plans to raise the lake.
McLean: And then on the north side was the trail that went over to what we
called Medley Lakes.
Lage: Now that's called the Aloha lake; it's been flooded into one lake.
McLean: Those lakes are also part of the original project that is now
Pacific Gas & Electric Company. But the only thing that was in
the upper lake up there was this boys' camp. They had a lodge and
quite an establishment there. That was all that was on the upper
lake; there wasn't anything else. As I say, I'll never forget,
because when we came around and onto the property, we were
following what we call the "flow line." But Echo, as I said
previously, was apparently a part of the old hydraulic mining that
was down in the late 1800s, and then apparently it became the
water supply to Placerville. Also at that same time, there was a
dam put in at Silver Lake, and that water drains into the south
fork of the American, the same as when we built the Twin Lakes
dam. That also goes into the south fork of the American.
Plum and Alder Creek Siphons: Dealing with Migrating Deer
McLean: Well, then, when the Western States Gas and Electric came along,
who they purchased all this from, I don't know. Those records
would probably be available at PG&E. But Western States purchased
all of these facilities. To provide sufficient water for the new
powerhouse, the Western States Gas and Electric Company
reconstructed the ditch. It was realigned and enlarged to carry
120 cfs- -cubic feet per second. It was a big ditch, a big, deep
ditch.
Lage: But not covered? It was open?
McLean: It was open. And then we put in what was known as the Plum Creek
and the Alder Creek siphons. They're two large steel siphons.
There's a siphon that goes across Plum Creek and also another
siphon that goes across Alder Creek. Those, as I recall, were
about ten foot in diameter. They were big pipes, and they were on
42
piers. They'd go down into the bottom of the canyon and come back
to the ditch on the opposite side.
Lage: Now, what are they for?
McLean: They're the continuation of the ditch. The ditch was open, and
then, rather than going way around where Plum Creek and Alder
Creek come into the south Fork of the American, they built these
siphons across the creek. We went down and across the creek and
back up again. Now, this is what was very interesting. I don't
know whether it still is today, but at that time there was an
annual migration of deer from down on the south side of the south
fork in the American River. From all of that area down around
Kirkwood and up around Twin Lakes there was a tremendous migration
of deer that used to come down and cross the south fork of the
American River. This deer herd wintered around Georgetown in the
oak forest where there was very little snow. It was a very large
migration. When there was an earthen ditch, the deer were able to
get down in the ditch, cross, and come out again. When we got the
first snow- -I guess it was late October, early November- -the
migration of the deer started. They had been in the habit of
crossing in the earthen ditch and coming out again. But now that
the ditch was lined with concrete, the deer got in the ditch and
they found that they couldn't get out.
Well, the ditch is about seven feet deep. The first thing
that happened was that they were carried by the flowing water
downstream, and they began to pile up against the grizzlies at the
siphon. A grizzly is a series of bars about four inches apart,
vertical , at the upper end of both the Alder Creek and the Plum
Creek site. Boy, did we have a mess on our hands. Fish and Game
was up there, and here were hundreds of deer, and they put crews
out there and tried to get them out of the ditch. They tried to
lasso them and pull them out of the ditch and everything else.
There were just too many of them; they couldn't do it. Well, as I
recall there were several hundred deer killed in that ditch that
winter, at both Alder Creek and Plum Creek. First they tried to
haul them down to Placerville and give them to the various
charities and hospitals and everything else down there. But there
was so many of them, they couldn't. So finally they piled them up
in big stacks, put oil on them, and burned the carcasses.
I should have said at the beginning that when they built the
ditch, we knew where these paths of migration were. And they
built bridges, thinking that the deer would go across the bridge
like anybody else would. But the deer wouldn't pay any attention
to the bridges; they'd always been used to going down into the
water and climbing up the other side. So this didn't work. That
is why we had all these dead deer piled up against the grizzlies.
43
The State Fish and Game Department required that they fence this
ditch. I think they fenced over eight miles of ditch with a ten-
foot-high fence along on each side of the ditch. They left it
open where the bridges were. I suppose that fence still exists
today; I haven't seen the ditch except once in a while where you
can see it from the highway.
44
III A CLOSER LOOK AT WATER PROJECTS OF THE EARLY TWENTIES
The El Dorado Prolect: Penstock. Surge Tank. Wood Stove Pipeline
for a High-Head Power Plant
[Interview 2: April 3, 1991
Lage : We had talked last time about early experiences, and we had gotten
up to the early twenties. I wanted you to talk in more detail
about the El Dorado Hydroelectric Project, because it sounds like
sort of a typical, interesting project of its time.
McLean: The El Dorado Project--! went to work in 1923. This was being
built by the Western States Gas and Electric Company, which was a
subsidiary of the H. M. Byllesby Company of Chicago. I went up
there employed as the chief of party on the construction of the El
Dorado development.
Lage: Now, what does "chief of party" mean?
McLean: Chief of party was being in charge of the field parties, either
field parties or a field party, that did the surveying and the
engineering on the dam, what was known as the forebay dam, and the
pipeline construction and the penstock construction. I had
probably three field parties that I was in charge of. One party
was assigned to the dam, the building of the embankment for the
earth- filled dam. And the other one was on the penstock. The
penstock is the pipeline that goes into the powerhouse that turns
the pelton wheels and the generator. This was one of the highest-
head plants in California at the time it was built. The total
head was nineteen hundred and ninety-odd feet; as I recall, it was
about nineteen hundred ninety- five feet, which is a very high-head
plant.
Lage: What does that mean?
45
McLean: Well, what this means is, it's the total static head from the
forebay, the forebay to the center line of the pelton wheels in
the powerhouse. This is what drives the big powerhouse wheels,
the generator. The pipeline that led from the powerhouse down to
the surge tanks --the surge tank is at the head of what we call the
penstock. This is to prevent a failure of the pipeline in case of
the pelton wheel shutting off suddenly, or stoppage of flow, which
puts a surge back through the pipeline. This surge tank was
nineteen foot in diameter, and was on a support 297 feet in the
air. It's a very high surge tank.
Lage: And it allows the water to rush up into the tank?
McLean: Yes, the water goes up into that. There's water in this tank all
the time, at the level of the water in the forebay, and it remains
that way all the time that the powerhouse is in operation. But
when you shut down the wheels in the powerhouse , then the water
surges up in this tank and sometimes will overflow. Sometimes it
will overflow.
Lage: Like a safety valve.
McLean: Yes, well, you'd call it a safety valve. When this plant was
built, it was one of the--if not the- -highest-head plants in
California. It's a very high-head plant. For that reason, it
uses--I don't recall the amount of water, but the amount of water
is small in comparison to low-head plants, where you have a
greater quantity of water.
Lage: To get the same amount of electricity.
McLean: The nozzles for the pelton wheels, there are two of them. If I
remember correctly, I think they were ten inches in diameter. Let
me show you a couple of the pictures of it.
Lage: Okay. I think we should mention that you have a photo album
that's really very complete.1
McLean: I have some pictures of it. [looks through pictures]
Lage: Were these pictures you took yourself?
McLean: Yes, some of these I took myself. There's the wood- stave
pipeline.
Lage: So, it's a pipe that's made of wood?
xMr. McLean plans to donate this photo album to The Bancroft Library.
46
McLean: Yes, the pipeline from the forebay to the surge tank was wood-
stave pipe. This is sixty inches in diameter with wood-stave
pipe.
Lage: Was wood- stave pipe used much after this?
McLean: Oh, probably not so much. Indeed, at that time it was used on a
number of plants. The California and Oregon Power Company had a
project up in southern Oregon that they used it on. This is the
surge tank. See, that's the surge tank there. The head on that
was—well, the height of that is 297 feet high and 19 foot
diameter. That's what 1 said, see?
Lage: Good memory!
McLean: And this is the powerhouse. You can see the penstocks coming down
the powerhouse. The penstocks divide up here, and they go into
the powerhouse.
Lage: Now, they were steel, were they not?
McLean: Those, oh, yes. They're very heavy steel. See, here it is, right
there. This is riveted steel, and it's on arms here that it can
move for expansion. There's an expansion joint located in there,
and it can move. These are what we call "rocker arms" down there.
There are large concrete anchors, and the expansion joint is
between the anchors.
Lage: Was there any new technology used because of the height of the
head?
McLean: No. The pipe for the penstock was manufactured by the W. K.
Kellogg Company people back east. I'm not sure where their
factory was. When we were testing the line in 1923, the penstock
broke under the powerhouse. Here's the break right here. That
occurred on December 26, 1923; this broke under the transformer
deck of the powerhouse .
Lage: That's a dramatic break.
McLean: Yes, it was really some excitement. Well, here's the powerhouse;
I thought I had a picture here of where it--. It goes under the
transformer deck, and of course it didn't do any damage to the
powerhouse. See? This is what we call a transformer deck. All
the transformers are set up on here; they weren't there at that
time. This line here broke, and it went up against the bottom of
the deck. You can imagine, a 1900 foot head against this concrete
deck. here. It washed timbers and whatever was under the deck,
plus a field office, into the river.
47
Lage: Now, how did people react to that kind of an accident?
McLean: Well, you can't do anything. You can Just shut the line down,
that's all. We had to stop the flow of water at the forebay
butterfly valve and let the pipeline and penstock drain.
The interesting part about it was that this plant was
supposed to be in operation on the first of January, 1924. And
there was a penalty on this pipe here; everything was supposed to
be okay, you know. When this broke, we immediately wired back to
the Kellogg people to fabricate another piece of pipe like the one
that broke and to get it out here. They had to manufacture it.
To get it out here they sent it by American Express on a passenger
train, because of the penalty, you see. I forget what the penalty
was , but it was probably three or four hundred dollars a day or
even more .
So they sent it out in an express car on a train. At that
time there was a train that they could take to Camino, above
Placerville, and then we picked it up there and took it down the
road and put it in the penstock. But it took us --oh, I think we
were delayed about a couple of months before we could put the
plant in operation. In the midsummer of 1927 PG&E bought out all
of the Byllesby interest in California. They now operate this
hydroelectric plant. It's still one of their main plants.
Lage: Is it also used for water supply?
McLean: All of the water from the El Dorado Canal is for hydroelectric
generation except for the water supply for the city of
Placerville. The total cost of the project at that time was about
$20 million. That was the total cost.
Lage: Sounds pretty hefty; was it?
McLean: Well, that was a large project at that time. That project today
would probably cost at least twenty times that amount. I would
imagine four or five hundred million or something like that to
build a project like that today.
In addition to this part of the project there was also
twenty- three and one -half miles of canal that takes out of the
south fork of the American River at Kyburz. It was a diversion
dam at Kyburz, and the canal follows somewhat along Highway 50,
except the canal is on the south side of the river. You can see
it from different points of Highway 50. Then that goes into the
forebay dam and from the forebay dam, of course, into the
pipeline, the penstock, to the powerhouse.
48
In addition to that, we built what is now called the Caples
Lake Dam, and that was for storage. The Caples Lake Dam was a
part of the project and also Silver Lake, which was also a part of
the water rights that they purchased that included Silver Lake and
also Echo Lake .
The Caples Lake Dam: Unique Gunite Core Construction
McLean: I told you last time that I went to work in March of 1923 on the
forebay dam. In mid-year Bob Editions ton, who was then the project
engineer at Twin Lakes [Caples Lakes], wanted me there as his
assistant at Twin Lakes when they were building the Twin Lakes
dam. I believe it was around the first part of July, because they
opened up the camp on the fourth of July, that I reported to Bob.
Mr. Lough land, the assistant chief engineer for Byllesby, took me
to Twin Lakes, where I reported to Bob on the construction of the
Twin Lakes dam along about the middle of July of 1923. The dam
was finished in October of that year. We built the dam, and there
was a spillway. Then we had to realign the road, because at that
time Highway 88 went across the stream by a bridge; it crossed
from the south fork of the stream that fed Caples Lake to the
north side, and we had to build the road across the top of the
dam.
Lage : Wasn't that sort of an engineering feat?
McLean: Oh, yes. Well, it was all a big job; it was. We realigned the
road, because the road at that time had previously crossed the old
stream- -that is, the stream that was where the dam site was.
Lage: Was this another earth- filled dam?
McLean: Well, this was a unique dam. Normally, earth-filled dams are
built of clay, or have clay cores. But we didn't have any clay at
this site because of the granitic geology; in that country it's
all granite. We only had a decomposed granite similar to sand to
build the dam out of. In order to have an impervious core, to
prevent the water from leaking through the embankment, we put in
what was known as a core curtain. The dam foundation was granite;
the dam was excavated down to bedrock. Then, starting from a
concrete foundation, we built up a core with four inches of
gunite. Gunite is a sand cement mixture that is fed in through a
nozzle by air pressure. We built that core, which made an
impervious core, and I have some pictures showing the gunite core.
They put a backup form for this core, and then they'd shoot one
side of it; they'd shoot two and one-half inches on one side. And
49
then they'd take the form off and shoot the other inch and one-
half. That formed the impervious layer. The gunite core is
supported by the decomposed granite embankment of the dam.
Lage: Vas that a new technology?
McLean: That was a new technology; I have never seen or read of that
method being done previously. Apparently it was very, very
successful.
Lage: You must have been learning on the Job a great deal.
McLean: I sure was. Well, here. You can see the core here. See this
core?
Lage: Oh, yes, right down the middle. It looks sort of like a cement
wall.
McLean: It is; that's what it is. It's a cement wall, but it's only four
inches thick.
Lage: And that gives stability?
McLean: That provides the impervious core.
Lage: Otherwise, the water would seep through the dam?
McLean: Let me draw you a picture, [chuckles] I can't talk unless I draw
pictures .
Lage: Well, you're a true engineer—you need to draw. [See following
page . ]
[tape pause]
McLean: This was very unique. In fact, that's one of the things — and I'll
also mention some more --that was very unique. Some of the things
we did on that job at Caples Lake were rather unique.
Normally, on an earth-filled dam—I'll draw it so you can see
it. [begins to draw] We'll say this is the upstream face, and
here's your downstream face. Here's your foundation in here, like
this. Normally, on an earth- filled dam, you have what we call a
clay core, and this clay core comes in like this and like this.
Lage: A triangular shape.
McLean: That's what we call a clay core. This is impervious. Now, any
dam that you build will leak. I don't care whether it's concrete
49a
Drawing by Walter
McLean
_49b
Drawing by Walter
McLean
M
\1
50
or whether it is earth- filled or whatever it happens to be. Say
here's your water surface here [drawing]. And then we put what we
call a drainage blanket in like this. And then we put a drainage
blanket in here, like this. And then we bring this drainage
blanket out, like that. The reason for that is to keep from
saturating the clay core, to avoid a failure. So we have what we
call a friatic line that comes through like this, and it'll come
through the clay core . But as soon as it comes to the drainage
blanket, your friatic line, your hydraulic gradient, drops and
drains out here so that you always have a little flow of water
coming out down here.
Now, in the case of the Twin Lakes dam we did the same thing
this way. [begins sketching] Here again we had a dam like this.
But in the center, this was a solid granite foundation down here.
We went down in here, and we put in a concrete foundation, like
this. We put in what we call a cut-off trench. And then we built
this like that. And then we had this gunite core that comes up
through the dam like this.
Lage: Just a wall, straight.
McLean: It's a wall; a concrete wall is what it is. It's a concrete wall.
This was four inches thick. Now, here is a situation where this
material, you have to remember, was more like a sand. It's
granitic- -decomposed granite. We compacted this, but this would
always be saturated with water. Down at the bottom here, we put
in a gravel blanket. So what happens is that here's your water
level up on this side, and your water level perks through to here,
but there's a barrier. Now, if there is any seepage through this
or anything else, it would drain down through this into this here
and then drain out.
Lage: I see, drain down on the river side, the downstream side.
McLean: Yes, down through this. That's right, because this is more or
less pervious. It's just like a sand. And this was very unique.
Lage: Do you know who thought of the idea?
McLean: This apparently was developed by the engineers back in Chicago.
But, this was because we didn't have any clay; there was no clay
available in that country. And I have never seen another dam
built like this; I don't know of any.
Lage: It looks like this water, backing up and coming through the
granite side, would put a lot of pressure--
51
McLean: What is the purpose of this, and what is the purpose of that? The
purpose of this embankment in that is to support this wall.
Lage: Oh, I see. So, the wall is doing all the work.
McLean: The gunite wall is doing all the work, see. And that is also the
purpose of the clay core. What you've done, you're building an
impervious blanket in here, but this here is supported. Now,
today we have what we call zoned dams, and these are composed of
various materials, but basically there is enough weight to support
this clay core.
Lage: That four inch wall did a lot of work.
McLean: Yes. This is about one hundred twenty-five feet high. Remember,
this is just a four- inch wall that is just standing up there. If
it were standing up by itself it would have no support; it would
fail.
Lage: Even without the water pressure?
McLean: Yes, that's right. So, what they did was put this in. See,
because construction materials were limited on this site, the
material we had for concrete we manufactured. We actually had a
quarry, and we had a big crushing plant. Ve quarried the granite
out of the hillside. We blasted that out of the hillside and
brought it down the hillside, where it went through a crushing
plant where we made concrete aggregate and actually made our own
sand. Construction materials were limited, and the result of it
was that we had to make do. And this was why the engineers came
up with this particular method. We had a small concrete dam,
which we called a spillway dam, that was located over on one of
the south arms, but that only took a comparatively small quantity
of aggregate.
Lage: They weren't building the large concrete dams at that time, were
they?
McLean: Well, we were limited. To have built a concrete dam there would
have required a large amount of concrete . To produce the
aggregate for concrete --even today, the working time is very
limited due to the weather. It's nearly ten thousand feet
elevation. [looking at pictures] We had snow there in September,
when the dam was being built. This is October, see; the dam was
completed, and here's the road across the dam. They hadn't
finished everything, but here's the road across the dam.
Lage: Did the road put extra pressure on that dam?
52
McLean: No, no. That wouldn't bother it in the least, no.
Lage: Did the granite tend to wash away over the years?
McLean: No, because we place riprap; it is large rock. On the face of all
earth- fill dams you place the rock like this to prevent any water
erosion. Usually on an earth-filled dam you have a three- or a
four -foot blanket of rock, what we call riprap. That's to protect
your upstream and downstream faces of the dam. Here you can see
it was snowing. We had snow there in September. October 5,
here's snow then. Ve got out of there in a big snowstorm on
October 22. Let me show you the other dam, the concrete spillway
dam. I've got a picture of it here somewhere. Here it is. This
was taken on the 12th. This is what we call the spillway. This
is over on the Kirkwood side, although it drains into the same
stream. But, you see, this was just a small concrete, arched dam.
This section is low to permit the lake to spill. In other words,
if the water in the lake gets to this height, it'll spill. This
is the spillway, and the flow comes down this creek here and then
flows down into the other stream below the dam. This is a very
small dam. They did have a little earth fill on this side and a
little rock fill on that side, but that was over on the south end
of the lake, around the other side. But, this photo shows the
finishing off of the dam. This is the top of the dam, right here,
and- -well, you can see the riprap.
All of this work was done with what we call Bucyrus steam
shovels and Mack trucks. Most all of these were large Mack
trucks, and they hauled the material up on the dam, and it was
compacted. Then, we put the riprap on the upstream face and
downstream face.
Wood-Fired Steam Shovels
Lage: What kind of steam shovels, did you say?
McLean: They were Bucyrus steam shovels.
Lage: Is that a company name?
McLean: That's a manufacturer's name, yes. They had one -cubic -yard
buckets, and they were fired by wood. See the boiler here? And
over here there's a stack of wood; see the stack of wood behind
them?
53
Lage:
McLean:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean :
So, you had to be feeding the fire under the steam boiler all the
time?
Yes, that's right. They had a fireman who rode the cab back here.
The operator was up here , and the fireman was back here .
a
See this stack of wood back here? The fireman had a little place
back along here; here it is right there, see? And he kept feeding
the wood from here. They also had a regular crew of wood cutters
on this job. They had a whole crew that were out cutting down
trees. The timber at this elevation is lodgepole pine and silver
fir. The wood was all green, but apparently it burned all right
in the fire box of the boiler.
There must have been a lot of smoke coming out of that.
Veil, there was. You see, they have a spark arrestor on top of
the stack to keep the sparks from setting fires . They had regular
wood cutters, and each crew was out there in the basin and up in
the woods around there, cutting firewood for these shovels. I've
forgotten how many we had, but I think we had three or four
shovels down in the borrow pit.
Now, what was the borrow pit?
The borrow pit was where they obtained the material for the dam.
The material came out of the bottom of the old lake. And we had
these shovels down there in what was known as the borrow pit.
You were borrowing--?
That's where they obtained the material for the fill in the dam.
They would excavate the material and load it into trucks. Then
the trucks would travel up on the dam and dump the material. A
bulldozer on the dam would spread it. Then we had a big tractor
unit that would compact the material.
Vere other people taking pictures as well?
particular interest?
Or did you have a
Yes . Some of these pictures were taken by a photographer who was
with the company. But they wouldn't come up there all the time;
they'd only come up there occasionally, maybe once every couple of
weeks or something like that.
54
Wages, Hours, Food on a Round -the -Clock Project
Lage : Now, what would have been your job in all of this construction?
McLean: Well, my job was assistant to Bob Edmonston, the project engineer.
Then they had a superintendent, whose name was Levinson. He was
the one in charge of the project. I had a fellow working with me
by the name of Tate , and then Bob was the project engineer. Our
Job was to keep track of the quantities to pay and do all the
engineering. The work was done by the Byllesby people. The
Byllesby people were basically the contractors, but the work was
being done for the Western States Gas and Electric Company. In
order to pay the contractors, we had to determine the quantity of
work performed monthly. We had to measure how many linear feet or
square feet of core wall, how much material was placed in the dam,
how much concrete was placed in the auxiliary spillway dam. Every
month we'd prepare what was known as an estimate. That was an
estimate of all the items that they were paid for. My job also
was to check the elevations --that is, to get the elevations not
only for the dam but also for the auxiliary dam- -the concrete dam-
-so that they could build the forms and everything else.
In those days we worked twenty- four hours a day. They had
three shifts there. They had lights over the dam and the
construction camp.
Lage: What kind of lights would they have had?
McLean: They were electric lights. We had a large generating plant that
supplied all the electricity for the camp. The lights were strung
over the top of the dam.
Lage: You worked twenty- four hours a day?
McLean: Oh, yes. Well, they had two ten-hour shifts. In those days we
worked ten hours a day. There would be two hours between each
shift, and in between shifts they would grease- -what they call
grease- -and service the equipment. That would mean they would gas
up the trucks, and on the steam shovels they go through and grease
them and everything else. One shift started at eight and worked a
straight ten hours, with an hour off for lunch. So that would be
eight o'clock in the morning until six at night, I guess it would
be. And then eight at night until six in the morning. That's how
you put in the ten-hour shifts. We did that on all the jobs; we
did that on the [El Dorado] forebay dam, on the Twin Lakes dam,
the powerhouse, etc. See, we only had, actually, from around July
1 until October. You had July, August, September; so you had
about three months .
55
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
To do the whole thing?
To do all the construction work. That meant that you had to work
every minute. Ve didn't work Sundays, but we worked Saturdays.
Saturdays were straight through.
And was this all regular pay?
Saturday, or such?
There was no overtime for working
Oh, yes. I believe the operating engineers were unionized at that
time, even then. They got two hours of overtime; they made big
wages. The operating engineers got time and a half on weekdays
and double time on Saturdays.
•
Can you estimate their hourly wage?
As I remember, the operating engineers were getting $6 per hour,
common labor was 50 cents per hour, and board was $1.50 per day.
The operating engineers were the ones who operated the equipment?
They were the ones who operated the equipment , yes . They operated
the compressors; they operated the generators and the steam
shovels. I don't know about the trucks; they didn't operate the
trucks, 1 think. I don't know whether truck drivers were paid
overtime or not. But I do know that the steam shovel operators
were paid overtime .
We had more than a thousand men working on this job. They
had a large mess hall and a big tent camp. Ve all lived in tents.
I think the laborers got fifty cents an hour, a big wage in those
days .
Was that considered a good wage?
Oh, yes. In other words, they were paid basically five dollars a
day, six days a week- -which was thirty dollars. Multiply that by
nine weeks. And then I think they were only charged a dollar and
a half a day for board and room. I don't think it was more than
that. But, boy, the food--. They had a whole group of cooks and
bakers. They baked all their own bread and made all their own
pies and cakes and desserts. There was always beef, pork, lamb,
and veal weekly.
56
Keeping the Men on the Job: Camp Followers and Good Food
Lage : Was the food good?
McLean: Yes. At the camps in those days they had good food, because they
wanted to keep the men on the job. You have to remember, we were
isolated. The nearest town was Markleeville, and that was twenty-
five or thirty miles away, near Nevada. You got up there, and
there was no place to go. [chuckles] Now, turn that tape
recorder off a minute , and- - .
Lage: Oh, come on! Let's put the interesting stuff on.
McLean: Oh, no, no.
Lage: [tape pause] Let's record it, and you can take it out later if
you need to .
McLean: Okay, we can do that. There was a camp over near this auxiliary
dam, where there was- -I think they had six girls over there. Of
course, it was a regular route over there, you might say. These
fellows who were working there at the camp would go over, and the
girls would take care of them all during this construction, see?
Lage: They must have been pretty busy.
McLean: They were busy. [laughter] But they were there the whole summer.
Lage: Vas that sort of standard in that isolated--?
McLean: In construction camps, yes, believe it or not. Down at this other
camp-- .
Lage: Now, the company didn't provide that, did they?
McLean: No, no. No, no.
Lage: Private enterprise on the part of the women?
McLean: Yes. They came from Nevada. Both years that they worked up
there, why, they would camp at the same place. I don't know how
they got their water; I guess they got it out of the lake. They
stayed there the whole summer that we were there. Now, at the
other camp--
Lage:
Down at El Dorado?
57
McLean: Down at El Dorado, down at the forebay camp--. In those days the
men were paid in cash. They wouldn't pay by check; they paid
cash. We got paid by check- -that is, the engineers --because we
were on a permanent payroll. But the fellows who worked by the
day, the paymaster- -they had what they call a paymaster, the same
way at Twin Lakes --would come up twice a month, on the first of
the month and on the fifteenth of the month, with a big bundle of
cash. Every man would line up in front of the office of the
paymaster- -that is, the shift that was off at that time- -the
paymaster would pay them off in cash, and they'd sign a slip to
say that they had received their wages. Down at the forebay camp,
there used to be two automobiles full of girls who would come in
on payday. They would let the girls off at the tent camp- -you
know, this was a big tent camp- -and each one of the girls would
get into a tent, see, and then they'd take on these fellows. The
fellows would line up in front of the tent, and they'd go in and
pay their money. Every once in a while the superintendent- -he'd
kind of turn his back most of the time , but once in a while he
would give them a time to leave the camp. There were usually four
or five girls. This was a large tent camp, as there were more
than a thousand men living there. The girls would scatter like
chickens in this tent camp, and each one of them would get in a
tent. And as soon as they got in a tent, why, the fellows would
line up for their turn.
Lage: This was just sort of an accepted thing at that time?
McLean: Yes, this was accepted at construction camps at that time. They
had the same thing at Pardee when it was under construction. Then
the girls were at Campo Seco. Today, of course, you don't see so
much of that. First of all, today you don't have the large
construction camps the way you did in those days. At Pardee there
were two little communities right nearby. Jackson was one, and
Jackson was wide open. This was during the Prohibition days. You
could buy liquor all during Prohibition at the Pioneer bar and
other places in Jackson. They never closed.
Lage: So it was just like Prohibition wasn't going on in Jackson?
McLean: Yes, just like there was no Prohibition. I don't know how they
got by.
Lage: It wasn't a hidden- -
McLean: Well, yes. And over in Jackson there were two or three houses of
prostitutes over there. Then in the little town of Campo Seco
there was --the boys used to call it the Green House or something
like that. There was a house there, up on the hill, and I think
there was five or six girls in that house. Those were all within
58
walking distance. Jackson wasn't so close, but both were within
walking distance of the camp. And you have to remember that at
Pardee there were a couple thousand workers at the camp; it was a
big camp. Again, in those days, they paid by cash.
Lage: Did the fellows keep their cash much over the summer?
McLean: Why, I don't know, I suppose so. I don't know.
Lage: Were there problems with theft in the camps?
McLean: There was no place for them to cash a check, see. You have to
remember that automobiles were not as prevalent then as they are
today. Most of these fellows came in through hiring halls. In
those days Sacramento and Stockton had what they call labor hiring
halls. If you wanted men for your construction camp you would
call up Murray and Ready in Sacramento and say, "I want three or
four carpenters , I want so many laborers , and 1 want so many
workers," or something like that. And they would round them up
and take them by bus up to the job.
Lage: It's reminiscent of agricultural day labor now.
McLean: Pretty much the same as agricultural labor. In other words, these
people were actually labor contractors, you might call them. If
you wanted laborers or cement workers or somebody like that, why,
you'd call Murray and Ready. There were also three or four other
agencies. You'd call them up and say, "Send me up x number of
laborers for tomorrow," or the next day, or something like that,
see? In those days I think they used to pay a dollar a head. In
other words, for every man that they sent up for the job, the
contractor would then pay a dollar for that particular fellow.
Lage: Pay to the labor contractor?
McLean: Yes, to the hiring group- -to Murray and Ready. Then they would
deduct that dollar from the worker's first paycheck. All the
workers were paid by cash. When it came payday, they had a
paymaster who would have enough cash to take care of the payroll
for that period. As the men came off work, they would line up,
the paymaster would give them the amount of cash for the number of
days worked, and they would have the men sign a slip for their
wages. The only persons who received checks were those who were
on the permanent work force. In those days most all permanent
employees were paid by the month. If I remember correctly, I
think that in those days they were paying the day laborers every
two weeks, on the fifteenth and the first of each month.
59
And, of course, many times men didn't work full time. The
work was too tough or too hard, or something like that, and they
didn't want to stay. So they would work only maybe four or five
days. There was always enough cash on hand so that they could pay
those fellows who didn't stay for a long period of time. They
used to have a big safe in the office where they kept all the
cash. And if a worker was laid off, then they could pay him off
in cash. This is why I told you that the girls knew when it was
pay day.
Lage : When to come !
McLean: And of course, like I was telling you, in what we call the forebay
camp- -the forebay and the pipeline camp- -why, they would always
hit the camp on the evening of payday.
Lage: But in the other camp they were there all the time?
McLean: In the other camp, Twin Lakes, they were there all the time.
[laughter] They spent the summer with them. Now, I don't know
about the ditch camp- -we had what we called the ditch camps--!
suppose they probably hit the ditch camps the same as they did the
other camps .
Lage: Now, what kind of background did the workers have?
McLean: There were carpenters, and most of them belonged to carpenters'
unions. And the riggers; the riggers where those men who worked
on the high lines. And then you had electricians.
Lage: What were the high lines?
McLean: The high lines were like on Pardee, where we had so much rigging
for the chutes, counterbalances, and lights in the area. Those
men were working on cables in the air, hanging the lights and
doing all of what we call the high line work. They were skilled.
Most all of those fellows belonged to the riggers' union.
Carpenters belonged to the carpenters' union. The concrete
workers, the laborers, didn't belong to any union.
And then you had the cooks and bakers, waiters, and
dishwashers . They had a full mess hall crew at the Twin Lakes
camp, and even at the forebay camp they had bakers. But at the
Twin Lakes camp they had a large ice -making plant. They had a
large walk-in refrigerator where they kept all their meats,
butter, eggs, and perishables, including chickens and even
turkeys. They had a large crew at the Twin Lakes camp. They were
working all the time. Breakfast for the day shift would be
usually at seven or seven- thirty in the morning. We had another
60
meal at noon, and our dinner was usually about five -thirty at
night. Then they had to have breakfast for the crew that went on
at six o'clock in the morning. That crew ate with us at noon, and
they didn't get off shift until after five o'clock; so it was at
six o'clock, again, that they ate. They had to feed the crew that
was starting the next shift, and then there was a midnight meal.
And there was another one when that crew came off in the morning.
They had a big kitchen crew. The bakers, of course, only worked
eight hours a day. But they baked all the cakes, all the pies,
all the biscuits, and all the rolls.
Lage: And they were trained, it sounds like.
McLean: Oh, yes. They were a regular bakery outfit, and they had their
own bakery. That is, they had a place that was separate from
anything else.
Lage: Were they a contracting firm that came and baked--?
McLean: No, no. They were part of the whole operation. They came under
the superintendent. You don't see those anymore. Today we do not
have the large construction camps.
In later camps, like down at Boulder, when they built the
Boulder Dam or the Hoover Dam- -whatever you want to call it; we
always called it Boulder- -they actually had a contractor that came
in and did all this. They just contracted for the camp, and they
contracted for all the cooking and everything else. But what I'm
talking about , back in the twenties , when there were other
projects being built (I was only on just this one project and then
at Pardee) , those were the days of the big construction camps.
They had some two thousand workers at these camps , and they were
big camps. And the contractors- -it was Atkinson Construction
Company at Pardee --why, they were used to setting up these camps.
They had a man who was in charge of doing this type of work. They
had been doing it for many years.
Lage: Nothing to do with engineering?
McLean: Nothing to do with engineering.
Preliminary Work on the California Water Prolect. 1924-1925
Lage: Let's move on so we can get you to East Bay MUD [Municipal Utility
District] .
61
McLean: All right. Let's cover what happened next. When I completed the
work up at Twin Lakes, I went back to the main construction office
of the H. M. Byllesby Company, fourteen miles above Placerville.
I worked that winter at the office.
Lage : I think we covered this .
McLean: Yes, we've covered that. The next year I went back with Fred
Hoskins to do the final engineering work, what we call the final
field work, at Twin Lakes. But prior to that we had stopped at
Echo to investigate raising the lake level. That was finished in
August of 1924. Bob Edmonston, after completing the powerhouse,
went to Sacramento with what is now the State Division of Water
Resources, where he became the assistant engineer to Paul Bailey.
Paul Bailey was the state engineer, and Bob became his assistant.
And at that time they were getting started on what was known as
the California Water Project. I was employed there as a junior
hydraulic engineer and worked on what we call flood plain studies
and flow of California streams. One thing that I worked on was a
report on economic aspects of a salt water barrier at Carquinez
Straits.
•*
Lage: They were doing all this sort of preliminary work?
McLean: This was the start of the California Water Project. This is when
the state got started on the project. This was when they were
doing the original field work on the Shasta and Oroville Dam sites
and a number of those other dam sites in the state. We were also
looking at the canal locations in the San Joaquin Valley. I
worked with Bob on that until November, 1925, when we finished
most of the work on it. That was a little over a year that I was
there in Sacramento. We were in the Forum Building and then also
in the Plaza Building. A lot of this work was done with a small
group of us over in the Plaza Building.
Investigations of the Middle Fork of the Feather River. 1925-1927
McLean: The work we were doing in those days was limited by appropriations
from the state legislature, and we were just about finished with
the assignments that we had at that time- -to get out all of the
studies that we had on the California Aqueduct and the rest of the
work- -so I knew that work was running out. I received a call from
a fellow by the name of Ben Painter, who had been on the El Dorado
project with me, except that he had been on what was known as the
El Dorado ditch. He wanted to know if I would come to Oroville
and be his assistant on the investigation of the middle fork of
62
the Feather River. It was the first of November of 1925 that I
went up to Oroville and we started the surveys. I worked in the
office, doing all of the office work. We had a field party that
was to locate the alignment for a power line that went from the
middle fork of the Feather River at Bidwell Bar down to Manteca.
This was the location for transmission lines.
Lage: You were trying to find the best routes for transmission lines?
McLean: Yes.
Lage: How did that work? That sounds intriguing.
McLean: Well, that was done during the winter of 1925.
Lage: How did they find the best one?
McLean: You use the U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps, and you try
to find an area where you're somewhat below the main timberline
and not getting down into agricultural land. We sort of followed
the base of the foothills through more or less unsettled land. It
was* mostly open grazing land, where a right of way would be the
least expensive. And we were to tie into a power line east of
Manteca. That was for a proposed powerhouse at Bidwell Bar.
Lage: Were there permits and things that you had to get, or is that
something of the more recent--?
McLean: At that time, no, because this was just a preliminary location
that we were mapping. Of course, when you get into it later, then
you have to purchase easements from the various property owners.
We were just trying to locate a tentative route and prepare maps
for the location. As I recall, the length of that line was about
125 miles. It was quite a distance. Of course, my work was all
in the office. I was doing all the calculations and computations
and drawing the maps in the office. We plotted the location on
maps, so that we had a whole series of maps.
Lage: You were not going through the brush?
McLean: I wasn't in the field. I would get out once in a while with a
field party, but I didn't spend too much time in the field. After
we finished the transmission line locations, we disbanded the
field parties for the winter.
McLean: The following spring, when we would get the field parties in the
middle fork of the Feather River canyon, the first thing we had to
63
do was to establish some elevations for proposed pipelines and
powerhouse locations. Our assignment was to investigate the
hydroelectric potential of the middle fork of the Feather. The
Feather River, from Portola down to Bidwell Bar, falls four
thousand feet in elevation in forty miles . There is also a large
quantity of water flowing in the river, so it makes an excellent
hydroelectric development.
J
Survey Parties in Remote Countryside
McLean: First we had to establish elevations through the canyon, because
this was all virgin country. We started- -one instrument man, a
rodman, and a helper, with a couple of burros, and they put their
packs on with food and personal gear, etc. One party started up
the middle fork of the Feather River from a bench mark. It was a
U.S. Geological Survey bench mark on the Western Pacific Railroad
where the middle fork of the Feather empties into the north fork.
That party started up the south side of the river to run levels at
about midway between the river and the top of the canyon, where we
would be coming through with survey parties to pick up these
elevations. They were to establish bench marks through the river.
We started another party going down the river with the same
complements, you might say, of an instrument man, a rodman, a
helper, and a couple of burros with their bedrolls and their
cooking equipment. We started them down the river from a bench
mark that was at the east portal of the tunnel, where the Western
Pacific Railroad crosses between the north fork and the middle
fork. They eventually met about midway between Portola and
Bidwell Bar.
They were setting bench marks --elevation marks- -all the way
down the river. While they were working in the river, we had a
survey party consisting of ten men surveying Gold Lake, Jamison
Lake, Wade Lake, Bushy Lake, and a group of lakes whose water
rights the Byllesby people had bought from early mining companies .
These lakes all drain into the middle fork of the Feather River.
Lage: [looking at map] These lakes are right near Quincy.
McLean: Yes, right near Quincy, because we stayed at the Feather River Inn
and at the Gold Lake Lodge. These lakes were used in the early
days to supply water for hydraulic mining. This was the hydraulic
mining that was done down in the middle fork area. They had put
little dams in these; there were half a dozen. Well, there was
Gold Lake, Wade, Bushy, Jamison, Sardine; I think there were six
or seven small lakes up there. The first thing they wanted to
64
know about was whether the elevations could be raised and what the
size and the capacity were. So the first field party that I had
up in the canyon at that time, why, we stayed at the Feather River
Inn. Later, when we worked up at Gold Lake, we stayed at the Gold
Lake Lodge.
Lage: How many people would be staying there?
McLean: We had a transit and level party for a total of ten men. When we
finished at Gold Lake, we started in the middle fork canyon. That
was the summer of 1926. In the fall of '26 we moved the camp down
to Bidwell Bar, and we stayed at Bidwell Bar. Ve also had a camp
on the south fork of the Feather River. I was living in Oroville
then.
At that time we surveyed what was known as the Bidwell Bar
Reservoir. It was proposed to build a dam at the Bidwell Bar
site. Ve spent the months of October, November, and part of
December on the south fork and the middle fork near Oroville. We
spent those months in those two camps. Finally we disbanded the
parties just before Christmas; the fellows all wanted to go home
for Christmas. Ben Painter and I worked all winter in the office
in Oroville on computations and preparing maps of the summer's
work.
Lage: Did you have your family up there?
McLean: Oh, yes, I had my family; I moved them up there in that year, in
'26. We lived on Bird Street in Oroville. Ben and I worked all
winter on all the notes that we'd taken during the summer, working
up all the drawings, and making out the reports and everything.
When the snow was off of the mountains the following year- -well,
let me back up a minute to the summer and fall of '26. That
summer we also started at a reservoir site on the river- -that is,
a proposed small diversion dam on the river- -and we worked down
the river to what was known as Bald Rock Canyon. We surveyed
three powerhouse sites in that area and then finally finished up
at Bidwell Bar.
After we left Gold Lake and that area, we went down into the
river and started down the canyon. There we had camps at Hartman
Bar and at Bald Rock, at what we called Cascade. Then we had
another camp at Bidwell Bar and one at South Fork. In those days
we had to move with a pack train, because all of this country was
uninhabited, basically. We had a pack train camp there, and the
packer would come into our camp once a week with supplies. We had
a cook who cooked for us . I had fourteen men on the party there .
We worked the entire river canyon, starting at a dam site named
65
Clio at the upper end of the river, downstream from the town of
Portola. We worked the entire river, down to Bidwell Bar.
Lage: What were you doing when you say you were surveying?
McLean: Well, we were surveying for sites for pipelines or conduits and
penstocks and the powerhouse site.
Lage: Just looking at all the alternative sites?
McLean: Yes. In other words, there would be a diversion dam in the river,
and you'd have a pipeline leading out of that, and then you'd have
a penstock and a powerhouse. Because of the quantity of water in
the river and because of the fall that you had from the upper end
down to Bidwell Bar, there were sites for at least three
powerhouses in the river.
Lage: So you would have accepted three smaller rather than one big?
McLean: No. A four thousand foot head is a high head, which would require
a long conduit and stronger penstocks. Normally you have a
pipeline, a penstock, and a powerhouse. Then you divert the water
up below the powerhouse and, again, you have a pipeline, a
penstock, and a powerhouse. And then you come down to Bidwell
Bar, and you have another penstock. So on and so forth. We were
surveying all of these sites. And every time we had finished at
the powerhouse site, we'd move camp. In other words, in the forty
miles I think the first one went from Clio down to, as I recall,
Cascade. The next one was at Bald Rock, where we had a tunnel
through Bald Rock to the head of the penstock. The next site was
at Bidwell Bar, where we had another reservoir and a powerhouse.
We spent the entire summer, after we had finished the work we
had at Gold Lake, Wade, Jamison, Bushy, and all the smaller lakes.
Then we moved over in the main part of the river. Because by that
time the parties had completed setting the bench marks, and we had
elevation bench marks to work by. Then we started the crew down
the river, and that's where we spent the entire summer of 1926 --in
the river, where we were supplied by pack train. One place we
stayed at, Hartman Bar, there had been a camp there, so we
utilized those facilities. There were some cabins, a cookhouse,
and a mess hall. We utilized them all. But the remainder of the
camps, we had to have our own tents and cook shack. At Cascade we
were on the north side of the river, and we set up a tent camp
there where we would get our supplies by road.
66
Frenchie the Cook and His Replacement
Lage: So you were involved in all the setting up of camps on this
investigation?
McLean: That's right. This was with Ben Painter. I have to tell you
about an instance. When we had finished the powerhouse site at
Cascade, we moved over to the north side of the river. And there
we set up camp near a gasoline service station and kind of a
little store. They had a little quick- lunch counter and some
supplies. We moved with the pack train, and the cook, Frenchie,
always went along with us. The cook always went with the pack
train; they always had a horse for him to ride. He moved with
them because he had to set up camp and get his cook shack set up
so that when the fellows finished at night, why, he had something
to eat for them.
Well, when we finished at Cascade, we climbed out of the
river up to where our new camp was on the north side of the river.
Everybody was Just tired, and we expected to have a big supper
ready for us. And there was the cook, dead drunk on his bed, and
nothing to eat. It happened that the man who ran the service
station was bootlegging. I suppose he gave Frenchie a drink, and
one drink led to another. He was dead drunk. Veil, I told the
woman at the service station, "Now, look. Your husband is
responsible for this, and I've got a hungry bunch of fellows here.
You better get in and fix something to eat for these men. Because
they've got to have something to eat tonight, and they're going to
need some breakfast. Now, you get in there and get going on
this." So she fixed it up.
Lage: You had the supplies?
McLean: Yes. And she prepared supper and then cooked breakfast. We had
to start down the river the next day. Well, the next morning, I
could see that Frenchie wasn't going to make it.
Lage: Wasn't ready to take off on the horse?
McLean: He wasn't. [chuckles] So I had to get on the telephone to
Marysville to one of the hiring places there, Murray and Ready. I
said, "I'm going to pour this cook on the automobile stage." In
those days, there was a stage that ran from Marysville to Quincy.
There were also stages that ran from La Porte to Marysville on the
south side of the middle fork. So I stayed in camp, and I put
Frenchie on the stage going down. I told Murray and Ready,
"You've got to get me a cook up here, because I've got to have a
cook." The following day, here comes the cook from Marysville.
67
So then we're okay. He stayed, and then we finished at Bald Rock
and went on to Bidwell Bar. There we worked on the south fork and
also the Bidwell Bar reservoir site that winter. And that
finished up.
1927 Survey of Grizzly Valley
McLean: We disbanded the survey parties, and the following summer [1927]
we went back to Portola, because we then were to survey the
Grizzly Valley reservoir site, what they now call Davis Reservoir.
Ve stayed at Portola. There were two little hotels there, and we
stayed at one hotel. And we spent the summer surveying Grizzly
Valley- -what is now Davis Lake, which was built by the state. But
at that time we called it Grizzly Valley, and we surveyed that for
a potential source of storage.
This was a big lumbering area. Here's Feather Falls [looking
at map]. When we were working in there, all of this country was
being logged out, every bit of it. We had one of our base camps
down from La Porte . We had our pack camp there . This was the
summer of 1927. We went to Portola, as I recall, about the first
of May, and it was about August, I think, when we finally finished
everything.
Lage: Did anything come of those Feather River investigations?
McLean: Not a thing. They've never done anything about it. In fact, if
I'm not mistaken, I think a part or maybe all of that middle fork
was put in the so-called Wild Rivers Act. I don't know.
PG&E Purchase of H. M. Bvllesbv Company's California Interests
McLean: But while we were there that summer of 1927, the Byllesby people --
that is, the H. M. Byllesby Company of Byllesby Engineering and
Management Corporation- -sold out all of their power interest.
This included the Western States Gas and Electric Company, Coast
Counties' Gas and Electric, and a lot of other subsidiaries it
owned in California. They sold their holdings to the Pacific Gas
and Electric Company. And sometime--! don't remember whether it
was July or August--! was told that the next checks that we would
receive would be from PG&E. From then on, all the expenses and
everything else --hotel bills, restaurant bills --went into the PG&E
office in San Francisco.
68
Lage: So, that happened In the middle of your job?
McLean: Yes. Veil, it was near ing the end of the investigation. When
this was all finished, I took all the final reports and drawings
to the PG&E office in San Francisco. We disbanded the field
parties and paid all the men. Clive Steele was the chief engineer
at that time.
Lage: We did talk a little bit about this.
McLean: PG&E offered me less money, and 1 wouldn't go to work for them. I
went over and went to work for the East Bay Municipal Utility
District [EBMUD] for the same amount of money. [chuckles] So, on
October 4, 1927, I went to work for the utility district.
Lage: Right. Now we've got you to East Bay MUD.
69
IV FIRST JOB WITH EAST BAT HUD: THE MOKELUMNE AQUEDUCT AND PARDEE
DAM, 1927-1930
Inspecting Concrete Work on the Aqueduct
McLean: The first job I had with East Bay MUD, then, was--. I reported to
Mr. John S. Longwell, who was a division engineer in Stockton, and
then to Mr. Barnes, who was the resident engineer on schedule F.
Schedule F was the section of the aqueduct which went from the
west portal of the Pardee Tunnel down to, I believe, what they
call Jack Tone Road, just east of the city of Stockton. That was
about twenty to twenty-eight miles. I was the inspector for all
the concrete work on that schedule for all the pier supports and
all of the anchors and structures. There was a lot of concrete,
because Schedule F was in pretty rugged terrain, and it required a
lot of anchors and structures. The main contractor, the
contractor for the entire project, was Twohy Brothers and
J. F. Shea Company.
The entire aqueduct, the eighty- two miles of aqueduct from
the Pardee Tunnel to the Walnut Creek Tunnel was under one
contractor, Twohy and Shea. The pipe for that Job was
manufactured in Berkeley, by Berkeley Steel Tank and Pipe Company.
Lage: How did they happen to assign you to this job? Had you had
particular experience with respect to concrete structures?
McLean: Yes. In my early career with the State Highway Commission I had
worked in the testing laboratory in Sacramento for a couple of
years, and I was very familiar with concrete testing and the
mixing of concrete. So I was a very good candidate for the
concrete inspection work.
The concrete work on this particular section was
subcontracted to a man by the name of Jim Lapp in. Twohy and Shea
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were what we call the general contractors. I don't know whether
those words fit in your vocabulary or not, but a general
contractor is one that takes on the entire project for x number of
million dollars. Then he can subcontract out various sections of
the principal contract. The pipe work was subcontracted to
Newport News Shipbuilding Company.
Lage: That seems far afield from shipbuilding, but maybe it's not.
McLean: Yes. The plates were shipped by boat to Berkeley, and the pipe
was fabricated at the Steel Tank and Pipe Company in Berkeley.
Newport News Shipbuilding Company, located on the East Coast
somewhere began the rolling and machining of the plates. A new
technique was involved, and it was necessary to train operators
for this type of work. The pipe was fabricated at the Steel Tank
and Pipe Company in Berkeley. The pipe was made in sections,
having a lying length of thirty feet, with an average wall
thickness of seven -sixteenths, dependent on the pressure head.
The pipe was dipped in melted asphalt and tar and wrapped with
asbestos felt paper. After the pipe was made in thirty- foot
lengths it was put on barges and taken to the port of Stockton by
barge, where it was picked up by special trucks. They were Mack
trucks with a dolly. There thirty- foot sections of pipe were put
on these trucks and hauled to the job, where they were unloaded.
They hauled three sections of pipe per load, two sections on the
lower part and then one section on top of the two.
McLean: Bob Conyes was the one who contracted for the hauling of the pipe
from the Berkeley Steel Company to the job. He had an entire
fleet of these trucks with the pipe dollies. He must have had ten
trucks or more. We finished the pipe laying for the entire
aqueduct in March of 1928. 1
Lage: Am I right that your job was to see that the contractors were
doing their job?
McLean: My job was to see that the concrete structures were built
according to plans and specifications, that we had a good quality
concrete, and that the structures were sound. This included the
anchors, the piers, the air valve structures, the blow-off
structures, and all the concrete structures on that particular
portion of the aqueduct- -Schedule F, which was the last section to
be built. The district had rented a house in the little town of
"Welding of the Big 'M' Aqueduct," by W. R. McLean, speech to the
American Welding Society, 3-14-66, in McLean Papers, The Bancroft Library.
71
Camanche, and that was the headquarters for myself and the fellows
who worked on Schedule F. There was Mr. Barnes, the resident
engineer, myself, a fellow who was a rivet inspector, and the
field party of surveyors who worked there. There were about six
or seven of us who worked out of the Camanche office.
Lage: No families were there?
McLean: The only one who had a family there was Vhitey Williams, the rivet
inspector. He and his wife had a tent that was alongside our
office. His wife lived there, but the rest of us didn't have our
families. As for eating, we boarded with a farm family located
about a mile from the town of Camanche. Ve would have breakfast
and dinner there, and they'd pack a lunch for us out on the job.
1 was there from October until, oh, I think about the first of
March.
Lage: Did you have any problems with the contractors?
McLean: No. The interesting part about it was that Jim Lappin, who was the
contractor on the concrete work- -his sister had been my English
teacher at school. He lived in Sacramento. They had a family
home on N Street, across from the state capital building. He had
two sisters, and they were both schoolteachers. His sister- -and
I've been trying to think of her name, but I've forgotten- -was the
English teacher when I went to school in Oak Park. So I knew the
family.
Anyway, I think we finished up there about the first of
March, and then I went into the Stockton office for part of March
and the month of April. They were, of course, finishing the final
quantities and estimates for the aqueduct. Mr. Longwell was
there, and there was Bill Trahern, Sam Cutler, and Lars Netland.
Anyway, they were finishing up the final reports in the Stockton
office , and I went in and finished the final report on the work
that I'd done on the concrete work.
Transfer to Pardee Dam
McLean: On the first of May, 1928, Sam Cutler, Bill Trahern, and myself
reported to Pardee to Mr. E. L. Macdonald, who was the resident
engineer. Mr. C. E. Grunsky was the division engineer. Ve
reported to them to work on the Pardee Dam. And at that time
Pardee was just getting really started. The contractor was
working in the bottom of the river, excavating the foundation for
the dam. Bill and Sam were to work in the office. I was in the
Lage:
72
field, and my first work was on concrete inspection, when they
started pouring the first concrete for the foundation of the dam.
Who was the contractor out at Pardee?
McLean: The contractor on that was Atkinson Construction Company. And
that was composed of Guy F. Atkinson; his nephew, Lynn Atkinson;
and Bill Kettlewell. They called it Atkinson Construction
Company, but they put it together and called it Atconco. They
were the main contractor. There was a large construction camp for
the workers and housing for key personnel and their families.
Lage: A big construction camp for the workers?
McLean: Yes. They had also set up a gravel plant in the river near
Camanche. That's where they mined the gravel for the dam, from
the gold dredger tailings. Then they constructed an aerial
tramway for transporting the gravel from the pit to the bunkers at
the concrete mixing plant.
1 think the contract for the dam was awarded sometime in
1926. And of course they had to set up their plant, they had to
set up the camp, and they had to build a tramway. They had a
tramway for hauling the gravel from Camanche, from the Camanche
gravel pit. At one time all that area below Camanche, where the
Camanche reservoir is now, was a large dredger tailing area. Fact
is, when we were working in there on the aqueduct in '27, why,
they had some gold dredgers working then in the river, mining
gold.
The first work I had at Pardee was on concrete inspection on
the dam. We finally got started pouring concrete sometime in May
or June of 1928. We were getting ready to build the spillway, and
then Macdonald, who was the resident engineer, put me over in
charge of the spillway. I took over all the work on the spillway
and did very little work, except occasionally, on the dam. I
finished up the spillway and then, I guess, went back over to the
dam, and we finished up the dam and all that by May of 1930, when
I was transferred down to the Lafayette Dam.
Accident at Dedication for the Aqueduct
[Interview 3: April 17, 1991 ]#//
McLean: I recall an incident after the construction on the aqueduct had
been completed and the last pipe was laid. The last section of
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pipe was laid Just out west of the town of Wallace. They had all
the dignitaries there, people from the main office, Arthur P.
Davis, and Mr. Longwell, and the board of directors. They had
movie cameras there and took pictures of the last section of pipe
laid. One of the incidents that I remember was the day before the
ceremony was to take place, and I believe it was around March 28,
1928. We went up there and had the final section of pipe that was
to be laid. It wasn't in the ground; it was on what we call
concrete bents.
Lage: Bents?
McLean: Yes. There are places on the number-one aqueduct where there was
a swale or something like that, and the pipe was set on concrete
bents. See, most of the pipe is buried, and this was a place
where we could put the pipe and set it in place, and they could
take all the pictures and break the champagne and everything else.
Anyway, the day before we had fitted this piece of pipe so that it
would slide right into place. When the day came and everybody was
all assembled there, the crane went over and picked this piece of
pipe up. What you do with a section of pipe? You set one end in
place and then you lower it down. Lo and behold, one of the poor
fellows- -and I felt sorry for him- -who was one of the crew that
was working there to set the piece of pipe in place, was more
interested in movie cameras than anything else. He,
unfortunately, got his two fingers in between where the pipe was
coming down, and it sheared off two fingers of his hand, just like
that, you know. The poor guy, there he was with all the cameras
and everything else. Paying attention to them, he forgot that
when the pipe comes down, it's just like a pair of scissors, you
know. And here are his two fingers, and it cut them off, right at
the knuckles .
Lage: And was this very obvious to all the dignitaries?
McLean: Oh, absolutely. Yes. Those that were standing right there knew
right away because, God, the blood started spouting and everything
else. Of course, we had to bind it up right away and rush him off
to the doctor. But the poor guy. He'd been there the day before,
practicing.
Personnel at Pardee:
to Gold Diggers
Prom Photographer to Concrete Technologis t
McLean: Anyway, the pipe was laid, and that was the end of it. Then, of
course, I spent about a month in the office down in Stockton
74
working up a lot of the final stuff that I had and made a report.
Then, as I said, Bill Trahern and I reported to Pardee on the
first of May. My family was living in El Dorado at the time.
Bill and I lived in what we called the single men's quarters. The
contractors had a big camp at Pardee. I guess the contractor must
have employed at maximum between fifteen hundred to two thousand
workmen. And then the district- -I guess we had fifty or sixty
people there, because there was work going on on the dam. There
was work going on in the Pardee Tunnel, and there was also work
going on at the Jackson Creek Spillway. That was over at the
north end of the reservoir. When I got there, I was assigned to
work on the dam as the concrete inspector.
Lage : So you were inspecting the work of the contractor?
McLean: That's right. Inspecting the work of the contractor. Bill went
to work in the office, with Sam Cutler and a fellow by the name of
Frank Harlow. Mr. Grunsky was the division engineer, and E. L.
Macdonald was the resident engineer. Howard Reed was the
accountant. Then we had two or three --Art Murray, Fran Sandretto,
and several other fellows who were working in the office. They
had odd jobs. The photographer was a fellow by the name of Ham
Johnson.
Lage: Was Johnson was a full-time photographer?
McLean: Yes, he was a full-time photographer. He had a studio there where
he took pictures, and they were developed there on the Job.
Lage: Was this to document it historically?
McLean: Oh, yes. There have to be photographs. They should have a
complete photographic file there, from the time that the first
work started. He set up certain points that he photographed at
regular intervals to show the progress of the work. He was there
from the beginning of the work, when they first started working in
the canyon. He was there until we had the final picture of the
group on the dam and everything. Then we had a fellow by the name
of Lewis Tuthill with the concrete. He was concrete technologist.
We had a lab. His job was to test the cement and the aggregate
and also to test the concrete that went into the dam.
Lage: Were you working with him? As the concrete inspector?
McLean: Well, yes. Well, I worked under Macdonald, but of course we took
samples. When I arrived there they were cleaning up the
foundation. The cleanup of the foundation was very interesting,
because when you get down to what we call the bedrock, why, of
course that's where the gold was. In the days of the final
75
cleanup there was quite a scramble among the workers down there to
look for gold. And some of them did get some nuggets out of the
bottom when we were down on the bedrock. That was before we
poured in concrete. Some of them found some little nuggets. Fact
is, I think I found a little flake about the size of the end of my
finger, and I had it in a little vial for many, many years. I
don't know what's become of it.
That was with the cleanup; we were down at the base of the
dam, right in the bottom of the river. See, the river was
diverted. They had constructed a large flume that would carry the
full flow of the river. That was located on the north side, what
we called the north abutment, right in the bottom of the river.
This diverted the river so we could get down and clean the bedrock
and get ready for pouring the concrete.
Mining and Hauline Aggregate for Concrete
McLean: The contractor, to get the aggregate for the dam, went downstream
to the gravel beds at Camanche , which is now under the Camanche
Lake. Those were all what we called dredged tailings. There had
been dredgers working down there many years before. And fact is,
when we were working on the aqueduct, there was a dredger still
working in the Camanche area for gold. The contractor went there
and set up a plant where they mined the aggregate for the dam, and
then they had what they call a high line with buckets that would
supply the bins for the concrete mixers with the aggregate.
Lage: Is this a cable that would carry it up?
McLean: These were large bins. This was a continual bucket line. They
had one -cubic -yard buckets that would travel on this cable, and
they had high line towers all along--! think it was about three or
four miles in length- -that came from the classification plant.
The classification plant separated the aggregate into four sizes.
The contractor had four concrete mixers under these bins, and then
they had conveyer belts that fed the aggregate to the mixers.
They were five-cubic-yard Smith mixers. From there the concrete
went by gravity in a chute to the base of the dam, where it was
hoisted up a tower. From there it went out through what we call
counterbalances to get the aggregate on the dam. During the
process down at the gravel plant there was a fellow (I've
forgotten his name) who was an old miner from El Dorado; I knew
him from the town of El Dorado. He got the concession from
Atkinson to recover the gold during the gravel mining process.
H
76
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
He recovered a lot of gold, some very fine gold and nuggets. He
also recovered a lot of coins. He recovered a lot of foreign
coins, and he also recovered enough American gold coins to make up
four sets --that is, of twenty, ten, five, and two and one -half
gold pieces. He made up these sets and gave one to each of the
partners and to the contractor, and he had one himself. He also
found Masonic lodge pins, Peruvian coins, Brazilian coins, English
coins, a lot of lead buckshot, bullets, and everything else. He
had several kegs , what we called nail kegs , full of this lead that
they'd recovered out of the river. He was there the entire time
during the construction. He actually made, well, I wouldn't say
made a fortune, but he made a very good living out of recovering
the gold from the gravel .
When the job was finished, all of that plant was dismantled.
Years ago when 1 went to Pardee , you could still see some of the
towers standing that they didn't take down.
Towers for the cable?
For the cables, yes. It was somewhat about like these towers that
you now have at the ski lifts, except of course they were wood
towers. Just about the same thing. It was a continuous cable
that just kept going like that continuously. These buckets went
along, and they went underneath the bins down at the gravel plant.
They were filled, and then away they'd go. And when they got up
to the bins, depending upon the size of the aggregate that they
were hauling--. They hauled sand and then had a 3/8-inch to a
1 1/2 -inch aggregate, and then a 1 1/2 -inch to 2 1/2 -inch
aggregate, and then what we called boulders. There were large
boulders about the size of a small football.
dam.
Here's a sample of a core taken out of the concrete in the
Lage: Now, this one's beautifully shaped.
McLean: Yes. That was a diamond core sample taken out of the concrete.
Lage: To check the quality of the dam?
McLean: Yes. That's from the concrete in the dam, from a sample core that
was taken out of the dam. Anyway, as the buckets would go over
the bins, they would trip, drop their aggregate, and then they'd
just keep right on going. These buckets were spaced about, oh, I
guess on an area about one hundred feet apart on the cable line.
From there, down the base of the bin, there were conveyor belts
that fed the mixers. They were five-yard Smith mixers.
77
The cement was also in bulk, and it came from a cement
manufacturing plant at San Andreas . And fact is , the cement plant
at San Andreas was built to supply Pardee Dam. There was roughly
620,000 cubic yards of concrete in Pardee, and that doesn't
include the grouting, the spillway, the tunnel, and all of those
things .
Lage: Just the dam itself.
McLean: So they actually set up a cement plant at San Andreas. I don't
know whether that's in operation anymore, but they actually set up
a plant to manufacture cement at San Andreas. That operated the
entire time the dam was under construction. That cement used to
come into Pardee by railroad; this spur was built to supply the
dam. There was a railroad that ran to San Andreas. I don't
suppose it's in operation anymore. All of the supplies --that is,
the equipment, the materials, and everything that went into the
dam- -came in by railroad. The cement came in by bulk, although
they did have a lot of it in sacks. A lot of it came in sacks for
emergency, but they had a cement bin that was all bulk. The
railroad cars came in and dumped right into this bin.
Lage: How much of the concrete is cement, and how much of it is
aggregate?
McLean: Well, I think that we averaged about four sacks- -four cubic feet--
of cement per cubic yard of concrete. Let's say you've got
620,000 cubic yards. [does some figuring] Times four, that would
be 2,480,000 sacks of cement. But that does not include the
grouting, the spillway, the powerhouse; it doesn't include the
Jackson Creek Spillway, the tunnel, and all that, which probably
would amount to, oh, maybe another million bags of cement total.
Altogether you could probably figure that there was in the
neighborhood of three million or more sacks of cement used at the
time that those structures were built. So that was a big
operation in those days.
Of course, we used trucks on the construction of the dam for
hauling, but you didn't have the transportation in trucks then
that you have today. The pipe on the aqueduct was all hauled by
truck, but you take the transport of other than small articles and
things like that that came into Pardee, and everything came in by
rail. The turbines, the generators, all the big valves, the
transformers, and all the equipment that came for the powerhouse
all came by train.
78
The High Line
McLean: Then it was handled by high line to the powerhouse. There was a
high line that went across the dam.
Lage: Is this another overhead cable?
McLean: They had a north and a south tower. There were cables that came
off of those. There was an electric hoist, and they would pick up
large equipment --the big valves and pipe and all- -from the
railroad cars that came to the dam. They would haul that all over
the dam and lower it into place into the powerhouse or wherever
they were working.
The train came over the canyon, of course, and the hoist was
along the edge of the railroad track, on the south abutment. The
mixing plant was below. When it came to dumping the cement out of
hopper-bottom cars, it dumped directly into the cement bin. Now,
if the load was on a flat car — like the generators for the
powerhouse , or the turbines for the powerhouse , and the
transformers and all the heavy equipment that weighed several
tons- -they would put a flat car right underneath the high line,
and they'd drop the hook down there. The riggers would get the
slings around it, and they'd lift it out and just run it right
over the top of the powerhouse and lower it into place.
A lot of that equipment came from the East. The generators,
I believe, came from the East Coast. The transformers were also
manufactured in the East, and they came by train on up to Valley
Springs, and then from Valley Springs they were taken right to the
dam. That was quite common in those days because, as I say, we
didn't have the transcontinental truck transportation that you
have today. All the big equipment and everything that came in
there all came by railroad.
Atkinson Construction Company. Contractors on the Pardee Job
Lage: You make it sound like such a smooth operation, and it was such a
giant project. Did you have good management to do this?
McLean: Oh, yes.
Lage: Tell me something about the managers and supervisors.
79
Me lean: There were the three partners that formed what was known as the
Atkinson Construction Company. There was Guy F. Atkinson, Bill
Kettlewell, and Lynn Atkinson. Guy F. was the elder. He was an
old-time railroad contractor. In those days, most of the big
contractors had been railroad contractors.
Lage: So they helped build railroads?
McLean: They had built railroads, yes. Even when we were working up at
Devil's Corral and up on that road at Susanville, a lot of the
work was done with what we called horses and fresnos. I don't
know whether you know what a fresno is.
Lage: I've heard the term.
McLean: A fresno scraper was a scraper or dirt scoop that was usually
pulled by two or more horses. This was before the days of
bulldozers and carryalls. When you pulled it, it would fill up,
and it would hold about a yard of dirt. When he got ready to trip
it, the operator — the guy who was walking behind the team- -would
just lift it up a little bit, and it would automatically dump
itself. Then they'd turn around and come back and get another
load.
Lage: But that wasn't used on Pardee? That was earlier?
McLean: No, that wasn't used on Pardee. On Pardee we had big equipment.
We had steam shovels and dump trucks.
Lage: Was the equipment new at the time, or was it used in railroad
building?
McLean: Well, most of it was new. These contractors had been on Coolidge
Dam in Arizona. All the high line equipment had come up from
Coolidge.
Getting back to the partnership, at the time Pardee was
built, this was one of the largest dams, or the highest dam, in
the United States.
Lage: That's what I've read, the highest dam.
McLean: Yes, the highest dam and the greatest quantity of concrete. In
other words, 620,000 cubic yards of concrete in the dam was the
largest dam that had ever been built in the United States. This
was followed by many, many others after that. But it was the
highest dam. It was only exceeded after that by the Diablo Dam in
Washington and Boulder Dam in Arizona.
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This was a large contract, and in order to get bonding, what
they call bonding capacity- -when an agency like the district
[EBMUD] lets a contract for the work, the contractor has to put up
what we call a performance bond. The performance bond usually
costs one and one-half percent of the contract price. I don't
recall what it was then, but it meant that he had to be able to
bond himself for a percentage of the Job. And this was a big job;
it was a big contract. So in order to get bonding capacity, you
enter into Joint ventures. Down at Boulder, there was a joint
venture between six companies. There was Kaiser, Morris and
Knudsen, Bechtel, and other big contractors, in order to get
enough bonding capacity to build the job. One single contractor
didn't have enough financial standing to obtain bonds to bid the
project.
Lage: Did Atkinson do the same thing?
McLean: Yes. It was Guy F. Atkinson, Bill Kettlewell, and Lynn Atkinson
who were independent contractors on their own. Bill was an old
railroad contractor, Guy F. was an old railroad contractor, and I
think Lynn had done some paving work or something like -that. So
they formed what was known as Atkinson Construction Company, later
known as Atconco. This was a big operation. And that was for the
construction of the dam; construction began moving. Later on,
there was not only the dam, but the tunnel was under construction
at the same time. I don't know whether Guy F. and Lynn or whether
all three of them had been on Coolidge, which was a small dam down
in Arizona.
Lage: Much smaller than Pardee?
McLean: Yes, much smaller than Pardee. They had been down on the Coolidge
Dam there, and most of the rigging equipment- -the towers, all of
the high- line equipment, the elephant trunks, and all of those had
been used at Coolidge, and they came from Coolidge. All the rest
of the equipment --that is, the shovels and everything else that
they used on the dam- -was new. They had a big shovel on the
spillway.
Drilling and Shooting
McLean: Then we had rigged down in the bottom when they were cleaning up
the bottom- -because, you see, when they started excavating the
sides of the foundations for the abutments, they would drill holes
all up the side. Then they'd shoot them [with dynamite], and all
the debris- -earth, rocks, and everything- -would come down in the
81
bottom of the river. They had steam shovels there with trucks to
haul the material to a waste dump. That's how they excavated all
the foundation for the dam, drill and shoot.
They would usually shoot twice a day. They would shoot at
noontime, and then they'd shoot at five o'clock in the afternoon.
They didn't change shifts at noontime, but the workmen were out of
the bottom and wouldn't be there with flying debris. If you were
there, why, you had to get under a truck or under a shovel or
something like that, and then they would blast. It'd all go down
in the river, and you'd go to work with the steam shovels, haul it
out, and haul that downriver to get rid of it. Then, after they
had cleaned all that off, they were back up again in the afternoon
with air drills, drilling more holes to shoot. Then at five
o'clock, when everybody was out of the river again, they'd blow a
siren to warn everybody to get out, and then they'd shoot.
Dangers and Deaths of Workers
Lage: How dangerous was this job for the workers?
McLean: Well, it was pretty dangerous in those days. I believe eleven
people were killed on that job. The largest group of them was
killed on a truck. They used to take the men back and forth to
work down in the bottom. There was a very steep road that went
down into the canyon from the south abutment . You see , from the
top down to the canyon was about six hundred feet in depth. In
the morning they would take some of the workmen into the bottom of
the canyon on the flatbed truck, take them out for lunch, and back
after lunch. This was when they were working on the foundation in
the bottom.
They had a Model T Ford. A Model T Ford didn't have gear
shifts the way we have them. It was foot pedals that you pushed
for shifting gears. Well, they were taking a load of these
fellows down into the canyon after lunch one day. I guess they
had fifteen or twenty of them on the back of this truck, and a lot
of them sat with their legs hanging over the side; it was just a
flatbed. Well, the truck got away from them, and it went down
into the canyon.
Lage: Lost its brakes?
McLean: Apparently the brakes failed. Most of them came out all right,
but I think there were six or seven killed.
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Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean :
Lage:
McLean:
Was there anything done to take notice of these deaths?
Oh, yes, sure, because there was the Industrial Accident
Commission; they were on the job right away to investigate,
conducted a full investigation.
That was a government agency?
They
Yes, that's both federal and state. After they investigated the
accident, I don't know what they did about it at that time,
whether they changed to another type of truck or what happened.
Then another accident happened, and fact is, I was there at
the time it happened. They were cleaning up in the bottom of the
river- -I told you about the gold that was found- -and a lot of the
workmen that we had on the Job in those days were Mexican. There
were a lot of Mexican workers. I think I've told you previously
that when you wanted men for jobs like that it was through
employment agencies. There was several of them in Stockton. Most
of the laborers that were on the job were Mexican.
I'm surprised it was that early on.
Mexico?
Were they Mexicans from
I suppose so, most of them. Very few of them could speak English.
The concrete foreman on the job--Whitey, and I forget the other
fellow's name- -could speak Spanish quite well. That's how they
handled these fellows. Now, the carpenters were all skilled, and
most of those were Americans. Same way with the high-line
riggers; that was a pretty special Job, high-line rigging, you
know. These guys were up there five or six hundred feet in the
air when it'd come to setting the towers and getting the cables
for the lights. You see, they had lights over the top of this
because they operated night and day. They had this whole thing
lit up with overhead lights. The riggers, every one of them, were
skilled workers. They had to be, because, boy, you were up there
all by yourself on those cables.
Where did they develop their skills?
they have?
What kind of training did
A lot of those fellows came up from Coolidge. Fact is, the
superintendent, I believe, came from Coolidge. Ed Whipple was his
name. He was the general superintendent. The concrete
superintendent was a little short fellow named Jack Broughton, and
then the head rigger was the fellow we called Whitey. He also had
come from Coolidge.
Lage: And the carpenters?
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McLean: The carpenter superintendent was Ernie Stokes. They had a lot of
carpenters. They must have had forty or fifty carpenters or even
more. And they were all white, every one of them. Some of those
fellows had their families there, and some of them didn't. The
contractor set up a family camp. They had their families on the
Job.
Lage: You were about to tell me about another accident, and 1 think I
diverted you from it.
McLean: Oh, yes. The other accident that happened when I was on the job
involved one of these Mexican workers. We had two towers; we had
twin towers going up to hoist concrete. These buckets used to go
up and down, and they would hold five yards of concrete. They'd
hoist that up to the top, and it automatically dumped itself.
When it got to the top there was a trip, and it dumped the
concrete into a hopper. Then there was a workman at the hopper
who fed the concrete into a chute --counter balances we called the
concrete chutes. Then the concrete would go down chutes into the
elephant trunks and on to the dam, where the concrete was being
placed in the dam. The elephant trunks were short metal pipes,
twelve inches in diameter, suspended from the counter balance.
The tower was enclosed on the outside with forms. There was a
form around the tower to keep the concrete out of the tower.
Later on, when the tower was dismantled, this hole was filled with
concrete .
What happened, and we never knew why, was that one of the
Mexican workmen placing the concrete, and this was during the day,
stuck his head inside the tower form. Down came the bucket skip
and just took his head off. That was something that should never
have happened. It all happened before anyone could stop him.
One other fellow was killed when we were working on the back
slope of the dam. We were just about finished, and there were
walkways suspended at the back slope of the dam where they had to
clean concrete. The powerhouse was at the base of the dam; this
was about three hundred feet below where they were working. Right
up close to the top of the dam this fellow was working with a
crew, cleaning the concrete. For some reason or other he lost his
step, and he went down the slope, and he landed on the foundation
for the powerhouse, where all the reinforcing steel was sticking
out of the concrete. That fall killed him.
There were one or two other accidents on the job. The total
number of workmen killed was between nine and eleven. I think the
maximum was about eleven.
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Lage: Was it your feeling that they did what they could to keep the
danger level down?
McLean: Yes. You see, they were inspected frequently by the Industrial
Accident Commission about safety practice, and of course they had
safety signs all over. Everybody wore a hard hat; you were
required to wear a hard hat. Of course, there were lots of
things: concrete would spill, you know, and boulders would fall
that you sometimes had to duck to keep from being hit.
Lage: Did you yourself get in some of these dangerous areas? Did you
have to walk the high areas?
McLean: Oh, yes, you bet. We had to get around to every one of them.
That was our job. You just had to be careful wherever you were.
None of the district fellows was ever hurt.
McLean: For the type of construction job that Pardee was, and the time
frame, I don't think the number of men killed on that Job was
anything unusual. That was somewhat accepted. Today it would not
be accepted.
Pardee as the Guinea Pig for Other Big Dams
McLean: Furthermore, the type of concrete construction at that time was
far different than is in use today. No longer do we have these
high lines and all of this rigging in the air that they had at
Pardee. On Boulder Dam there was a tremendous transformation from
the methods used at Pardee.
Lage: You mean just from Pardee to Boulder there was a great change?
That was only a couple of years .
McLean: That's right. There was a tremendous change. At Boulder, to
place the concrete they used five -cubic -yard bottom-dumped
buckets. They had a head tower and a tail tower parallel over the
dam. The tail tower was a moving tower on rails that moved back
and forth at right angles to the dam, and then they had this large
cableway that operated from the towers over the top of the dam.
They had a large mixing plant, and the mixing plant discharged the
concrete into big buckets. These buckets were picked up by this
high line and conveyed out over the dam and dropped into place on
the dam where it was poured. The sections of concrete that were
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Lage:
poured on Boulder were much smaller; they divided the concrete
into smaller sections.
At Pardee, we started out with 150-foot blocks at the base of
the dam. Then we changed down to 75-foot blocks, and up near the
top of the dam it was 37 1/2 -foot blocks. Also, we developed what
they call a very high heat of hydration due to the curing of the
cement. Ve generated some very high temperatures in the dam, and
as a result of these high temperatures we had cracks occurring not
only in the 150-foot blocks but also in the 75-foot blocks. At
Boulder, they divided the entire dam into, I believe, 25 -foot
blocks.
To control the heat?
McLean: Not only to control the heat, but also to control the cracking.
At Boulder, they developed the first method for cooling the
concrete. They had a refrigeration plant, and they placed cooling
pipes in the base of every block of concrete that was poured, just
like in a refrigerator. They pumped coolant through the pipes to
reduce the heat of hydration in the concrete. Later on, when they
went to Shasta --the same contractors (six companies) who built
Boulder Dam went to Shasta- -they took a lot of the equipment from
Boulder to Shasta. At Shasta, instead of going to the
refrigeration system, they used the practice that is now being
done in most mass concrete dams. Instead of using water for
mixing, they used ice cubes; they mixed the concrete with ice
cubes. That reduces the temperature of the concrete when it goes
onto the dam so that you don't get into the high heat of
hydration. Also, today they have developed a low-heat cement.
This is a cement that has a pozzolana material in it so that the
cement doesn't generate the high temperatures that occurred on
Pardee Dam.
Lage: You say they learned a lot at Pardee. Was it really a direct
learning experience, so people referred to Pardee as an example?
McLean: Absolutely. Because Pardee was the largest dam ever constructed
at that time and also the highest dam, everybody, including the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, was watching it. Louis Tuthill, who
was the concrete technician at Pardee, went to Boulder Dam and
later was with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. He was later in
charge of the bureau laboratory in Denver, Colorado, and he
carried with him a lot of the technology that we had learned at
Pardee regarding temperatures in mass concrete, shrinkage, the
grouting of the joints, and the grouting of the cracks.
We had to go in later, after the heat of hydration in the dam
had settled down to a constant, uniform temperature. During the
86
placing of the concrete in the dan we set thermocouples in the
concrete in order to monitor the temperature of the concrete. We
also had thermocouples set in the concrete in the inspection
gallery that we observed for a long period of time . At the
beginning we had temperatures up to 140 degrees . This caused
severe shrinkage and cracking in the concrete , particularly in the
150- and 75 -foot blocks of cement. The result was that we later
had to go in and drill holes where this cracking had occurred and
grout the cracks. During construction we had left grout pipes in
the construction joints to take care of the normal expansion.
Those joints were grouted after the temperature in the dam was
constant. Ve had to wait until the heat of hydration had settled
down to the point where it was uniform. Then we went with crews
and grouted all of these joints- -not only grouted the regular
construction joints, but we drilled holes in the concrete and
grouted the cracks that had occurred as a result of the shrinkage
of the concrete.
At Boulder Dam they eliminated a lot of that by using the
refrigeration systems to pre-cool the concrete when it was placed
in the dam, although they did grout the joints. They also used
the smaller blocks at Shasta. The construction crew—Frank Crowe,
Bert Goodenough, and a lot of the fellows who had been on
Boulder- -went to Shasta. It was the same six companies or some of
the principals of the six companies on Boulder who were the
contractors on Shasta. A lot of the equipment and some of the
construction crews who were on Boulder went to Shasta. The
refrigeration method was new at that time, but we had learned at
Pardee that we had to do something about the heat to control the
shrinkage , because that was the real answer to shrinkage ,
particularly on large mass concrete dams like Boulder, Pardee,
Shasta, Bonneville, and all the big dams that were later built up
on the Columbia River. Mike Miller, who was a very close friend
of mine and who had been on Boulder, also went to Bonneville.
Kaiser was on Bonneville. A lot of the technology they learned on
Pardee was carried to Boulder, and then from Boulder to Shasta to
Bonneville, followed by a lot of the other big dams on the
Columbia River.
Lage: Did Atkinson Company go on along to any of the dams?
McLean: Atkinson went to Diablo Dam in Washington, and 1 believe they were
on some of the other Columbia River dams . They were not on
Bonneville or Grand Coulee. Grand Coulee was the six companies.
Kaiser built Grand Coulee, and Mike Miller went to Grand Coulee
and then to Bonneville; I believe Mike was at the two of them.
And then about that time, World War II started. Kaiser then went
into the shipbuilding business, as you recall, and Mike Miller
went down to the shipyards in Portland. He was with Kaiser.
87
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
Kaiser was on both Bonneville and Grand Coulee. The real answer
to all of this came from Louis Tuthill, who was the concrete
technologist on Pardee, who later went to the Bureau of
Reclamation. And of course a lot of these big dams- -Boulder ,
Shasta, Bonneville, Grand Coulee, and all those, were done by the
Bureau of Reclamation.
•
Recalling Early District Managers and Supervisors
1 understood that a lot of people came to East Bay MUD from the
Reclamation Service.
Yes, you're absolutely correct. After the first dam was built by
the Bureau in Arizona, the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River, there
was apparently a reorganization in the Bureau back in Denver. The
U.S. Reclamation Service became the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Arthur P. Davis then was the director. He left and came to the
district, and along with him came Frank W. Hanna, who became chief
of design for the district; Jim Munn, who was the construction
engineer; a man by the name of Cone, who was an electrical
engineer; and Lyman Wilbur.
Vas it also a Reclamation dam?
No.
Ed Driggs came from the Bureau of Reclamation, and then
Robert C. Kennedy and Thaddeus Hague, who were design engineers,
came from Exchequer Dam in the Fresno area. We had also J. S.
Longwell. He was a division engineer and later became chief
engineer and general manager. He came from the bureau and had
been on the Mendota Project.
Hanna was general manager when Arthur P. Davis left for the
irrigation project in Russia?
That's correct, yes.
Did you work closely enough with these men to tell about their
styles?
Oh, yes. Absolutely.
Did you see much of Arthur P. Davis?
88
McLean: Yes. Mr. Davis used to visit the project when we were
constructing the aqueduct and Pardee. Mr. Munn would come up at
least once a week.
Lage: Mr. Munn was construction engineer?
McLean: Mr. Munn was the construction engineer, and he would come up to
Pardee. Well, even when were building the aqueduct you could
figure that he would be on the job at least once a week. He had a
chauffeur; they had a big Lincoln. Herbert Nelson- -Herbie- -I knew
very well. In fact, I played golf with him in later years. If it
was an inspection check, why, there would be Mr. Munn and maybe
Mr. Hanna. Generally, it was Mr. Munn all by himself.
The interesting part about this that I look back on is that
those fellows always --and I guess this goes back to the Bureau of
Reclamation- -came out on the job with a business suit on and a
shirt, a necktie, and a hat. Even Mr. Longwell, when Longwell was
division engineer and I was working under him, was always dressed
in a business suit. Nowadays you see these men out on
construction jobs, and they'll be in any ordinary clothes. It was
always very interesting to see; even when they were watching the
concrete on the dam or something else, we were pouring concrete,
laying the pipe, or digging the trench, why, here they'd be out
there with a business suit on.
Lage: That is interesting, and arriving with the chauffeur.
McLean: And arriving with the chauffeur, yes. Herbie Nelson would drive
the Lincoln. Of course, the camp at Pardee had been built long
before construction started. And we had the lodge there, and of
course we had a cook house and dining room for the single men and
visitors. They'd come and stay overnight on the job. Arthur P.
Davis used to come quite frequently. Dr. [George C.] Pardee would
come occasionally, but you wouldn't see him very much- Other
directors would also visit the project.
Lage: Would they come and talk to men like yourself, on the job?
McLean: Yes, they'd come and talk to you, wanting to know how things were
going. On Pardee they were usually accompanied by Mr. Macdonald,
who was the resident engineer. It got so we knew every one of
them. They'd come on the job, shake hands with you, and want to
know how things were going. Very friendly, very down-to-earth
type of people. I got to know every one of them.
The directors we would see once in a while. There was Dr.
Pardee; he was quite elderly and didn't get out too much. Then we
would see the other directors once in a while. The attorneys,
89
very seldom. The construction group, from Mr. Davis on down, were
frequent visitors to the work, not only to the aqueduct but also
to Pardee and all of the facilities up there.
Lage: Did they set a certain tone when you were there?
McLean: Yes, I think so. 1 think we respected them very highly. They
were very intelligent people and usually would ask questions about
how the work was going. Generally they were very friendly. I got
so that I knew every one of them, and there wasn't one who ever
had a derogatory word to say. They got to be very friendly, and I
think most of the fellows on the job knew them and liked them
quite well. They were very interested in the work. We also saw
on occasion old Bill Mulholland, who was from Los Angeles. He
visited the job on occasion, and also Michael O'Shaughnessey, who
was the chief engineer for the Hetch-Hetchy water. Bill
Mulholland, you know, built the Los Angeles aqueduct.
Lage: And 1 think I read that he had been on the consulting board for
East Bay MUD.
McLean: He had been on the Consulting Board of Engineers for Pardee Dam as
well as was Mr. [George W. ] Goethals. Bill Mulholland and
Goethals were the consultants for EBMUD on Pardee Dam.
Lage: Here's a great picture of the towers that you were telling me
about .
McLean: Yes. This doesn't show all of the tower. We had twenty-seven of
these elephant trunks for placing the concrete hanging in the air
at one time.
Lage: Twenty- seven of these?
McLean: You can see a lot of them hanging in the air there, but it isn't
anywhere near the number later on. See them? These are what you
call counterbalances.
Lage: We're looking at page thirty- eight of the book, Its Name was M.U.D
[John Wesley Noble, Oakland, California, 1970].
McLean: The concrete was hoisted up in the skip buckets to the tower
hopper. If they were pouring concrete over in this side, the
concrete came up in the skips, it was emptied into the tower
hopper, and then it went down through the chute on the
counterbalances to the elephant trunk. The reason they called
them counterbalances was because of this block of concrete here at
the opposite end intended to balance the concrete in the chute.
90
The concrete would flow down the chutes on the counter balances ,
into the elephant trunks, and onto the dam.
Lage: What an elaborate mechanism! And this was a new arrangement, or
did it come from Coolidge Dam?
McLean: That came from Coolidge. This equipment, the towers and
everything else, came from Coolidge.
Lage : But this is what was changed when they went to Boulder?
McLean: Yes. At Boulder Dam, and also on all future masonry dam
construction, they went to 5-cubic-yard bottom dump buckets for
the concrete placement. This picture [page 37] shows the flood
that we had in 1928.
Lage: Did that interfere with the construction?
McLean: Oh, it sure did. It washed steam shovels and everything else out
of the bottom.
Lage: What happened there? The flume wasn't operating?
McLean: Well, they didn't have the diversion in at that time, and it just
cleaned everything out of the bottom of the river. I think the
flow was about thirty thousand feet per second.
Day Laborers: Changes in Work from Pardee to Boulder
Lage: Now we're looking at page 39.
McLean: Yes. This is the contractor's camp over here, and this was the
family camp, these houses all along here.
Lage: Did you live in the family camp for a while?
McLean: No. The district constructed a family camp for us southeast of
the district's office and permanent quarters.
Lage: These were for the contractor's workers?
McLean: That was for the workers, yes.
Lage: Did many of the workers- -"day-laborers" shall we call them?--bring
families?
91
McLean: No. The ones who brought their families were the concrete
superintendent, the rigging superintendent, and the general
superintendent, Vhipple.
Lage: The higher level.
McLean: The higher level of fellows. And then there were a few others.
Oh, I think some clerical staff in the office, and 1 don't know
about the cooks and those folks. But some of the more permanent
staff lived in the family quarters. 1 think they had quarters for
maybe forty or fifty families, something like that.
Lage: Did these workers that you mentioned who were primarily Mexican,
stay on the job the whole time, or did they come and go?
McLean: If you would keep one of them for a month, you were lucky. 1
think their wages then, as I recall, were fifty cents an hour,
four dollars a day.
Lage: And what did that compare with at that time?
McLean: Well, that was a good wage in those days for laborers. That was a
fair wage for them. And I think for their board and room they
paid $1.25. They had to furnish their own bedrolls, as we call
them. Anybody going to a construction job in those days would
carry a bedroll. In the sleeping quarters they would have four
cots to a tent, and they had mattresses. Of course, three meals a
day, and they were good meals. I think, if I remember right, the
employment agencies used to charge about five dollars a head for
the Mexican laborers. The contractor paid that to the employment
agencies.
Lage: So the workers cleared $2.75 a day? They were paid $4, and then
they had to pay $1.25 for their room and board.
McLean: That's right. However, many times the 12 midnight to 8 a.m. shift
worked overtime two or more hours .
Ve always used to say about Whitey--he was one of the
concrete foremen on the concrete -placing crews; I think each crew
had about twenty of these laborers- -that Whitey had three crews.
He had one coming, one going, and one working. [laughter] There
was a big turnover. 1 don't think many of them stayed more than a
matter of a few days .
Lage: Oh, really? That fast. So you didn't really even train them?
McLean: No. Men were plentiful in those days.
•
•-
92
Lage : Was that because the work was so hard, do you think?
McLean: Veil, yes. You had to wear boots; they wear these short boots.
It was very hard work. They were in the concrete, and they had to
shovel, and they were working night and day shifts. At Boulder
Dam they used the internal vibrators so that placing the concrete
there was much easier than at Pardee.
Lage: What were the internal vibrators substituted for at Pardee?
McLean: Well, at Pardee we didn't have vibrators. Vibrators had not been
developed at that time for mass concrete. Vibrators were a hand
held unit. Some of them had a little gasoline motor, and then
there was a long tube that had an eccentric cable in it. This
thing would vibrate to as much as five thousand vibrations a
minute, and when you put that in the concrete, why, the concrete
would just flatten out like nothing. At Pardee, this concrete
came down out of the elephant trunks, and it piled up. And
remember, there were eight* inch boulders in the concrete, and the
workers had to be constantly at it with their shovels to keep the
concrete homogenous. Once you got a pile of concrete that was
three or four feet high, it was all right. However, the workmen
had to be watching constantly to see that the gravel did not cause
a cluster.
You didn't have to really do much about it then except to
just keep it flowing. And then you kept this elephant trunk
moving. You had a rope on it where you could pull it around and
keep the concrete moving. You didn't want to have a rock pocket,
where it was all large rocks and no cement grout.
Once you began to get a pile of concrete, then it wasn't too
hard. These fellows were working around with their shovels to
make sure that it was flowing uniformly. In an eight -hour shift
they would pour five thousand yards of concrete. The need for the
workmen was to place the concrete properly.
Lage: Hard, physical work.
McLean: When they got to Boulder and were dumping it with the buckets,
then there would be four or five workmen who had these vibrators .
They'd just place these vibrators into a bucketload of concrete on
the dam, and the concrete would flatten out. There was a
tremendous transition between the method that we used at Pardee
and the method at Boulder and then Shasta and then on to Grand
Coulee and all those other dams. Pardee was the guinea pig of the
big construction dams.
Lage: That makes it very interesting.
93
McLean: With the technology that we had, we completely changed from one
method over 10 another method. Now major concrete dams are just--
there's nothing to them anymore.
Lage: The technology has been developed. Did you get down to Boulder to
observe the changes, or did you just hear about them?
McLean: Well, I never got there during the construction. That's another
story.
Organizing bv Railroad Divisions and Schedules^/
Lage: How about E. L. Macdonald?
McLean: Macdonald was a resident engineer. Let's go back a minute. They
had divided the aqueducts and Pardee up into what they call
divisions. This was quite common, and 1 think it comes from the
old railroad construction days --you remember, a lot of the
engineers on the big construction jobs started out as railroad
engineers- -and for a railroad, you had a division engineer. Then
from the division engineer you had the chief engineer, or
something like that. This is probably due more to transportation
than anything else; in other words, a division had a certain area
to travel. The first work on the aqueduct was divided into
divisions. There was, I think, the Oakland division--! didn't
have much to do with that- -that took in the Claremont Tunnel and
the Wildcat and Sequoia aqueducts. Those were the two. The
Claremont Tunnel came through the Berkeley hills, and then there
were two aqueducts that went north and south from there. That was
one division.
The next division was the Lafayette division, which took in
the Lafayette Tunnel, the Lafayette Aqueduct, the aqueduct to
Upper San Leandro Dam, the Lafayette Pumping Plant, the Lafayette
Dam, and the Walnut Creek Tunnel. That was under a man by the
name of [George] Sturgeon, who was the division engineer.
Then the next division was the central division. That was
under John Longwell, and that office was in Stockton. That was
all of the aqueducts; it took in the entire aqueduct from the east
portal of the Walnut Creek Tunnel to the west portal of the Pardee
Tunnel. It took in three river crossings.
The eastern division was Mr. C. E. Grunsky, and his
headquarters were at Pardee.
94
Under the division engineers you had resident engineers. The
aqueduct was divided into, I think, three schedules. Macdonald
had the aqueduct from the Walnut Creek Tunnel to the beginning of
Schedule F. That took in schedule D and E; that was all under
Macdonald. The schedule that I worked on, Schedule F, was from
Jack Tone Road to the west portal of Pardee Tunnel. Mr. Barnes
was the resident engineer on all of Schedule F.
Macdonald' s work was finished before Schedule F, and he was
transferred to the eastern division as resident engineer on Pardee
Dam Spillway and Powerhouse. Schedule F was the last schedule to
be finished. That was the most rugged; it was up hill and down
dale. Mr. Barnes was in charge of that, and I was the one on the
concrete construction.
When Macdonald finished his work on the aqueduct, he was
moved to Pardee as the resident engineer there. His work was
Pardee Dam and then the spillway. There was another man,
Mr. Lane, who was the resident engineer for the Pardee Tunnel and
the Jackson Creek Spillway. Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Lane were two
resident engineers under C. E. Grunsky. Macdonald had been
transferred from the aqueduct; he had been on the early aqueduct
work. He moved to Pardee and later became the maintenance
engineer in charge of the entire- -what later became the Mokelumne
Division, which included Pardee and the operation of the
aqueducts, the Bixler Pumping Plant, and the Walnut Creek Pumping
Plant.
Influence of Supervisors Macdonald. Lonewell. and Edmonston
Lage: What was Macdonald like to work for?
•
McLean: Oh, a great guy. He was a Scotsman, just like myself, and just a
great guy to work for. Tough, a hard-boiled worker, he demanded
loyalty from his associates but was an excellent personality and a
great guy to work with.
Lage: Did you learn from your supervisors on Pardee, as models for you
when you became a supervisor? Did you model on anybody, or was it
just based on your personality?
McLean: Yes. I think three of the greatest fellows I've ever worked for
have been Bob Edmonston, whom I worked for in the early days of
the State Division of Water Resources and on the El Dorado
Project; John Longwell, whom I admired greatly, one of the finest
95
fellows I've ever worked for; and I think the other was E. L.
Macdonald. They were great men.
Lage : Were there particular things about their--?
McLean: Well, they were good disciplinarians, let's put it that way. They
demanded high quality work, and they demanded good, concise
reports. I think my career, if you want to put it that way, was
greatly enhanced by having worked for those three people. They
are the outstanding people, I think, whom I have ever worked for
in my life.
Lage: Can you remember any particular incidents that might show how they
managed a difficult situation?
McLean: I can say this much: they were always on the job. It didn't make
any difference, particularly with Macdonald, night or day. Why,
Mac would call you up at night and tell you, "Well, we're going
down on the dam tonight and take a look at things, see how things
are going." And you didn't say, "Well, gee, I'm too tired. I
don't think I can do it." You said, "Yes, sir. I'll be right
there." We never considered the time; it was our job, and
mutually we were interested to see that it was being done
correctly.
When I was working for John Longwell in Oakland, it wasn't
anything unusual to go out over a job on Saturday or Sunday.
There were many occasions when we would spend several hours
visiting work in progress.
Lage: A lot of devotion to the work.
McLean: Yes. All of them were very devoted to the work. One of the
things I remember that they taught me was to write concise reports
and keep a diary. Bob Edmonston was a great report writer. He
always used to tell me, "Mac, if there is nothing else that you
can learn to do as an engineer, learn to write a good, concise
report." That was his thing. He was a prolific writer; he wrote
many of the state reports. He was a great believer in reports.
Mr. Longwell was a great believer in reports and diaries. He kept
a good diary; that's why I have all these diaries on my
bookshelves .
Lage: Tell me about these diaries. Were they diaries of your work?
McLean: Yes. They were both for work and the daily events that occurred.
When I first came to the district from Pardee in the thirties, I
started a diary. I threw a lot of those away, which I should
never have done, but I do have all of them since 1944.
96
See, here's August 3. [reads from diary] "Vent to Alameda
about 10 a.m. Crew paving over trench along Buena Vista Avenue.
Finished trench over twelve-inch pipe. Met the city engineer of
Alameda at Central Avenue. He had a couple of complaints about
the curb and sidewalk."
Lage: So these would be notes that you'd use to do your reports later,
was that the idea?
McLean: Yes.
Lage : Was that standard procedure for engineers , or was that something
Mr. Longwell did?
McLean: Well, I don't think it was standard procedure, but I learned this
from Bob Edmonston and mostly from Macdonald- -Macdonald and
Longwell. Longwell was a great one for reports, and he was the
one who told me to start learning to keep a good diary, keep good
records. Later on, as I got in the consulting business and kept a
diary- -for the past fifteen years I've served as an expert witness
on large construction Job litigation, and these diaries have been
the reference for records.
Lage : In what way?
McLean: Well, to be able to take this into court and quote from the diary
that an event occurred on such and such a day. There isn't
anything that impresses a judge or an attorney more than to look
at a diary.
Lage : I can see that .
McLean: And as 1 say, 1 had them going back to the thirties, but I said,
"Oh, what the heck. Nobody wants to bother with these." And I
threw them away. When I cleaned out my office when I retired from
the district, I just kept some of the later ones.
Lage: Well, you still have a nice collection.
McLean: Oh, yes.
Lage: '44 through '90.
McLean: I have one now in my drawer. Every day I record telephone calls
and any event that may have occurred during the day, including
weather and temperature.
97
Family Living in the Construction Camp
Lage: I think when we started out today you were going to tell me about
places you've lived. Tell me about the living conditions while
you were working on Pardee.
McLean: A lot of these fellows were single. Macdonald had his family
there, and they lived in a house. Grunsky and Bolton had houses.
George and Lucia Colby, myself and Marge, Barney and Libby
Pleoger, Kelsey Doll and his wife, and Jim and Mary Kimball--we
had families there at Pardee.
Lage: They built you some family quarters?
McLean: Yes. They went to southeast at a fairly level place there among
the pine trees, and they built a tent camp for those of us who had
families. These were large tents. Each tent was about sixteen by
twenty- four. There was room enough for us to have a bed and a
couple of cots. Of course, 1 had a couple of youngsters, so we
had a couple of cots for them.
Lage: You had tent platforms, I assume.
McLean: There were platforms, screened sides, a front and back door,
electric lights, and we had a fly over the tent to keep it cool in
the summer. They had boards up to about a three foot height and
then screening for about another couple of feet. It gave us a
good- sized room. And in that we had a wood stove for heat. We
had a place where we could have a three-burner electric plate, a
portable oven for what little baking you wanted to do, a sink with
running water, and then a place for a bed and a place for a dining
room table. For the youngsters we had a couple of cots. George
Colby had a little girl, Barney Pleoger had a little girl, and I
had a boy and a girl. Kelsey Doll and Jim Kimball didn't have any
children.
For a toilet and shower there was a community shower, toilets
for men, toilets for women, and urinals for the men. We had a
good- sized shower place. They fixed these up for us in midyear of
'28. I moved my family, and we lived there in camp until 1 went
down to the Lafayette in May of 1930. They were very comfortable.
It was comfortable living. Fortunately, the families got along
well together. We were all working together, and everybody got
along well. The women got along quite well. They would go off
shopping together in Lodi or Stockton.
We used to get our groceries from Pliler and Lillie; in fact,
the store is still there. A deliveryman would come into camp and
98
take orders from the women for groceries. They would deliver two
or three times a week, with a big basket of groceries --meat,
vegetables, etc.. Ve didn't have any refrigeration. Ve really
didn't need it because of being able to get fresh stuff regularly,
you know. I think I did make a little cooler that I hung outside,
where we'd keep the milk. The nights were usually pretty cool
there. The days were quite warm, but the nights were cool.
Lage: Did your wife find it difficult going?
McLean: No, she didn't mind it. Of course, she had been camping with me
before, you know. When we were on the El Dorado job, she camped
all summer with me. In 1924, when we were at Echo Lake and Twin
Lakes, we lived in tents. So she didn't mind it. And when we
went to Pardee , there were a lot of women there . They got
together and had their little teas, or whatever you want to call
it, to pass the time. They rather enjoyed it. My oldest son,
Don, started school in Valley Springs. There were quite a few
youngsters in the camp who went into Valley Springs to school, and
they hauled them in there to start first grade.
Lage : Did they have a bus for them?
McLean: Yes. They had a bus. The contractor had run a bus in for the
ones in his family, and then they picked up- -I think there was
Edmund Macdonald, and George Colby's daughter and my oldest son,
Don. I don't know, there were three or four of them out at the
district camp who went to school in Valley Springs. We all had a
good time. Of course, we men were working most of the time, you
know.
Lage: Six days a week?
McLean: Ve worked six days a week. Once in a while, during hot summer
weather, why, the gals would fix up lunches, and we'd take the
kids and go down the river, down below Camanche, and go swimming
and have a picnic lunch and a barbecue at night. Ve survived.
Everybody got along well and survived the ordeal of living in a
construction camp for two years.
At Christmas, of course we didn't have the facilities for
cooking turkeys. At Thanksgiving and Christmas the contractor
supplied all of those in the tent camp with a big turkey,
completely roasted, with all the giblets and gravy and stuffing
and everything. It'd come up in a big pan, you know. So we could
have a Thanksgiving with a turkey dinner. Ve were all young in
those days, and the little hardships didn't bother us. Ve enjoyed
it. I think those were some of the real better years.
99
Lage: Yes. It sounds adventuresome.
McLean: We had a lot of fun. We worked hard, but we enjoyed the work.
Mishap and Potential Disaster. April 1930
Lage: In the MUD book they mentioned a mishap that threatened the
flooding of the Pardee Tunnel before the tunnel was complete
[page 44]. Apparently you were an observer of this. It would
have caused months of delay to the Pardee Tunnel and supplying
water to the East Bay cities.
McLean: [looks through book] Let's see if I can identify it here.
There's John Longwell.
Lage: And they said this was during a drought, which I thought was
interesting.
McLean: Let me see here, [reads book] Oh, yes. I'll tell you about that,
yes. This occurred, I think, in March or April of 1930, when we
were working on the powerhouse. That winter we had had a very
heavy snowpack, and we got a heavy rain on the snowpack that
caused a large flood below in the river. The tunnel was not
complete, and the spillway wasn't finished. The lake started to
rise, as I mentioned here, and we had to open two 72 -inch
sluiceways and two 42 -inch sluiceways. We opened everything to
try to keep the water level in Pardee Reservoir down, but the
water kept rising. So then we decided to open the two 72-inch
penstocks. Those were basically the penstocks for the
powerhouse . None of the equipment was in place , and all there
were on those penstocks were the 72 -inch butterfly valves, and
they had just a hand-operating mechanism for opening and closing
them. Well, we opened the first one, and we got that one opened
all right, with a full flow coming out the pipe. Then as we
started to open the other one, apparently it created a vacuum
behind the valve. The valve closed instantaneously. It snapped
the 3 -inch -thick penstock pipe. The butterfly valve, the
operating mechanism, etc., were blown about two hundred feet down
river. So we had four 72 -inch pipes flowing plus two 42 -inch
pipes.
We later recovered the butterfly valve , but we were never
able to find the mechanism. Where the mechanism went, I don't
know. It must be down in Camanche Reservoir by now.
100
In order to stop the flow later on, when we were ready to put
the valve back on the penstock, we had to go into the gate tower
on the top of the dam and lower what they call the caterpillar or
the Broome gates. The gate got down Just about twelve inches from
closing, and then all of a sudden, with the rush of water that was
flowing, it snapped the Broome gate down and nearly tipped the
crane over that was handling it on top of the dam. We finally got
it closed and repaired, but we had some scary moments for a while.
Lage:
McLean:
Fortunately we were able to stop the flow of water. That is,
we let the water run for several days and were able to control it
so that we could lower the reservoir water level, and we didn't
flood the tunnel or the spillway.
As 1 said, when the valve blew off I was standing up on the
dam, right here. It just shook that whole dam. You could feel
the tremendous shock when it slammed shut.
Do you recall any other moments like that in the building of the
dam?
No, there are none that I can think of. Of course, we had lots of
things that I suppose we more or less accepted as being routine
that I could probably come up with, but I can't think of any now
as dramatic as this.
Layoff and Rehire at EBMUDM
Lage: When the Job at Pardee ended, you were no longer with the
district. Then what happened?
McLean: My work at Pardee was pretty well complete after we had set the
scroll cases for the turbines and the generators. About all that
was left at that time was to complete the powerhouse- -that is, the
superstructure of the powerhouse --and to install the transformers
and electrical equipment. Ve began to disband the crews at
Pardee. The surveyors --some of them were local --left. Roy
Heston, who was the chief of party, had Joined the U.S. Army Air
Force. Bill Trahern and Sam Cutler were transferred to Oakland.
Barney Pleoger was transferred to Oakland. Howard Reed went to
Oakland; he was the accountant. Most of the work being complete,
most of the fellows were laid off or transferred. I was
transferred to Lafayette because there was still a little work
left to be done. We were doing some repair work on the Lafayette
101
Aqueduct. And then there was work on the work out on the Upper
San Leandro Pipeline, going to San Leandro Reservoir. And we had
a road and a bridge to be built out at the San Leandro Reservoir.
So I went to the Lafayette office in May of 1930 to basically
take charge of the Lafayette office under Mr. Sturgeon. As I
said, that involved a lot of maintenance work that was being done
on the Lafayette Aqueduct. The pumping plant was operating,
supplying water to Upper San Leandro Reservoir.
Finally, in a further consolidation, they decided to close
the Lafayette off ices --this was in the first part of December of
1930- -and move the personnel from the Lafayette office to
Stockton. The maintenance crews would still remain in Lafayette.
But my work was complete, and there was no further use for my
services, so Mr. Sturgeon told me that 1 would be terminated as of
the first of January 1931. I think 1 had about a month's vacation
salary coming, and I had relatives and a brother-in-law and a
sister-in-law in Sacramento, so we decided to move to Sacramento.
During December I finished up my reports. Fact is, I was living
in a district house at the base of Lafayette dam.
We decided to move to Sacramento, so we went up there and
spent weekends with my brother-in-law. Finally we found a house
that we could rent in Sacramento, so before Christmas of 1930 we
moved to Sacramento to look for work there. This was during the
Depression, and jobs were not that easy to find. I had hoped to
get work with Bob Edmonston in Sacramento with the State
Department of Water Resources, but they did not have an opening,
and they weren't hiring anyone.
In March of 1931 I decided to seek work at Boulder Dam, which
was just getting started. Mike Miller was there, Bert Goodenough
was there, and Frank Crowe, who was the construction
superintendent for the six companies, were all at Boulder Dam. 1
had talked to Frank Crowe, and he told me that if I was interested
to come down and they'd put me to work on Boulder. Well, of
course I wanted to get on Boulder.
Lage: Yes, I bet that was an exciting opportunity.
McLean: Yes. And I looked forward to getting on that job. It was in
March of 1931 that I had come to the district office. I had
talked to Mr. Longwell over the telephone, and he was going to
give me a letter of recommendation to Frank Crowe at Boulder. So
I stopped in at the Oakland office, and he had the letter ready
for me. I was en route for Las Vegas and Boulder. And he asked
me, "Are you in a hurry to go down there?" And I said, "Well, no.
I'm not in any particular hurry." He said, "I've got a little job
102
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean :
Lage:
McLean:
up on Dingee Reservoir, and I'd like to have you stay and spend a
few days up there, inspecting the outlet works and looking after
It while it is being built."
I had friends living in Oakland, Sam and Dee Cutler, who had
been at Pardee with me. I called up Dee and said, "Can I board
and room with you for a couple of weeks or more while 1 am on the
work at Dingee?" She said, "Sure." Of course, I had my own car,
so didn't even go back to Sacramento. The next day I reported to
Longwell and went to the job there, and I was there for, oh, I
guess about three weeks or so. I would go home on weekends to
Sacramento .
While I was on this job, John Longwell came up one afternoon
and said, "I want to talk to you. We've got a rush job to build a
pipeline to serve the city of San Francisco. It is to go from
[Lake] Chabot to connect to a San Francisco pipeline at San
Lorenzo." And he said, "I want you to get the field parties and
get some people together right away and start the work on the
location for this pipeline, because we've got to rush this."
Well, I got hold of a fellow I knew by the name of Art Green, who
had been an old surveyor with the East Bay Water Company, and a
fellow by the name of Whitney Hodgkins. I put together a crew of
about eight or ten men, and we started the surveys on this
pipeline to go to meet the San Francisco line. We worked night
and day, Saturdays and Sundays, as San Francisco was short of
water. Well, from then on it seemed there was just one thing
after another.
And you never got to Boulder?
I never got to Boulder.
Were you disappointed that you never got to Boulder?
In a way, yes, but I then began to get into the bigger projects.
The next job was repairs to the Upper San Leandro Tunnel and the
San Pablo Tunnel. Then it was the repairs to the San Pablo Dam,
then the Orinda Filter Plant. Then it was the Crockett pipeline.
Before I knew it, I was involved and had a large staff. Then came
the waste water project in 1945, after World War II. It was just
one project after another.
You didn't have time to regret that you didn't get to the big dam.
I didn't have time to regret it.
103
V THE DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II ERAS AT EAST BAY MUD
Building a Supply Line to Serve San Francisco. 1932
[Interview 4: April 25, 1991 ]##
Lage: Last time we finished up with Pardee, more or less, and you told
how you thought you'd go to Boulder; but you instead came back to
East Bay MUD, and they found one Job after another for you.
McLean: Yes.
Lage: And we quickly reviewed some of the jobs you were assigned to. I
wondered if there were any special challenges on these jobs or
something we should discuss about them.
McLean: Well, we talked about Dingee, and that was a rather small dam.
Lage : Yes .
McLean: I think an important one was the urgency of building the pipeline
for the water supply of San Francisco. San Francisco was urgently
in need of water, and they had not completed the Hetch Hetchy
project, particularly the tunnels in the Livermore hills --what we
called the Foothill tunnels. They ran into a lot of problems on
the Foothill tunnels, especially with serpentine.
Lage: Just because they were in a different geologic environment?
McLean: Yes. Well, coming through the Foothill tunnels you get into the
coastal formations, which are a completely new geologic formation.
Not like the Sierras, being an ancient formation where you have
hard rock. You run into these sedimentary deposits in the
Foothill tunnels, and serpentine was quite prevalent, particularly
in the Livermore hills. It is not at all uncommon to find
104
serpentine throughout these areas. That is what causes slides
from road cuts and other types of excavation. They had run into a
lot of problems in the Foothill tunnels and were unable to
complete the Hetch Hetchy project on schedule. They had applied
to the district for water, and that was the reason for building
the pipeline from Chabot down to San Lorenzo to serve the various
consumers along the peninsula and also the city of San Francisco.
That was so urgent that in order to get the work done, gosh, we
practically worked night and day to get the pipe in. 1 guess it
was completed in the fall of 1932. 1 think we started it along in
midsummer, and it was completed late that fall.
Lage: And was your role on that to supervise the construction?
McLean: My work on that was doing the engineering. The pipe work was all
done by district forces. There was a welded steel pipe twenty-
four inches in diameter, as I recall. My work was the surveying,
setting the grades- -the field parties that I had were setting the
grades- -and then inspecting the welding and the pipe laying and
everything else on the installation of the pipeline.
Lage: Is that pipeline still in use?
McLean: Oh, yes. It's very much still in use, not to serve San Francisco,
but it now serves San Lorenzo and that area which is within the
district. That pipeline is very much in use, although it is now
connected to what we call the Wildcat Aqueduct. It's connected
into the main distribution system instead of being connected to
Chabot. See, originally the source of the supply was Chabot, but
now it is connected to the main distribution system, what we call
an aqueduct zone. When there's enough Mokelumne water, it
receives water through the Wildcat Aqueduct from the Orinda Filter
Plant. When the use was high it would receive water from the
Upper San Leandro Filter Plant from San Leandro Reservoir.
Following that job, why, I guess the next job that we got
into was the repairs to the San Pablo Tunnel, which took about a
year. Following that, I think there came annexations of Castro
Valley and some of those areas. I got into quite a little bit of
that work on new installations out there.
Construction of the Orinda Filter Plant. 1934
McLean: The next big job that we had was in '34, when we started
construction of the Orinda Filter Plant. That was started in
midyear of 1934. Up until the Orinda Filter Plant was constructed
105
there were only two major filter plants serving the district. One
was the San Pablo Filter Plant that received water from San Pablo
Reservoir, and the other was the Upper San Leandro Filter Plant
that received water from the Upper San Leandro Reservoir. We
still had the water coming through the Claremont Tunnel, which was
the main Mokelumne River supply from Pardee, but there was no
filter plant. The water coming from Pardee was of such a low
turbidity that we really didn't need a filter plant. The water
was chlorinated at what we called the Claremont lab. It was the
facility at the west end of the Claremont Tunnel. There was a
small amount of chlorine added to the Pardee water, and the water
was fed directly from the Mokelumne Aqueduct through the Lafayette
Aqueduct and through the Walnut Creek Tunnel into the Wildcat and
Sequoia aqueducts --they run north and south- -from the west portal
of the Claremont Tunnel. There was no filter plant. In 1934,
after the plans were complete, we started with construction of the
Orinda Filter Plant, and that was all done by district forces.
Lage: Why was the filter plant needed?
McLean: During the wintertime sometimes you do get a little turbidity from
the Mokelumne River water due to runoff. Actually, it's more
during the spring runoff. The water gets a little murky, and
sometimes it's a little difficult to draw the water off through
the Pardee outlet tower, where you can get the clear water- -that
is, get low turbidity. So there was justification for a filter
plant. Finally, after all the plans were complete, construction
was started early in 1934 on the Orinda Filter Plant, which then
would receive water directly out of the aqueducts from the
Lafayette Tunnel. We built the filter plant right at the junction
of the west portal of the Lafayette Tunnel and the east portal of
the Claremont Tunnel. The water would flow out of the Lafayette
Tunnel, through the filter plant, and back into the tunnel into
the system. And it was an ideal location for the filter plant.
Construction was started on that, as I said, in early 1934, and it
was all done by district forces. George Hunter was the
superintendent, and then we had two or three foremen on the job.
We had a force of probably one hundred or more people working on
the filter plant construction- -carpenters, concrete workers,
reinforcing steel workers.
Lage: Was it unusual to use district forces for these bigger projects?
McLean: Yes, it was a little unusual, and it's never been done since that
time. Major work of that type today you would contract out by
bid. These [employees] were really carryovers from the old East
Bay Water Company. George Hunter was an old East Bay Water
Company man, and most of the fellows were. We did hire the steel
foreman- -that is, for fabricating the reinforcing steel. He was
106
new; he cane aboard. But the carpenter foreman, the labor
foreman, and other people had been with East Bay Water Company.
All of the pipe work and everything was done entirely by district
forces .
Lage: And what was your role on that?
McLean: I was the resident engineer or project engineer, whatever you want
to call it. I had a force of surveyors and engineers. Whitney
Hodgklns , Blair Bjornson, and John Luthin were my office engineers
and inspectors on the Job.
Lage: Did being project engineer mean you were in charge of--?
McLean: I was in charge of the engineering and inspection work. I was the
project engineer. George Hunter was the superintendent on the job
for the district, and Ed Taylor was the general foreman.
Lage: Did that make you in charge of designing the plant?
McLean: No. The design was done by Bill Trahern, head of the design team.
I was basically on the construction, to oversee the construction.
Lage: It seems like your jobs are getting more and more supervisorial.
McLean: That's right, yes. My role became more, as you say, supervisorial
as project engineer on projects.
Lage: Were you a hands-on supervisor?
McLean: Just about that, yes. We had to inspect the concrete, even though
it was done by district forces. We inspected the concrete and
checked the plans, checked the forms, the reinforcing steel, and
everything else to make sure they complied with the drawings.
We had an office in an old ranch house on the property that
the district had acquired. There had been a family orchard there,
and there were some pears and apples and other fruit. The ranch
house was about a five -room house, and I had one room for my
office, George Hunter had another room for his office, and then I
had a big room- -I guess it was a living room/dining room- -for my
office force, the three or four fellows who were working with me.
Of course we had to have room for surveyors once in a while ,
because the surveyors had to set elevations for forms and grade
stakes for the pipelines, etc.
107
Further Thoughts on the Deiien and Construction of the Orinda
Filter
Lage: We want to talk a little bit more about the Orinda Filter Plant.
We talked about it earlier, but I just found out that it has been
declared an historic landmark. And you were in charge of
construction? Do you have any remembrances about either the
design of it or the construction?
McLean: The Orinda Filter Plant is located at the confluence of the
Lafayette Tunnel and the Claremont Tunnel. Prior to the time of
construction of the plant, the water from the Mokelumne system
emitted into the local distribution system of the East Bay Water
Company through the Claremont Tunnel . The raw water going into
the system- -we had what we called a screening basin at the
confluence of the two tunnels, which is actually on San Pablo
Creek. And the Mokelumne water was screened before it went into
the Claremont Tunnel.
Lage: Would this have been a fine screen?
McLean: Yes. These were fine screens to take out leaves and so on. The
water was not filtered. The water came directly from Pardee
Reservoir into the distribution system. At the west portal of the
Claremont Tunnel is what we call the Claremont lab. But that was
actually a chlorination station where we chlorinated the raw water
from the Mokelumne. A very small amount was added before it went
into the distribution system. During the early thirties, district
staff prepared the design for the Orinda Filter Plant. The filter
plant was supposed to take Mokelumne water directly from the
Lafayette Aqueduct, go through the filter plant, and then from the
filter plant return the water back into the Claremont Tunnel.
Lage: When you say they did the design, was this the architectural
design?
McLean: Yes. Well, the architect was Daniels. I can't remember his first
name now. Paul Daniels, who was an old East Bay Water Company
man, was head of the Land Department for the district. His
brother did the architecture for the building. It was a kind of a
Spanish mission- type architecture.
The overall system, that is the overall filter plant, was
designed by Bill Trahern and Thaddeus Hague. The construction was
done entirely by district forces under George Hunter. George
Hunter was the superintendent of construction. I was the engineer
in charge of the construction, and 1 had engineers working with
108
me. Blair Bjornson was one. Art Green and the survey parties
were the ones that were in charge of laying out all the grades and
the elevations and everything.
The site for the filter plant was an old ranch, a pear ranch
that was located along San Pablo Creek. The plant more or less
extended in a north- south direction. Construction was started
about midsummer, late spring, or early summer of 1934. For our
office we used the old ranch house located on the site at the
southerly end of the site. That was our construction office.
Lage: Did that ranch date back to pretty early times?
McLean: Yes. That had been a very early ranch there. Apparently they had
raised pears, and as I recall there was some other fruit there- -
plums, or something like that. Of course, we had to clear the
site and grade the site when we went out there, and then we set up
all the construction facilities. We had a mixing plant where we
mixed the concrete. All the reinforcement steel was fabricated on
the site, all the forms. The waste molds for the architecture
work- -the waste mold is when you make up these molds for the
architectural features. We set up a plant on that. Ed Taylor was
actually the foreman on the job, although George Hunter was the
superintendent in charge of construction. Ed Taylor was the
project superintendent. After the plant was completed he later
took over as the chief operator for the plant.
Anyway, all of the work was done by district forces, and I
guess at one time we probably had, oh, I imagine over one hundred
men working on the project. We had the carpenters who built the
forms, the steel workers who fabricated the steel, the concrete
workers who poured the concrete, and all the rest of it. And then
of course we had the equipment for excavating for the basins.
Lage: Was there anything new in the design of the filter plant?
McLean: Well, it was a design that was similar to what you call the rapid-
sand filter type of plant. Probably some of the features that
were unique to it that hadn't been used before were the pipes in
the filter beds. At that time, we all used copper pipe. As I
recall, it was two- inch copper pipe in the bottom of the filter
beds. Those later were changed. I think now they use the ceramic
collection system in the base of the beds. Those copper pipes
were in place for many, many years, and I think it was along in
the sixties that we went in and replaced the copper pipes with the
ceramic collection system.
The collection pipes are in the bottom of the filter bed.
There are holes in the bottom of the pipes. You have your
109
collection pipes all across the bottom of the filter beds. Then
at that time you had a layer of coarse gravel. That gravel
gradually gets finer, and then at the top you have a layer of a
couple of feet of specially graded sand.
Lage: So about half of the tank is filled with various levels of graded
sand?
McLean: About half of it is filled with sand and gravel. And the sand, we
had to have a certain fineness to it. The sand was obtained from
down at Monterey; it was what we call the Monterey Beach sand.
Fact is, I went down to Monterey at the time that we were getting
ready to put the sand in the beds and stayed down there at the
plant for several days while we were loading the material to make
sure that it met the specifications for the beds. The gravel was
obtained from the gravel beds in the Pleasanton-Livermore area.
There we had to have a certain grading of it. At the bottom was
the very coarse, and then it was gradually finer up to- -I think
the smallest was three -eighths -inch in diameter.
Lage: What kinds of things did this filter out?
McLean: Well, it filters out all the silt and of course any material that
comes down. Sometimes in the wintertime, when you begin to get a
lot of turbidity in the water, you get a lot of silt.
When we built them originally, the Walnut Creek, the
Lafayette, and the Orinda plants did not have any sedimentation
basins, and they did not have any reclaim basins. Just recently
out at Orinda, about two years ago we put in reclaim basins. Now
at Orinda they are adding what we call an osmosis plant, which,
when it is finished, will eliminate the need for chlorinating the
water and everything else. That is being added to the plant.
Lage: Is that a trend now?
McLean: Yes. This is a new trend because some people--! don't know
whether they're allergic to chlorine, but there are many times I
even notice myself here, maybe in the morning. I can turn on the
faucet in the kitchen to get a drink of water, and I can get a
slight smell of chlorine. And some people object to the chlorine,
and that's why they go out and buy bottled water. But it's
ridiculous buying bottled water because in buying bottled water
you're not getting a water that's any more pure or anything else
than the East Bay District water.
Lage: Anything else that you remember about the Orinda plant?
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McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
[laughter] I remember one thing. When we were ready to put the
plant in operation- -as I had mentioned, they had this little
screening process in there. San Pablo Creek at one time used to
contain sea-run steelheads [trout] from the Bay into San Pablo
Reservoir. And those were of course landlocked in San Pablo
Reservoir when the San Pablo Dam was built. San Pablo Creek runs
right alongside of the Orinda Filter Plant; the easterly boundary
of the plant is San Pablo Creek. Well, evidently we used to
release water every once in a while from the screening basins. We
used to release this water down into San Pablo Creek. And of
course with all this fresh water and everything, why, I guess the
steelhead used to come up San Pablo Creek. And they got in the
screening basin.
Well, when the Orinda Filter Plant was put into operation,
the water that formerly was going through the screening basin into
the Claremont Tunnel was shut off and diverted into the filter
plant. And of course this dried up the screening basin. Lo and
behold, when we dried up the screening basin, why, here was a
couple of washtubs full of steelhead trout. So we had to collect
all those steelhead trout, put them in buckets, and go dump them
into San Pablo Creek. 1 remember that quite well. 1 don't know
how many pounds of steelhead we took out of the screening basin
and dragged up and turned loose in the San Pablo Creek, but there
was a lot of them. That was in 1935, when we placed the plant in
operation.
job.
But building the filter plant went very well; it was a good
And you didn't use outside contractors?
No. There were no outside contractors; it was all done by
district forces.
Was there a reason for that?
Well, that was sort of the trend of that time. See, the East Bay
Water Company at that time had done a lot of their own
construction work. That is, the building of tanks and reservoirs
and a lot of things like that had all been done by forces of the
East Bay Water Company. And when the district took over the East
Bay Water Company, they virtually took over all the personnel that
was working for the district at that time.
Were they pretty good quality?
They were good men. They were good men. We had a lot of good
carpenters. The steel benders, as we call them, the steel
Ill
reinforcing crew, were hired for the particular job because the
district never really had much occasion where you use large
quantities of steel. But these engineers that I had, Whitney
Hodgkins, Blair Bjornson, and 1 can't think of his name- -Whitney
Hodgkins was a good steel detailer, and we detailed all the steel
for the crew. We did all that, and we also detailed all the
piping and everything else. It worked out very well.
Rush Job on Pipeline to Crockett Sugar Refinery. 1935M/
McLean: One day Mr. Long-well came on the job — this was along about August
or September of 1935--and says, "I've got a job for you to do." I
said, "Well, what is it?" He said, "We've got an urgent rush job
to provide water supply for the Crockett sugar refinery." He
said, "I want you to get crews together right away. We've got to
get a location, we've got to get right-of-way, pipe fabrication,
and everything else to get going on this pipeline out to
Crockett."
Well, we started in Richmond, and then we followed the
highway partially, the old state route, which was Highway 80 at
that time. We followed that where possible, paralleling it- -not
in the right-of-way, but paralleling it. A lot of the property
was owned by Standard Oil, the first part going over what they
used to call Standard Oil Hill. That's where you left Richmond;
the old highway went up over the hill where all the Standard Oil
storage tanks were.
Lage: Isn't it similar to the route today?
McLean: Yes, but about a mile west of the new freeway. When we got to
Pinole and the Giant Power property, we cut off and went through
the Tormey property. All of it was a 25-foot right-of-way. Then
I put together another crew, a crew of engineers and surveyors. I
also had a fellow by the name of Ted Tronough, who had been a
private engineer, but he didn't have much work; this was during
the Depression. I hired him to prepare the right-of-way maps.
Then I had hired another fellow by the name by the name of Denny
Driggs, who did all the mapping work- -that is, prepared the plans
and profiles for the pipeline. And then I had another fellow by
the name of Cliff Smith, who later became a superintendent with
the district. Cliff had been a steel pipe man; he'd been with
U.S. Steel for a long time as a pipe detailer. He was the one who
computed all of the angles and pipe specials for fabricating the
pipe. This was another pipe construction project that was done
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entirely by district forces- -that is, the pipe installation was
all done by district forces. Roy Paul was the superintendent for
the district.
It was a rush job. The sugar company was operating, and they
needed the water and needed it urgently. This was another job
where we worked night and day, Saturdays and Sundays. I set up an
office on the second floor of the San Pablo Filter Plant. There
was a large space there . We got all of the equipment and the
survey parties. Art Green headed the survey parties. We had two
survey parties working, particularly on the alignment and the
grades. The steel pipe was fabricated down at the U.S. Steel
plant in South San Francisco. We prepared all the drawings for
the shop specials, which were the curves needed for the pipeline.
Construction was started in late fall of '35 and completed in '36.
Lage: And that was a pretty good record?
McLean: Oh, yes. We really rushed that project. And it also included
construction of a pre-stressed concrete reservoir. It is known as
the Crockett Reservoir. It was a million-gallon reservoir that we
constructed on the hill above Crockett for storage for the water
for the Crockett Sugar Company. Then in order to get to the
Crockett sugar plant we went across the water on some pile bents
and into the sugar company, where we connected directly to their
water service. If I'm not mistaken, I think the water was turned
into that line sometime in 1936.
Lage: Did it serve any of the homes around there?
McLean: No, not at that time. This pipeline was built exclusively for the
sugar company and paid for by them. Now that pipeline serves as
the main supply not only to Crockett but also for Pinole, Rodeo,
Torraey, and all of those areas out there. That is the main
pipeline that goes out to that area. Later on those towns were
annexed to the district. You see, Pinole was basically owned and
operated by the Hercules Powder Company, and the old town of
Tormey had been the Selby Smelting Company.
Lage: They were factory towns?
McLean: Yes. There used to be a large smelting facility where they
smelted ore; I think it was mostly lead and other ores. That's
where they produced a lot of lead. Selby lead was well known for
lead shot, etc. Tormey was built for the workers, and the town of
Pinole was basically for the workers of the Hercules Powder
Company. Rodeo was a Union Oil town.
Lage: What kind of powder?
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McLean: Veil, they made blasting powder. I think most of the powder they
made at that time was dynamite and blasting powders. They used to
finish it in large metal kegs. The people who lived in Pinole
generally worked for Hercules Powder. There were powder magazines
and manufacturing facilities for producing the powder and
dynamite. The pipeline went through their property in the town of
Pinole and then paralleled the highway on the powder company
property. Then we had to cross the highway, and we went through
the Tormey estate property. What was known as the Tormey estate
was the Union Oil Company. The oil storage tanks, office, and
plant were on the Tormey estate. After we got past Pinole, we cut
across the open country, with the pipeline over the hills, over to
the Crockett Reservoir, and then down the hill from the Crockett
Reservoir to the sugar company's water service.
Using Work Projects Administration Workers in Pipeline
Construction
Lage: Were you using any WPA [Works Projects Administration] workers on
these projects?
McLean: No. At that time we were not.
Lage: At all? Or not just on these jobs?
McLean: No. The WPA workers came into being just about after this
particular work. We did a lot of work with WPA.
Lage: Any you did yourself?
McLean: Well, yes. They had a lot of WPA workers. We put in some
large -sized pipelines. One, as 1 recall, was along Bancroft
Avenue in San Leandro. That was a thirty -six -inch line. And then
we built a couple of pre- stressed concrete reservoirs with WPA
labor. One was the Pleasant Hill Reservoir. We also used WPA
labor on some smaller pipelines.
Lage: Did you supervise any of these works?
McLean: Yes, particularly on the reservoirs. I had inspectors on the
reservoirs; 1 had resident engineers. By then my organization had
begun to expand. I had not only all the field parties but also an
office staff. 1 think about that time my title had become
supervising civil engineer. I began to accumulate a force of
quite a few people.
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Lage: Now, did all this supervising come naturally to you? Or did you
think about the best way to supervise your staff? What kind of a
supervisor were you?
McLean: I began to go out to the University of California Extension, and I
began taking several business courses. I took six courses in
business administration and related subjects. Then 1 acquired a
secretary for doing all the correspondence and routine work.
Gradually the district began to get into contract work, and all of
that became my responsibility. That was when the district started
contracting for a lot of new development work, particularly pre-
stressed concrete reservoirs and pipelines. North Reservoir came
into being at that time.
Lage: We're still in the thirties, then.
McLean: Yes. It was in the thirties that we started construction on some
of the local reservoirs.
Lage: Is there any more to say about using the WPA and what kind of
workers they were? Were they mainly laborers, or did you have to
hire--?
McLean: It was all labor. The Pleasant Hill Reservoir was one of the last
jobs we did with WPA, and we did have carpenters, concrete
workers, and steel workers who were WPA. World War II had just
started, and that was the end of the WPA work.
Lage: Were they local people mostly?
McLean: Most of them were local people, yes. On the pipeline work we did
have WPA welders, and we had concrete workers who did concrete
work. On the thirty- six- inch pipeline that came along Bancroft
Avenue, I believe we used WPA welders. We had a full crew on that
pipeline that was supervised by district personnel.
Lage: Were you doing work that you wouldn't have been able to do if you
didn't have the WPA workers?
McLean: No. This was work that was necessary. This was an expansion of
the distribution facilities at that time. We used WPA labor on
that. We did a large amount of work with WPA forces.
Lage: Did you find any difference in quality of their labor?
McLean: No. We did do a pipeline that came down through Emeryville. That
was a large pipeline that was done with WPA labor. The one
problem that I think we had with WPA labor was the number of crews
they would have in order to give everyone work. As I recall, they
115
used to schedule them so that a crew would work maybe three days a
week, and then another crew would come on the job. There was a
lot of rotation of people on the Job.
Lage : Was this to give more people work?
McLean: Yes, it was to give more people work. It might be another week or
so before you'd get the first crew in rotation back again. One of
the comical things that happened was in Emeryville, when we were
crossing some of the main streets there. You'd have a flagman to
check the traffic, and one day the district superintendent on that
job happened to go back over the job, and here was one of these
VPA fellows still back there at a street that we'd passed a week
before, still back there flagging the traffic. They told the
superintendent, Kirk Thomas, "You'd better go back and get that
fellow," because the main operation was way ahead of him.
Lage: How about CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps]?
McLean: Yes. Of course the CCC has been used on trail work in the
district and throughout the watershed, where they had them
clearing trails, clearing brush, cleaning up, burning, and doing a
lot of work on the reservoir watersheds. That came under the land
department and under the rangers for the district. I never had
anything to do with that.
Wartime Service with the District^/
McLean: During the war we didn't have much work. Things were quiet except
for a service pipeline to Treasure Island and to Vallejo to serve
Mare Island and the shipyards. And of course during the war a lot
of the engineers within the district were very much in demand to
go into the armed forces .
Lage: Into the Corps of Engineer?
McLean: Well, into the Army Corps of Engineers and into the Navy Seabees,
the construction corp of the navy. The first instance I had of
that was that right after the war commenced, in January 1942, I
received a call from Frank Bonner, president of the San Francisco
Section, American Society of Civil Engineers, to meet in San
Francisco with Colonel Keller of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Bill Trahern and I went over there on a Saturday morning for an
interview with this colonel. He was pretty blunt. He said, "I'm
not going to mince any words. I'm here to offer you a commission
116
in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. You will a receive a
commission as captain of the engineers. Monday morning you are to
report to the Presidio for a physical examination."
Lage: Didn't give you much time.
McLean: He said, "You will get your orders to go back to Fort Belvoir,
Virginia, Monday morning. We'll expect you back there next week."
I said, "My gosh!" Bill and I expressed the same thing, that it
was impossible to do that in this short of time. "Well," he said,
"we need people right now. If you want the commission, there it
is." He said, "I'll write out the orders for you right now."
Well, we turned that down. There were a couple of fellows there
who I don't think were employed at that time, and they accepted
the commission. They were free and could go.
I guess it was the following summer- -it would have been
1942- -that I received another call from the Corps of Engineers to
come to their office. They had an office in Oakland at that time.
Again they offered me a commission as captain in the Corps of
Engineers, and that one was to go to the South Pacific war zone.
Well, I turned that one down.
In the meantime, two or three of the engineers from the
district had left and joined the armed forces. Joe Decosta went
into the Corps of Engineers, and there were one or two others who
left to go into the corps. Things began to quiet down in the
district, and there wasn't too much going on. Finally, I guess it
was in the fall of 1942, I made applications to the U.S. Navy
construction battalions, the Seabees of the navy.
Lage: So you decided to take the initiative?
McLean: Yes.
•
Lage: Was there some reason for the navy over the army?
McLean: Well, yes. I thought that the Seabees would be a much better deal
than the Corps of Engineers. The Seabees were going mostly into
the Pacific, although a lot of them went into the European
theater. I kind of had more of an affinity for the navy rather
than for the army.
So anyway, I made the application, and lo and behold, I think
it was in January of the following year, which would have been
'43, I received a notice to come over and take the physical
examination. I went to the office in San Francisco and was given
a commission as senior lieutenant in the Seabees. I was to report
to the Seabee base in Norfolk, Virginia. My next step, of course,
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Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
was to get a clearance from the district to go. So I went to
Mr. Longwell, who was then the chief engineer and general manager.
"John," I said, "I've been accepted as a lieutenant senior grade
in the Navy Seabees. Can I get a clearance from the district to
go?" The district was considered a war industry because we were
serving water to Mare Island in Vallejo and to Treasure Island.
Oh, by the way, the service to Mare Island was taken from the
Crockett pipeline that we had built in 1935. Mare Island needed
water, so we served it through a pipeline that went across the
Carquinez Bridge, and at the base of the Carquinez Bridge --that
is, at one of the piers, we connected onto the pipeline that the
sugar company had had across the bridge at that time. Then there
were connections made over on the other side for Vallejo to get
water to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. We were also serving
water to Terminal Island near Stockton, and also the big U.S. Army
base at Camp Stoneman in Pittsburgh. We served them water during
the war from the number-one Mokelumne aqueduct. That was a large
army base. Also the Port Chicago ammunition base was served off
the aqueduct.
So you were going way out of the district's area?
That's right,
from Oakland .
Bridge.
And then we also served water to Treasure Island
We connected onto a pipeline for them on the Bay
Did you have to build a pipeline out there?
Yes, they put a pipeline on the bridge out to Treasure Island, to
the navy base at Treasure Island.
Anyway, I went to Mr. Longwell to get permission to leave for
my acceptance into the navy, and he hit the ceiling. He said,
"I'm not going to permit you to go." I said, "Oh, come on.
Everybody else is gone; why can't I go?" He said, "Look. We've
lost enough fellows now; Joe Decosta is gone and several other
engineers. We've got to have somebody here. I won't approve your
going."
How old were you at this time?
I was thirty nine; I would have been forty in July. I wanted to
go. I really regret to this day that I didn't participate.
However, I participated in a different way here, by all the work
that the district did to serve these facilities. I participated
in that I guess I provided service to the war effort shipyards,
etc. I would have liked to have had the experience of being in
the armed forces. I look back on it, and the kids say, "Oh, well,
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Lage:
McLean:
Dad, you did your share." But at the same time, I think I would
have enjoyed maybe a year or two years in the service. One fellow
I knew, Fred Early, went to the European theater and participated
in the landings and the occupation in Germany. I don't know which
direction I would have gone, maybe the South Pacific, or maybe
not. Fred Early went in about the same time that I would have. He
was a large contractor in San Francisco and a very close friend of
mine. He served entirely in the European theater.
Veil, anyway, I was turned down by Mr. Longwell, so I had to
write a letter to the navy declining the commission.
Did you have some hard feelings?
Yes, I did. I had some hard feelings. My wife at that time,
Marge, urged me to go. She said, "I think it will do you good."
But unfortunately we had our son, Edward Bruce, who was born in
1940. He was only three.
Son's Service in Army Air Force and Death
McLean: My oldest son, Walter Donald, had gone into the air force. That's
him right there. [indicates photograph]
Lage: And you lost him, didn't you?
McLean: Yes. We lost him in '45, after the war in Europe was over. He
was still in college when I tried to enlist, but he had enlisted
in the air force and had been commissioned. They left him in
college until the following year, until 1943. War was declared in
'December of '41. He joined the air force in '42, and they didn't
call him to active duty until '44. He was basically in the air
force at UC Berkeley for about two years before they called him
for active duty.
Lage: That's surprising.
McLean: Yes. They left him in college the entire time. I told him after
war was declared, "Now, look. Don't rush into this, but don't
wait to be drafted. If you wait to be drafted you're going to be
a foot soldier out in trenches or some other thing like that.
Take your choice now of what you want to do and enlist. Then you
will have your choice of the service that you want to select." At
that time the air force was gung-ho, you know. For young fellows
to be in the air force, that was the greatest thing ever. So they
were recruiting at UC Berkeley; he was at UC Berkeley.
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Lage: Did he see active service?
McLean: Absolutely. He flew sixty-nine combat missions in the Italian war
theater. Oh, yes. We have his log. They flew the Brenner Pass
[in the Alps between Austria and Italy], They called the Brenner
Pass the milk run. The squadron would start out every morning and
bomb the Brenner Pass on a daily routine. They also participated
in the raids on the Polesti oil fields. He went overseas, as I
recall, in August of '44. They called him in '44, because he went
to Missoula, Montana, for pre- flight training in February of '44.
He graduated at Pecos, Texas, from the B-2S bombing school there
in '44. He went overseas in August of '44, and was killed after
the war ended in 1945.
They were training fellows who had never had any night
flying, and he was acting as copilot to one of these fellows. All
the B-25s in his squadron were going to fly into North Africa,
then to the Azores, then across the Atlantic to South America, and
then home. They were going to fly all the B-25 planes back to the
U.S.A. They were training some of these pilots who had come to
the squadron and had never done any night flying. His squadron
was located on one of the islands Just off of the Italian
mainland.
When the plane took off, it exploded in the air over the
Adriatic just after it got off the runway. Both of them were
killed. He was buried temporarily in a cemetery in Italy, and
then later his remains were brought over to San Bruno.
So his sequence was that he had enlisted in '42 when he was
in college, right after war was declared on December 7, 1941. He
enlisted in the U.S. Air Force; that's when it was the U.S. Army
Air Force. He remained in college a little over a year. He was
called up for active duty in '44. He went from Missoula, Montana,
down to southern California, from southern California over to
Pecos , Texas , and graduated from Pecos , Texas , in the spring of
1944. He and Margaret Jones were married in '44, right after he
graduated from Pecos, Texas, and they went to Virginia. Then he
went overseas in August of '44, flew sixty-nine combat missions,
and was killed just around two or three days after his twenty-
third birthday, June 27, 1945.
Lage: The air force gave you a lot of information on how it happened and
everything?
McLean: Yes. There were some thoughts that it might have been sabotage.
They weren't sure. But those B-25s were the twin engine light
bombers. They were very fast, light bombers, and they were a very
volatile plane from what I have been told. If you didn't handle
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them just right, why--. They were fast. They were not like the
big B-S2s. The B-25s had a crew of five, I believe--a pilot,
copilot, tail gunner, another gunner, and then a bombardier. They
were pretty hot little planes. They also carried a good- sized
load of bombs. He was killed in June of '45, after the war was
over.
Lage: That's sad, after the war was over--. He was a very handsome boy.
Wartime Precautions
McLean: Getting back to my career, I was refused the commission. I was a
little disappointed. Things were pretty quiet at the district.
Lage: In the book you've loaned me, I read about security precautions
and a fear of sabotage .
McLean: Yes. The army required us to do a number of things to .protect the
district's facilities against sabotage. We had a large number of
steel tanks in the system. Those had always been painted aluminum
on the outside and were visible from the air. The army required
us to paint those tanks a dark green so that they wouldn't be
quite as conspicuous among the hills. Ve had security guards on
the filter plants and patrols on the aqueducts and reservoirs.
The district was required to take a lot of precautions because of
sabotage .
Lage: Was there a sense of fear in the atmosphere?
McLean: Well, it was a sense of concern, I think, to be very watchful
about the district's facilities. The government had cautioned us,
particularly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to be on the alert
for sabotage. Right after war was declared we had two or three
sessions with the U.S. Army. I remember one or two of them were
held at the Grand Lake Theater [in Oakland], where they brought
out a lot of the key personnel from the district and also from
other agencies, and they cautioned us about sabotage. At that
time, I guess, they were thinking that there could be some
invasions into the Bay Area and particularly the California coast.
Ve had a number of lectures by people from the army and the navy
both as to what to look for, what places might be the most
vulnerable , and what precautions to take .
As a result, the district did take a lot of precautionary
measures. There were a lot of things done to protect the most
vulnerable district facilities. We fenced properties that were
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not fenced previously. We also had patrols on the dams and
reservoirs where sabotage could occur, particularly along the
aqueducts ; they increased the patrols along the aqueducts .
Increased Ute of Outside Contractors during Postwar Years
Lage : But you yourself, you mentioned, were not really busy.
McLean: No. Construction slacked off pretty quickly. Ve completed most
of the construction work that we had going on, but we did very
little construction work during that time because of the fact that
material was hard to obtain. You couldn't get material for pipe,
you couldn't get steel or building materials. This pretty well
ended the construction work that had been done by district forces.
And I think this became the period of transition, because after
the war a lot of the district forces had been depleted, and from
then on we began doing more and more contract work.
Lage: Rather than rehire so many back?
McLean: That's right. 1 think probably during that time some of them had
retired. I think this was the turning point from the time the
district had been doing a lot of work with their own forces to
where we began to contract work. And, of course, during the war
there also emerged a lot of contractors who had been doing
contract work for the government. They became available, then,
for local civilian work.
Lage: Do you have some feeling about which is the better system?
McLean: It is difficult to judge. During the time that the district did
this work, they certainly had very good crews. I think the
contract work that we later got into, particularly on these larger
projects, brought to the district a different organization. They
had worked for the government during the war years, particularly
those who were solely heavy construction. These contractors had
done a lot of work on the army bases and other facilities. They
had very efficient organizations, and they participated in some of
our projects, particularly when we began to get into the waste
water project. They brought to the district, then, a different
organization entirely; they were operating on a profit basis.
Lage: Did it change the way things were done?
McLean: Yes, it did. There was a transition, a very definite transition.
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Lage : What did you see that was different about the dally work or the
way a project was carried out?
McLean: At that time Castro Valley was annexed into the district, Pleasant
Hill, Orinda, Lafayette, and Walnut Creek were all annexed to the
district after the war. This involved pipelines and reservoirs to
serve them. The contractors were organized a little different
than the district force, with different classifications of labor
and workmen. And then their goals were, I believe, much higher.
They had to bid for the work. They were more efficient. There
were strict requirements according to the contract to accomplish
the work within a specified time.
Lage: So work might have been done more efficiently?
McLean: Well, you probably could say it was more efficient, yes. They
were well organized. They had been doing a lot of work, as I
said, on army bases and all types of work for the army and navy.
They brought to the district a background of experience that was
needed at that time, because the district was in a period of
expansion.
Lage: So the profit motive seemed to--.
McLean: That's right, the profit motive, and this has pretty much
continued to this day. Anything now that's over a thousand feet
of pipeline is to be contracted out. Anything less than a
thousand feet in the way of pipes is done by district forces.
Most structures are done by contract.
Fact ShMt
WASTEWATER SYSTEM
EBMUD Fact Sheet
April 1985
Special District 1, a separate district within EBMUD but administered by the same Board of Directors, was estab
lished in 1944 and operates as the Wastewater Department of the Utility District. It treats the domestic, commercial
and industrial wastewater of an 83-square-mile area that includes the cities of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville.
Oakland, Piedmont and Stege Sanitary District, which includes El Cerrito, Kensington and part of Richmond. Popula
tion served by the Wastewater System is 572,000.
WASTEWATER SYSTEM SERVICE AREA
Collection
The Wastewater System operates 21.6 miles of reinforced concrete interceptors, which are sewer pipes that range
from 12 inches to 9 feet in diameter. These interceptors parallel the East Bay shoreline from El Cerrito to a point near
the Oakland International Airport, and cross over onto Alameda as well. The interceptors collect wastewater from approxi
mately 1,800 miles of sewers owned and operated by the cities listed above.
Eleven pumping stations, ranging in capacity from 1.5 to 14 million gallons a day (MGD), lift wastewater into
the interceptors from portions of the Alameda, Albany and Oakland city collection systems and from the Stege Sanitary
District. One 57 MGD pumping station relifts the flow in the East Oakland section of the south interceptor.
123
VI CONSTRUCTING THE SEWAGE DISPOSAL FACILITIES, 1945-1952
Raw Sewage Discharge along East Bay Shore^tf
McLean: After the war, as far as the history of the district is concerned,
the first monumental project was the formation of Special District
1. This was brought about as a result of what we called the Hyde,
Rawn, Grey Report. Professor Charles Oilman Hyde was professor of
sanitary engineering at the University of California. Harold Grey
was the head of the Mosquito Abatement District for Alameda
County. Mr. Rawn was head of the Los Angeles County Sanitation
District. At that time, as I recall, there were twenty- seven
outfall sewers discharging raw sewage into the San Francisco Bay.
Lage: Right into the edge of the bay?
McLean: Right into the edge of the bay. They discharged right at
tidewater, right at the shoreline.
Lage: It's incredible to think of it.
McLean: If you ever drove along the Eastshore Freeway at that time with an
offshore wind blowing inshore, why, the stench was Just terrible.
Lage: How did people put up with it for so long?
McLean: Well, that was the mode of life in those days, with all of those
large sanitary sewers- -and they were large ones. University
Avenue, Adeline Street, Temescal, and Fruitvale were some of the
larger ones. I don't remember all of them, but the survey party
got into them all and gauged them to determine the flow. All the
fecal matter, toilet paper, condoms, and everything else were all
out on the beach along the shoreline. You had them clear out to
Richmond and the Richmond inner harbor . The Richmond inner harbor
124
was just nothing more than a big sewage lagoon. And then going
south there was Elmhurst, and another big one was the Adeline
Street one that discharged out along the shore at the beginning of
the Bay Bridge, right out at the toll plaza.
Lage: Yes. People probably smelled that pretty good when the Bay Bridge
was built.
McLean: The Adeline outfall discharged alongside the Bay Bridge. The
Hyde, Rawn, Grey report was published about 1944, during the war.
This was a big, thick book. 1 believe I gave my copy of that to
the UC library. But anyway, this precipitated the formation of
Special District 1.
Lage: I understood that East Bay MUD didn't really want to get into the
sewage business. Would that be something that you would be aware
of?
McLean: That is correct. I think the board of directors was very
reluctant to get into the waste water problems. But there was
enough pressure brought on them by the citizens that the district
was the most logical agency to carry out the project.
Lage: Did you and your coworkers feel that way, or did you side with the
board of directors?
McLean: Well, it was decided by the board of directors; however, we were
enthusiastic about the project because it meant a lot of
engineering design and construction.
Lage: But were these kinds of policy issues discussed among the
employees, by yourselves?
McLean: Very rarely. Once in a while we'd get down to it on a staff
level. We'd have a staff meeting every Monday, and we'd get some
of these things that would come down to the staff level. We were
told about them, but we were never participants in that sense. It
was decided by the board. There were five board members at that
time, and they were really pressured. There was a big outcry at
that time to do something about this raw sewage discharge into the
bay, particularly the smell. If the Eastshore Freeway had not
been constructed, people would never have been aware of it.
Lage: They weren't trying to save the bay; they just didn't like that
smell, is that right?
McLean: I think that was it. It wasn't a case of polluting or trying to
save the bay; it was a fact that people suddenly had become aware
of these sewers that were discharging raw sewage into the bay.
125
Lage: Did the sewage go into the creek and then into the bay? Or they
did just happened to be--?
McLean: No. The pipes went out and discharged right at the shoreline.
Lage: But they followed some of the creeks?
McLean: Well, some were named after the creeks. The Temescal was named
after Temescal Creek. University Avenue was the University Avenue
sewer. All of these sewers were large -diameter pipes that
collected the sewage from homes, commercial buildings, UC
Berkeley, etc., within each drainage area.
Ashby Avenue was a large sewer. There was University Avenue,
Ashby, Temescal, Adeline, and then going south there was
Lakeshore, Elmhurst Creek, and a lot of others. These were all
large sewers, five, six foot in diameter. And those sewers were
just flowing out into the bay. The Hyde, Rawn, Grey Report had
all the information on the outfall sewers and the discharges, the
quantities that were flowing into the bay. The Bay Bridge was
completed in '36, and people traveled along the Eastshore Freeway
going north instead of going along San Pablo Avenue the way we
used to go. People became aware of these discharges on the
Eastshore Freeway. I'll tell you, the smell was overwhelming.
You would come along there on a hot summer day, and you wanted to
put a clothespin on your nose.
In t: ..- other direction, on Lakeshore, where a couple of large
outfalls discharged down to Broadway, they were never noticed,
because people were not down there. And they were some large
ones: Lakeshore, Grand Avenue was a big one, there was one at the
foot of Broadway, there was Elmhurst Creek, and there were a many
others out in that direction that discharged into San Leandro Bay.
But people didn't get to see them because they were discharging
into the estuary, and people were not aware of them. The ones
they noticed were those big ones at Adeline, Temescal, Ashby
Avenue, and University Avenue. You could see those when you
traveled along the Eastshore Freeway.
This precipitated people to do something about these, to take
care of these discharges and get them into a waste water treatment
plant. And at that time treatment plants were beginning to be
built in many of the smaller cities. At the time the Special
District was formed it was supposed to take in Richmond on the
north and San Leandro on the south. Well, it happened that
Richmond elected to go their own way, and San Leandro elected to
go on their own. Each of these cities built their separate
plants. So when you got into the real mechanics of all this,
certain areas were brought in, and certain areas were left out.
126
Originally the Hyde, Rawn, Grey Report took in all the waste water
flow from Richmond to San Leandro, including Alameda, which had to
be brought into the system by people across the estuary at Vebster
Street.
The district board of directors was very reluctant to take on
anything more than the water supply. They figured that the water
supply was all they wanted to handle, and they didn't want to get
into the waste water business. But pressure was brought upon them
to take on the waste water end of it, and that's when they formed
Special District 1.
Staffing Special District 1
Lage: And you had some role in the work for Special District 1?
McLean: Yes. At that time there wasn't much work going on, so 1 was
shifted over on Special District 1. A new organization was formed
entirely; I was divorced, basically, from the MUD part of it.
That's when I formed all the field forces and project engineers
for Special District 1. This included all the field parties, all
the inspectors, and the engineers to carry out the field
investigations, treatment plant location, location of the
interceptor pipes, and float studies for the outfall sewer
location.
Lage: This involved a lot of hiring.
McLean: Yes. Darrell Root became head of design, and I became head of all
the investigations and construction management. Darrell and I
worked together. Mr. Kennedy, who had been assistant chief
engineer and assistant general manager, was put in charge of us;
my supervisor was Kennedy. Then we commenced all the
investigations for Special District 1.
Lage: Now, for this project you had different problems?
McLean: Oh, yes. Oh, you bet we did.
Lage: Were there things you had to learn? How did you go about it?
McLean: No, it was general engineering. We had to study the drainage
areas to determine the flow from the various drainage areas, which
went into the sizing of the interceptors. Then we started on the
location of the interceptors. We had to construct interceptors
running north to take in Albany.
127
Lage : When you say interceptors , what do you mean?
McLean: The purpose of the interceptors was to intercept all of the
outfalls that then were discharging into the bay water.
Lage: You had the basic system; you just had to capture it before it got
to the bay?
McLean: That's right, we had the basic system. We knew where the outfalls
were. You see, outfalls are constructed to take in what we call
drainage areas. All of the sewers that flow from all homes and
commercial establishments had to be intercepted, and the flow
diverted into the treatment plant and then into the outfall. Our
job was to collect the flow from all of the existing outfalls.
First we had to locate the interceptors within public streets or,
where it wasn't possible in public streets, across private land in
order to intercept all of these main outfalls as close to their
discharge point as possible. You didn't want to get any
individual sewers into the main interceptors . The purpose was to
intercept all of the big outfalls nearest the discharge point. So
we had to try to follow a location along some area where we could
get at virtually the end of the outfall pipe. We couldn't go out
into the bay, but we tried to get as close to that location as we
could.
Then I had to have an office for my office force, and of
course I had several field parties. In conjunction with this, we
had to search for locations where we could have a suitable area
not only for the treatment plant but also for the outfall from
each treatment plant. We studied three of those. We studied one
near in the racetrack in Albany, another one in the San Leandro
area, and then the area where the main plant is now located.
Lage: Which is?
McLean: Near the east approach to the Bay Bridge.
Lage: Did you have outside consultants on this?
McLean: Yes. We had two outside consultants on it. We had Mr. Tom Veatch
from Black and Veatch in Kansas City, and we also had Mr. Sam
Greeley from Greeley and Hanson in Chicago. Mr. Veatch was the
man I worked with. His specialty was construction. Mr. Greeley
was on design, and he worked with Darrell Root. Darrell was the
head of design, and Mr. Greeley knew most of the criteria
regarding the design of the treatment plant. Mr. Veatch was more
cognizant on the interceptor locations and the various studies we
did on those, and also on the outfall. I had a lot of contact
with Mr. Veatch, and Darrell Root was in contact with Mr. Greeley.
128
They both would come out on the projects quite frequently. I
began to accumulate a pretty good- sized force of people. We had
two or three survey parties in the field.
Determining Outfall Location with Float Studies of Bay Currents
McLean: We spent pretty nearly a year on the float studies in San
Francisco Bay for the location of the outfalls from the treatment
plant sites.
Lage : How did that go?
McLean: Veil, on the studies for the outfalls we had possible areas that
we felt were probable locations, and we were studying the currents
in the bay for the directions that the outflow from the proposed
locations would go. The purpose was to locate an outfall where
the discharge from the outfall itself would be dispersed rapidly
in the bay and carried out the Golden Gate into the ocean. Ve
carried out these studies for nearly a year, in which we had a
boat that operated on the bay, and we fabricated a number of
floats. We had six-foot floats, three-foot floats, and then we
had bottle floats. The six-foot floats had a vein on the bottom;
they were weighted so that about two feet or more of the float
would be above the surface of the water, and the remainder of the
float would be down below the water. What we were trying to do
was to get not only the surface currents but also currents below
the surface so we could tell which direction the effluence would
go-
We had reference points along the shore, like the stack of
some building or some other object that was visible, which we knew
the coordinate of, and then we'd have some other point that we
could see. We had these points along the shore that we used for
triangulation. We had a crew of four on the boat, two instrument
men, a chief of party, and the boat operator. We followed these
floats, sometimes for several hours. If there was one of the six-
foot floats that was traveling in a particular direction, we would
pick that one out and start following it. We would follow
whatever direction it went over a period of ten to twelve hours.
Then, by using two sextants, we would take readings off these
reference points at shore as we followed the floats. By that we
could plot our positions, you see. We would follow the float
around and get the time and what the tide level was at that time.
We would follow this float until we were sure it was headed out
towards the Gate, and then we would leave it. Many times we would
129
follow it pretty nearly to the Golden Gate Bridge if it looked
like it was headed in that direction.
Lage: Did you get out in the boat?
McLean: Yes. I went out on the boat several times. We kept this up for a
year. I don't know how many hundred floats we put out at that
time, and then we put bottle floats out. In other words, the
procedure was that we wanted to get a certain tide at a certain
time during the day. They might start out at six o'clock in the
morning, and they would usually turn maybe two or three of these
six-foot floats loose, and then four or five of the three -foot
floats , and maybe ten of the bottle floats .
Lage: They just tell you the surface currents?
McLean: Yes. They were just floating high. They had a little flag on
them, and inside the bottle --of course we had a cork on it—but
inside the bottle was a self -stamped postal card note. And it
said, "If you find this bottle, please mark the location of where
you found it, the date, and the time of day that you found it."
And we did get some of those back. This gave us a record of
surface material. In other words, if there was any surface
material that came out of the outfall- -that is, floating material,
which you very rarely see today- -then this would give us an idea
of where this might land on a tide and a time of day.
We worked at that for a year, and then of course in the
office I had to have a man plotting this. Ve made up maps of the
prospective locations of the outfall --as I said, one in the Albany
area, another one in San Leandro, and the main one that we have
comes out near Treasure Island. It soon became obvious after a
lot of studies that we had made of the Albany site and the San
Leandro site that these were not good locations.
Lage: The outflow didn't go out into the ocean?
McLean: As I recall, in San Leandro Bay the floats just went back and
forth in the estuary; they never got out the estuary. We also
found that to be true in the South Bay below Candlestick Point.
The floats never got out of the bay. They Just kept going back
and forth on the tide . This indicated to us that these were not
satisfactory locations for an outfall. And at the Albany one we
found that to be true also- -that unless you went out to the deep-
water channel there was no way you could ever get the material out
of the bay.
So this was the reason for choosing the location off of
Treasure Island, where we finally constructed the final outfall
130
from the present treatment plant. These were very interesting
studies .
Lage: They seem like they would be, and might have other uses as well.
McLean: Veil, yes. They indicated to us the surface water currents, what
the underwater currents were doing, and which direction they were
going.
Lage: Once you decided on the one that was chosen, did you have to get
permits and all?
McLean: Oh, yes, of course you went through all the permits.
Lage: Through the Army Corps of Engineers?
McLean: Yes, all of that, and also the State Department of Water Quality
Control .
Lage: Was there any problem with that?
McLean: No, because our studies had been very thorough. Of course, that
was all handled through Darrell Root; I didn't get into that. How
far out we would go became a part of design. Well, we went out as
far as we could; we went out to deep water. As 1 recall, the
outfall is located in somewhere around fifty feet of water just
off of Treasure Island. And it has proven very satisfactory. I
don't think there have ever been any problems regarding the
discharge from the outfall .
Lage: It's treated by the time it's out there?
McLean: Oh, yes. It's all treated now; of course it's all treated. But
these studies were very interesting
Locating Sewer Line Interceptors
McLean: Then the location of the interceptors was another real interesting
problem. We had to get, as I said, out as close as we possibly
could to the end of the outfall coming from the city sewers. We
followed the railroad tracks north of University Avenue out to
Albany .
Lage: So you were on the land side- -the east side- -of the freeway?
131
McLean: That's right, yes. Then south of University Avenue we were along
the Aquatic Park, and then from the treatment plant north we
followed the Eastshore Freeway. We were on the east side of the
East shore Freeway, and that really created some problems. But we
had to get there in order to intercept the Temescal Creek outfall.
McLean: The Temescal Creek one is right north of the old Judson Steel
Company. In fact, it comes through the property of the Judson
Steel Company.
Lage: Now, where is that?
McLean: That's just north of the Bay Bridge interchange. We came out of
the treatment plant and then followed through vacant Santa Fe
property. South of the Judson Steel Company is all Santa Fe
property. Then we followed the Eastshore Freeway on the east
side, alongside the highway. Of course, there we had to get a
permit from the state (now Caltrans), which required certain
restrictions. We were in the shoulder area; we were not under the
pavement . Of course we had to have equipment along the freeway to
carry on the installation of the pipe. We worked along there from
south of the Judson Steel Company on north to where the Aquatic
Park is, a distance of maybe a mile. This was all tunnel; it was
all tunneled underneath the shoulder because we couldn't open cut
it. We had to tunnel.
Lage: A little extra work.
McLean: Oh, it was. It created some real problems, and then the
contractor had to quit work at four o'clock in the afternoon
because of the restrictions that the Caltrans put on.
Problems with Sandfill under the Eastshore Freeway:
Breastboardine the Headworks
McLean: The interesting part about it- -the land in there was all sand-
filled; it was put in hydraulically to make the bed of the
highway, and we ran into what we called running ground. In this
tunneling operation, the material would run in at the tunnel
heading, and we had to breast board the headworks. When you're
working like that, you keep boarding up the part that you're
excavating to keep it from running in on the tunnel. We had quite
a time on that.
Lage:
132
That was one of the most difficult operations on the entire
north interceptor, and that's a large interceptor. It is ninety-
six inches in diameter. It's a large pipe, and it required a
large tunnel. You could drive along the shoulder, along the edge
of the pavement of the freeway, and you could see the progress of
the work by the settlement of the shoulder. The shoulder was
settling on the surface as the tunnel progressed. That was done
by Stolte, a local contractor. They did a good job. They had a
portion of the south interceptor, and then they also had a large
portion of the north interceptor.
So you were overseeing and seeing that they performed to
specifications?
McLean: Yes. A fellow by the name of Bob Murdoch was my resident engineer
on that project.
Treatment Plant and Pumping Plants
Lage: Did you also oversee building the treatment plant?
McLean: Oh, yes. I was in charge of all that work- -the treatment plant
and everything else, yes. Yes, I was in charge of the entire
project. I don't recall how many men I had, but a lot of work was
going on at one time. I had a project office for the north
interceptor, one for the south interceptor, one for the treatment
plant, and another for the work in Alameda. We had the Alameda
interceptor and the estuary crossing, which was a large project.
Lage: Yes, I would think so. Did you go under the estuary?
McLean: Oh, yes. We went under the estuary with two pipes, east of the
Posey highway tube. As I remember, we had a 42 -inch pipe and a
60-inch pipe that went from Alameda under the estuary. It crossed
just east of Jack London Square in Oakland, at Webster Street.
That was quite an operation. The south interceptor was installed
in First Street; it followed the railroad tracks on First Street.
That was all difficult construction work. It was deep, and we had
to use sheet piles to protect the railroad tracks and other
structures.
All of these operations were going on at the same time. We
had the north and south interceptor, the outfall sewer, the
treatment plant, the Fruitvale pumping plant, and we also had the
Albany pumping plant.
133
Lage: It didn't all work by gravity?
McLean: No. To get the flow from the airport into the south interceptor,
we had to construct a pumping plant at Fruitvale. Then in Albany
we had another pumping plant to collect the various sewers there
to get the flow from them into the north interceptor. Then in
Alameda there is a pumping plant to get the flow from Alameda
across the estuary and into the south interceptor in Oakland.
Installing the Outfall Sewer Line and Connecting the Interceotori
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
And then you had the outfall pipe.
Then we had the sewer outfall which we installed, and that was a
large operation in itself, because that's a 96 -inch pipe. The
pipe installation was all done with the use of divers. Healy
Tibbets was the contractor on that project. We had to use divers
for putting the pipe together. I had to have a diver for
inspecting the installation. Ve had to have our own boat; we
bought a boat. I had a boat operator to take the inspectors back
and forth on the boat.
Did you have your own staff doing the diving, or did you have
people you hired?
Ve had our own diver. 1 had a diver on my staff. We used him
later also on the estuary crossing. The outfall paralleled the
Bay Bridge, so we used the piers on the Bay Bridge for setting the
grades for the pipe trench. I had to have a man with a level
instrument on the Bay Bridge piers who could give the elevation
for the grade of the trench and also the elevation for the grade
of the pipe from the piers of the Bay Bridge. We had to have the
boat because you had to get these fellows out on the piers, and
you also had to have the diver on the diving rig. The contractor
had the derrick barge where they did the excavating and the pipe
laying. We had to have our personnel there all the time the
contractor was working. 1 had a diver and a helper, a level man,
and the project engineer.
These are all new directions, I'd say.
Yes. I had the diver and his helper to get out, and then I had an
inspector in addition. Then I had to have an instrument man on
the piers of the Bay Bridge to give them grades for the trench and
the pipe.
134
Lage: My, It did get complicated. How did that finally get finished?
How long were you on the job?
McLean: The first projects were let, oh, I guess somewhere around '46 or
'47. The entire project was completed and dedicated in '52.
Lage: Any hitches? Did it all work as you expected?
McLean: Oh, it sure did. It worked perfectly. Well, we found one or two
little bugs in it, but they didn't affect it very much. It
functioned right from the day that we began operations. After
everything was ready, then the big Job was cutting the existing
outfall into the interceptors. There were twenty-seven of them.
We had a separate contract for doing that work. The grade of the
interceptor was designed in such a way that we could cut them in
very easily. And we left manholes over the connections so that
you could get into them. But in order to cut them in we started
at the lower end, near the treatment plant, and worked out,
because we wanted to have it dry when we were cutting these in; we
didn't want to be swimming in sewage when we started in.
That was a big operation. That was the last thing we did, to
bring all those into the interceptors, and the treatment plants
were started. The project was dedicated in the spring of '52.
135
VII GROWTH AND EXPANSION, 1950s- if (0*
Planning for Growth: the 1958 Bond Issue
[Interview 5, May 8, 1991 ]////
Lage: Last time we finished talking about the sewage facilities. Now
let's turn to the work of the district during the fifties and the
sixties. That was a period of growth in the Bay Area and for the
district. And I think you're about to break into a story here
about planning for growth.
[The following section was added by Mr. McLean during the editing
process. ]
McLean: During the 1950s, studies were made and growth projected into the
year 2000, and it was recognized that the existing aqueducts and
storage facilities would not be adequate to meet the demand
consumption. Additional storage was needed on the Mokelumne River
to meet both the needs of East Bay MUD, the Voodbridge Irrigation
District, riparian water users, and river losses to the ground
water table.
A high dam was proposed at the Middle Bar Site and also a dam
at the Camanche site. A third aqueduct was needed of sufficient
size and capacity to meet our water rights of 325 mgd from the
Mokelumne River- -a second Walnut Creek tunnel, a Lafayette
aqueduct, and a Lafayette tunnel to meet the 325 mgd. A storage
reservoir was needed for the growth east of the hills in the
Walnut Creek, San Ramon, and Danville areas (the Briones site
within the San Pablo drainage area) . A filter plant was also
needed for this area, and a site was chosen just east of the
Walnut Creek tunnel. In order to provide for the growth eastward
along Highway 80 in the Sobrante, Pinole, Rodeo, and Crockett
136
areas, a new filter plant was needed to meet the projected
consumption in that area.
It was also recognized during this period that the true
historical supply from the Mokelumne River would not be sufficient
to serve the needs of the district beyond the year 2000.
Accordingly, a search was commenced to obtain a supplementary
supply that was equal in quality to the Mokelumne. The American
River was selected as that source. It was finally decided, and
the following facilities were selected and a $252 million bond
issue put to a vote of the people within the district in June 1958
for the ten-year program.
The facilities included in the bond issue were: Camanche
Dam, a 432 ,000-acre-foot reservoir to provide storage for
Woodbridge Irrigation District, fish releases, riparian water
uses, and river losses; a third Mokelumne aqueduct, 87 1/2 inches
in diameter; a second Walnut Creek tunnel; a second Lafayette
aqueduct; a second Lafayette tunnel; Briones Dam, capacity 60,000
acre feet at elevation 576 to provide terminal storage for the
Danville/San Ramon area; Briones pumping plant; Danville pumping
plant and aqueduct; Walnut Creek, Lafayette, and Sobrante filter
plants .
The $252 million bond issue was passed with a large majority,
and work on the design and construction of the new facilities was
started immediately. Kaiser engineers were retained to design the
Briones Dam, and Bechtel Company engineers were retained to design
and administer the Camanche Dam contract. The design of the third
Mokelumne aqueduct and all the other facilities, including the
contract administration, was handled by district personnel. All
work on the bond issue was completed in 1968.
In 1970 the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was searching for
contractors to purchase the water that would be impounded by the
proposed Auburn Dam on the American River. At that time the
district signed a contract with the bureau for 150,000 acre feet
(134 mgd) to be delivered at a turn-out point on the Folsom South
Canal. To date, the district has not utilized this additional
supply, although they have paid the bureau $260,000 annually on
this contract.
[end of added material]
137
Population Growth. Annexations. New Pipelines
Lage: Wouldn't it be useful to talk a little bit about how the plans
were made that led to the bond issue and how the people in the
community responded to the idea that we had to plan for growth?
McLean: Yes. Well, the planning really started right after the war, in
1945. During the war there had been a large influx of people into
the district. 1 believe it was also about this time that there
were a lot of annexations to the district. I've kind of forgotten
just when Valnut Creek and the San Ramon Valley came into the
district, but Pleasant Hill was annexed to the district about this
time. And 1 also believe it was during this time that the Walnut
Creek and the San Ramon Valley and all that area was annexed to
the district. You see, originally the district boundary was along
the west hills which started with Richmond. Pinole and Sobrante
and those areas were not in the original district. It was
Richmond, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Piedmont, Oakland, San Leandro,
and those areas. Castro Valley was annexed in the forties, and
San Lorenzo came after that.
Lage: And Hayward didn't want to be a part of the district?
McLean: Well, Hayward at one time was to be a part of the district, but
they finally formed their own water company and got water from the
city of San Francisco. A couple of times they were either asked
or they wanted to come into the district, and then they turned it
down. They got into some arguments with the district and how it
was to be. They wanted to remain independent. There were a lot
of Portuguese farmers there who didn't want to be mixed up with
the district. They were on the city council, and they wanted to
stay independent. The result was that they finally obtained a
water supply from the city of San Francisco. But originally
Hayward was to be a part of the district. I don't know whether
they've regretted it since, but I think they probably have,
because the district has had a much more stable water supply than
the city of San Francisco, particularly in this drought year where
they're being rationed, I believe, about fifty percent, where the
district only has fifteen percent.
But immediately after the war there was a tremendous
expansion.
Lage: And was your job involved with planning for this?
McLean: Yes. The entire engineering staff was involved in planning for
all of this expansion. Not only were a lot of contracts awarded
for pipelines, but after the annexations occurred we were putting
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pipelines into all those areas. The Pinole-Rodeo area, all that
area in north Richmond —when we had installed the twenty -four -inch
pipeline to the Crockett Sugar Refinery, why, this served as an
excellent line to serve all those areas and still is in use today.
So there was a large expansion out to the north.
Of course, during the war there had been a large influx of
people to work in the shipyards and related industries . More and
more people had come into the area, and the district boundaries
were expanded. We then reached into the area east of the hills
and Moraga, Orinda- -well, Orinda had become part of the district
at the time we built the Orinda Filter Plant. We took over the
old Orinda Water Company [in 1934]. And of course the pipes and
storage reservoirs were replaced, because most of them were too
small to serve consumers and provide adequate fire protection.
Then Moraga came into the district [1948], and finally Walnut
Creek [1952] and the San Ramon Valley [1958] became a part of the
district, and the district extended its boundaries to the hills
and valleys to the east, over toward Mount Diablo and including
all of Walnut Creek. At the same time Walnut Creek was served by
the California Water Service Company that had the filter plant out
at Baypoint and the Chenery Reservoir. Water was pumped from the
bay into the reservoir. The city of Walnut Creek formed an
assessment district, issued bonds to buy out the old water
company, California Water Service Company, and were annexed to the
district. And, of course, the addition of all this area again
precipitated a lot of planning for facilities to serve that area.
Lage : Was any of this controversial within our district? Did people
say, "No, we don't want to annex new areas," or, "We don't want to
grow"? For instance, today the idea of growth and increased water
supply creates a lot of controversy.
McLean: Oh, no, no. Everybody wanted to join the district because of the
water quality. That is, all of the communities around here wanted
to annex to the district. Castro Valley was a small community,
and they wanted to annex.
Lage: Did they approach the district, or did the district approach them?
McLean: Well, most all of them approached the district. Castro Valley was
a group of small chicken farms. Castro Valley was comprised of
one- and two-acre chicken farms, and I guess some even larger
parcels. During the war, when meat was short, we used to go out
to Castro Valley, and we could buy chickens for a dollar and a
quarter a piece. We'd maybe buy a dozen chickens at one time.
Lage : Did they pick the feathers off for you?
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McLean: You had to pick the feathers off and clean the chickens. You just
bought them on the hoof, you might say. Of course we had meat
rationing during the war, and you couldn't get much meat.
Chickens were cheap. Most all of Castro Valley was served by
wells. Everybody there had wells and tanks for their water
supply.
Lage: When did that begin to change?
McLean: This changed right after the war, when Castro Valley came into the
district.
Lage: But it wasn't the chicken farmers who wanted to come into the
district, 1 would think. Was it being developed?
McLean: Well, it was the people living there, and Castro Valley then was
being developed. There was a lot of building going on there.
Also during this time we annexed the Fairview district, which is
in the city of Hayward.
Lage: So your growth was partly annexation, but it was partly
development in the older area?
McLean: That's right. That is correct, yes.
Lage: What did all this growth mean to you as a district employee?
McLean: During the war very little work was available except for those
facilities directly connected to army or naval bases, shipyards,
and related industries. Immediately following the war there was a
tremendous expansion throughout the district. Between the years
1945 and 1955 was probably the greatest period of development that
the district has ever and will ever see. My engineering staff
doubled and quadrupled several times . I had several field
offices, with a staff at all the major projects as well as several
personnel at the main office. They were busy times, and I think
we all enjoyed it.
Lage: What was your particular job at this time?
McLean: Right after the war, the first thing I got assigned to was the
waste water project; we began all the studies on that. And when
that project began to more or less reach a finish, then I got into
the future planning for water supply.
Lage: Was it partly water supply but also how to supply these new
developments with pipelines?
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McLean: Well, yes. And then in addition to that we began to contract for
a lot of work. In other words, as I said, Castro Valley came into
the district, and the Fairview district. Ve had a tremendous
number of contracts, and I had men- -engineers- -as inspectors; we
were building reservoirs. We built the north reservoir, we built
the south reservoir, and we built a lot of --not only distribution
reservoirs but the Danville Pumping Plant, the pipelines out in
the Danville area. We were expanding in all directions.
Lage: So it was really a busy time?
McLean: It was a busy time. I don't know how many men I had, but I had a
large group of not only surveyors but also inspectors , engineers ,
and personnel on all the different projects. And then I had a
pretty good-sized office force; I think I had five or six men in
the office who were keeping track of the contracts and progress
payments. Of course, in addition to this came the waste water
project. We were involved in the waste water project where we
started all the studies for the interceptors and outfall and then
into the construction of the project.
Need for Additional Water Supply
McLean: And finally, after we'd had all this expansion, during this time
was when we recognized we were going to need additional water. We
recognized that our supply of 200 million gallons a day which we
then had rights to on the Mokelumne would not be sufficient to
carry on into the future for Walnut Creek and all of this area
that was then being annexed or brought within the boundaries of
the district. So then we went to the mountain counties, Amador
and Calaveras counties , and negotiated with them to obtain another
1.25 million gallons a day. This would bring our entitlement
water rights from the Mokelumne to 325 million gallons a day.
Lage: Now, did you pay the counties for that?
McLean: We paid each of the counties for the additional water rights. We
paid each one of the counties, as I recall, $2.5 million. I don't
recall exactly, but it was sometime in the late forties or early
fifties.
Before too long we realized that the additional water we had
obtained from the Mokelumne was still not going to be enough. We
knew we couldn't get any more water out of the Mokelumne, so we
began to look elsewhere for additional water. This is when we
141
signed the contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for the
American River water.
Lage : Do you remember the date on that?
McLean: This came in 1970 [December 22, 1970].
Lage: What was the Ultimate Hokelumne River Project?
McLean: The Ultimate Mokelumne River Project was the bond issue of '58.
In other words , we recognized that we were going to need another
larger aqueduct. The first and second aqueducts were not capable
of delivering the 325 million gallons. The number one aqueduct
with a gravity flow is only capable of delivering 41 million
gallons a day to the system; the number two, 54 million gallons;
and the number three, 107 million. Now, if you operate the pumps
at the Walnut Creek Pumping Plant on the number one and the number
two, that increases your flow on the number one to 67 million
gallons a day and on the number two to 87 million; that adds up to
154 million gallons per day. Now, when EBMUD acquired the
additional supply from the mountain counties , that then gave us
the entitlement of 125 million gallons more. So the gravity flow
of the three aqueducts is 202 mgd, but the pump flow increases the
capacity up to 326, which is the full capacity of the aqueducts.
Veil, studies of the Mokelumne River have indicated that the
true historical flow of the Mokelumne is only in the neighborhood
of about 215 million gallons a day. Now, there are times during
the year that you can take a flow of 325 mgd, but if you take the
overall flow annually over a long period of time, the true
historical flow is only equal to about 750 thousand acre- feet,
which must provide for all prior rights on the river plus losses.
Lage: So this was all looked at?
McLean: Yes. We were studying all this, and we recognized that by the
year 2000 we were not going to have sufficient water for the
district.
Lage: Projecting the growth of the area?
McLean: That's due to the growth of the area- -that is, with the boundaries
as they now exist. When Walnut Creek and San Ramon Valley and
those areas came into the district, we changed the boundaries. We
moved the boundaries out to the area east of the hills, along the
eastern ridge of the San Ramon Valley. We moved the boundaries
from the East Bay hills out to the hills east of Walnut Creek.
142
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
McLean:
With the growth that was taking place within the district at
that time, we recognized that the true historical flow of the
district would be only equal to about 241 thousand acre feet a
year, or somewhere in the neighborhood of a little over
215 million gallons a day. Ve would never be able to realize our
325 million which we had rights to.
So you had rights to more than you were able to get?
We had rights for more than what the true historical yield of the
river would be when you take into account the prior water rights
of the mountain counties, Woodbridge, etc.
Does this mean that you would take up all that water?
be left in the river?
What would
Well, there's still water left in the river. Because you have to
recognize that we still have to supply Woodbridge Irrigation
District, and the mountain counties get their entitlement. They
get their entitlement first from the river, then Woodbridge and
the riparian owners along the stream get theirs, and we get what's
left. This is what creates what we call the true historical flow.
In other words, records of the Mokelumne probably go back to
the early 1900s. And what you do is average out the flow over all
these years , and then from that average you take out the prior
rights that have to be recognized- -the decrees that we have with
the city of Lodi and with the Woodbridge Irrigation District. You
have to take those entitlements out, as well as the mountain
counties- -Calaveras and Amador counties — and the riparian rights
along the river and also the river losses. You take those out,
and then what is left--
Or you leave them in, we could say.
Well, you leave them in, yes. That's what I mean. You leave them
in, and then what water is left, that's what you get. When you do
all of this, then the true historical flow cuts the district's
dependable supply to 215 mgd or 241,000 acre feet, although we
say, "We've got rights to 325 million." But you can't get them.
ft
The district, East Bay MUD, has water rights of 325 million
gallons a day, which amounts to 364 thousand acre feet, from the
Mokelumne River. However, the safe historical yield, with present
storage facilities, is only about 241 thousand acre feet per year,
which I believe amounts to 215 mgd. Let me work that down, and
143
I'll tell you what Chat amounts to in millions of gallons a day.
[gets out his calculator]
An Aside on Slide Rules and Calculators
Lage: Did you used to have a slide rule that you'd whip out instead of
this calculator?
McLean: Yes. [laughter] Here's my old slide rule, right here.
Lage: You don't get much use of it now, I bet. Calculators must have
pretty well replaced the slide rule.
McLean: That's right.
Lage : I never did learn how to use one of these .
McLean: Well, here. It's really easy to read. Let me show you how you do
it. Let's say you want to multiply- -well, let's take an easy one.
Two times four. You put them one over the other, and then you run
up on this just to four. And what do you get? You get eight,
don't you?
Lage: Oh, right underneath here. I see.
McLean: Yes.
Lage: Now wait a minute here. You line up the two and the four.
McLean: Yes. This is your index number. This is on your C scale. You
use your C D scales for—you can also go up above here, but those
are all log logs and- -oh, this has got all kinds of hydraulic
stuff on it.
Lage: Is this a special one for your field?
McLean: This is normally used for hydraulics. You can use either scale- -
this one here , or you can use this one over here . See , they both
read the same. It's a C D scale.
Lage: You have to know what unit you end up in.
McLean: Yes. That's right. And you have to memorize decimal points in
your head and all that. I did hundreds of jobs with a slide rule
in hydraulics. That's what we used in those days before we got
the present calculators.
144
Lage: When did you switch over to calculators? Do you remember?
McLean: Oh, twenty years ago, 1 guess. These small calculators came into
being about, oh, twenty years ago.
Lage: They're easier to carry around.
McLean: Oh, yes. Much easier to carry around. I've got two or three.
Here's a little bit of a one right here that I can put in my
pocket. You know, it's amazing the many functions they can
perform.
Lage: Do you use the scientific calculators?
McLean: Oh, yes. They're all over at the San Francisco office. All my
sines and cosines and logarithms tables are over at the office.
Years ago, why, we used to carry a whole library of books around.
I've got a logarithms book that's about two inches thick, when we
used to logarithms for many of our engineering calculations.
Lage: You'd have to use your slide rule plus this whole array of books?
McLean: Yes.
Lage: And now all of that is on one little chip.
McLean: Now you have this little calculator, and you've got all your
functions .
Lage: Did any of the old-time engineers have trouble switching over?
Did any of them refuse to give up their slide rules?
McLean: No. Well, I think a lot of them continued using slide rules as a
check.
Lage : They were not sure the calculator was working?
McLean: Lots of times, you know, it's what you have been accustomed to
using. Fact is, slide rules are quite fast. Most of the time you
are dealing in round numbers. Of course nowadays we deal with
three or four decimal points on these calculators. But with a
slide rule, you dealt with round numbers. For instance, if you
wanted horsepower --horsepower is qwh1 divided by 550 [brake horse
power]. Well, you take a slide rule, and you can work that pretty
fast, where with the calculator you've got to go through several
*q - cubic feet of water; w - 62.5 pounds, the weight of a cubic foot
of water; h - height in feet.
145
motions. Now, we'll say that q is maybe 500, water is 62.5, and
then your head we'll say is 1500. 500 times 62.5 times 1500.
Divide by 550. That's equal to about 852 horsepower.
Lage: I can see that's a little easier than punching in the numbers.
McLean: That's right, and that's why slide rules are fast for hydraulic
calculations. If you wanted to know velocity in pipes or open
channels, a slide rule is very fast. Let's go through that same
problem again using the calculator. I said 500 times 62.5 times
1500. And then I said divide that by 550. Well, you get--I said
852, didn't I? Well, here it comes out to 852.27273.
Lage: But you don't need that precision?
McLean: No. You don't need all that. If you're working on that kind of a
problem, a slide rule is faster.
Lage: Well, we certainly got diverted, but I thought that your
retrospective on slide rules would be interesting.
Building the Pardee Recreation Area
Lage: What other projects did you work on during the fifties?
McLean: During this period of time is when we planned and built the Pardee
recreation area.
Lage: Tell me about that, because that was a new type of project for the
district. How did you learn about what was necessary in a
recreation area?
McLean: At that time there was pressure brought by the fishermen of
California to open up the district's reservoirs for fishing.
Previously, because of health reasons, we didn't want any bodily
contact, not only on our local reservoirs but on the main storage
reservoirs. But there was considerable agitation by the people in
the mountain counties and by fishermen in Sacramento to open up
Pardee Reservoir for recreation. I don't recall whether there was
an act of legislation, but finally we got a grant from the state.
First, of course, we went through the planning stage as to where
we could build a recreation area. There was a very excellent area
on the north arm of Pardee Reservoir, the Jackson Creek area.
Lage: And were you in charge of this investigation?
146
McLean: I was In charge of that, yes. We went ahead with plans for a
large concrete boat ramp and sanitary facilities --that is, to
dispose of campground sanitary waste from toilets, etc.
Lage: Did you bring in outside people who had had experience in the
recreation end of this , or was that necessary?
McLean: Yes. I don't just recall who they were, but we had talked to a
number of people who were familiar with planning recreation
facilities. We visited recreation areas that had been built. 1
went to Cachuma Reservoir [on the San Ynez River in Santa Barbara
County] , where they had a similar operation, and then I visited a
couple more . There was one in the San Joaquin Valley which was a
water supply reservoir, and we visited that to study what
provisions they had for launching the number of boats, what fees
were charged, what sanitary facilities you had to have, the number
of toilets, and water supply requirements. I had a small group on
that in the planning stage, drawing the plans and preparing the
specifications. Finally we got funding from the state. I don't
recall the agency, but it was one of the agencies where they fund
a certain percentage of these projects. That was built some time
in the fifties.
Lage: I think it was in '57, or '58, that it was designed.
McLean: Yes. It was done along in there. That is correct.
Lage: Were you in charge of the building also?
McLean: Yes. I was in charge of work, but all of the construction was by
contract.
Managing Recreation on Reservoirs: Sanitary Considerations^/
Lage: That was the first recreation area for the district?
McLean: Yes. This is what opened up recreation, I guess, in the three
local reservoirs- -Chabot, San Pablo, Lafayette, and later
Camanche .
Lage: The district went into recreation not too happily, I understand.
McLean: That is correct. This was opposed by, I would say, Joe DeCosta,
who later became the chief engineer.
147
Lage : What was his objection, do you think?
McLean: Veil, sanitary. He wanted to keep the reservoirs from being
polluted by human contact. That was the real basis of it.
Lage: Was that a standard response among the water people?
McLean: That was standard among the water people, yes. Joe was a sanitary
engineer. He had taken sanitary engineering at UC Berkeley. He
had gone to high school down in one of the little towns in the San
Joaquin Valley and had come to the University of California and
had taken sanitary engineering. The professor of sanitary
engineering was Professor Hyde. These old-time sanitary engineers
were very, very aware of pollution of reservoirs. They didn't
want to see any bodily contact or any public use of public water
reservoirs because of pollution. They resisted for many, many,
many years, and, fact is, the district had a police force that
would arrest anybody trespassing on the drainage area of San Pablo
Reservoir, Upper San Leandro Reservoir, Chabot. People used to
sneak in once in a while and go fishing and hunting. Bill Jordan
was chief of the district's rangers.
Lage: Especially with those great trout that you have told me about at
the San Pablo Reservoir.
McLean: Yes, that's right.
Lage: But fishing was illegal?
McLean: It was illegal, yes. It was mostly because of the pollution
problem.
Lage: Did you have a feeling about it at the time?
McLean: No, I didn't have much feeling about it. Of course, I didn't have
much to do with the reservoirs because I was more on the
engineering construction projects.
Lage: How was Joe DeCosta as chief engineer?
McLean: Joe was good; he was all right. Joe was a good chief engineer.
We got along well with Joe. Bill Trahern and I, Thaddeus Hague,
and the group that worked directly with Joe, why, we got along
very good. We had a good rapport. He was a good chief engineer.
Building the recreation facilities at Pardee precipitated the
opening of San Pablo. And then we had not only construction of
facilities of San Pablo but also construction of facilities at
Lafayette Reservoir. Of course, Lafayette Reservoir has become
148
one of the real recreation areas for Lafayette and that area.
Today there are hundreds of people who use it daily.
Lage: Has there been any problem of pollution?
McLean: No. Well, I think they have had some problems, but I think they
have finally educated people to prevent any pollution.
Lage: There's no swimming allowed?
No swimming,
provisions,
swimming. I'
them. That';
the
McLean: No swimming, that's right. No bodily contact. That's one of
I'm sure that once in a while they do a little
'm sure of that, because 1 don't think you can stop
the reason we had to put these floats for boat
landings and install toilets, particularly around San Pablo but
even at Pardee, where we've had to have chemical toilets. And we
have boat patrols. At Pardee they actually have a boat patrol
that travels around the reservoir to check on the fishermen.
It was really an undertaking which the district had never
been faced with before. It was a new era for the district, going
into these recreation facilities. When Camanche Reservoir was
built, we also constructed the facilities for Camanche. That
happened after I retired. They formed a park board, and then they
had leases for various concessionaires. That has become a real
big operation, because they now have the problem of the permanent
trailer homes. People have gone there and actually put in these
big trailer homes. Some of the people are living there year
round, and they've had to have agreements with them that they're
only there for six months. That has precipitated a lot of
problems .
The operation of Chabot Reservoir has been turned over to the
East Bay Regional Park Board. That is a complete year-round
operation, and it's heavily used. San Pablo is only open from
April 1 to October or November 1 and is operated by
concessionaires. Lafayette Reservoir is open year round, and
that's operated by the district. Lafayette has been a tremendous
recreation area for people in the Walnut Creek-Lafayette area.
Feasibility Study of the Middle Bar Prolect. 1950sM
Lage: You talked about a feasibility study of the Middle Bar Project.
What would that be?
149
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
That vent on, I guess, right after we had finished the Pardee
recreation area.
That was '54 to '57, according to my notes.
Yes. I worked with Orin Harder and Francis Blanchard on that. Ve
carried out a feasibility study on the construction of a high dam
for a reservoir at the head waters of Pardee Reservoir.
What was the reason for that?
To control the full flow of the Mokelumne River. You see, we've
had maximum flows in the Mokelumne River of over 1,000,000 acre
feet annually. Pardee holds about 210,000 acre feet. Camanche
holds about 420,000.
You didn't have Camanche then?
Camanche had not been built then. Ve were looking at Middle Bar
in lieu of Camanche. What we wanted to do was to provide
additional storage on the river to control the flow of the river
and to provide enough water for the downstream irrigation
interests and the riparian owners on the river so that we wouldn't
have to provide that storage in Pardee. That would free our water
from Pardee for use in our distribution system.
I see.
did?
So this would serve the same function as Camanche later
That's right. The Middle Bar Project called for a low dam at
Camanche. To regulate the flow in the river below Pardee, we
would build a smaller dam at Camanche. This was all in the
planning studies. We had studied a high dam at Camanche and a
high dam at Middle Bar, and then we studied a low dam at Camanche.
The reason for the low dam at Camanche was that if you stored
the maximum amount in the high Middle Bar reservoir, then you
could keep Pardee full most of the time, and you could have had
maximum power generation at Pardee. That meant the release of a
large quantity of water daily into the river. And to control that
flow, when you are releasing water into a river from a powerhouse,
you have a high fluctuation in the water level in the river. In
other words, you have surges in the river. Hydropower in
California operates on a demand basis. Ve worked with PG&E on
this, and we also had Mr. Longwell, who had been formerly the
chief engineer and general manager, as our consultant. Ve also
retained a power consultant, an electrical engineer. He lived
over on the peninsula near Burlingame. The reason for the small
150
dan below Pardee was to regulate the amount of water flowing in
the river so that you wouldn't have large surges.
Lage: So you could use it for power but still keep the river under
control?
McLean: Yes. With the Middle Bar you would have had a much greater
potential for power generation at both Pardee and Middle Bar.
PG&E at that time did not use steam as the base of the load. What
they normally do today, they have their steam plants on the base
of the power load, which is a certain number of kilowatts per day.
Then when your lighting demand comes on at night, or during the
summer when you have a pumping demand by the farmers, for
instance, then they call on the hydroplants . They bring the
hydroplants on at any time of the day or night. Whenever the
demand increases above what their normal base load is, they call
on the hydroplants .
The advantage of the hydroplant is that the minute you turn
the water on, you've got electricity. The reason they keep the
steam plant operating on what they call the base of the load all
the time is that you don't have to shut down your boilers and then
start them up again. It takes a long time to fire a boiler. So
you keep your steam plants on the base of the load all of the
time, like the nuclear plant that they have at Diablo now. When
you begin to get peak demands, then you call on your hydroplants.
You pull whatever hydroplant you need to take care of what your
load may be .
Well, what this does, when you're releasing water in the
stream, like at Pardee, you get surges in the river. There might
be a difference of between fifteen and twenty feet of the water
going down the river. This creates a real problem all along the
river, particularly with the farmers who are taking water. It
creates problems in the river because the river can be way low,
and then all of a sudden when you turn on your hydroplant, why,
you've got a full stream flowing. So the purpose of a small
reservoir downstream from Pardee is to regulate the flow in the
river. You have a pool there into which you discharge your water,
but the water going out [from the lower dam] can be at a constant
flow. Along with any dam that you built at Middle Bar, and having
Pardee already in existence, you needed a small dam with maybe
100,000 acre feet capacity or something like that downstream from
Pardee .
151
Re lection of Plan for a High Dam at Middle Bar
Lage: Now, why was that combination not decided on? Middle Bar was not
built. Had you recommended it?
McLean: Yes, we recommended it; it was certainly recommended by—well, I
don't know whether I should get into that.
Lage: I think it sounds interesting.
McLean: The original plan was to build a high Middle Bar and then a
smaller dam downstream. But if we built a high Middle Bar dam, it
meant that the electric power plant of the PG&E would be
inundated.
Lage: It would be flooded?
McLean: The existing electric plant would be flooded. And it meant that
we would have to negotiate with PG&E. We had talked to them about
it. And it meant that we had to give them a block of power, or
that we had to locate the powerhouse in another location. There
were several schemes studied, but they had to be compensated for
the loss of the power at that plant, whether the plant was put at
another location or whether you would give them an equal amount of
power out of the Pardee plant or something like that.
Well, we wrote a report on this, and I had made some contacts
with PG&E. Of course, PG&E was agreeable as long as they were
compensated. Our report recommended that we build the high Middle
Bar and that we build a smaller dam at Camanche of 100,000 or
150,000 acre feet, which didn't involve all the dikes that we had
to build as a result of the high dam at Camanche. There also were
some problems here, some seepage problems. If you built the high
dam at Camanche , you had to take care of the seepage problems .
Anyway, Mr. Breuner, who was the president of the board,
apparently did not want to go through all the negotiations with
PG&E.
Lage: Did it look as if it was going to be a long negotiation?
McLean: Well, it looked like there might be a lot of problems in that.
All of our studies were turned over to the Bechtel Corporation for
a review, which I had recommended and which was good.
Lage: Because they might be the contractors or just to get an outside
opinion?
152
McLean: They were power people, and we wanted a second look at the
project. Originally, Bechtel had approved the project. They
reviewed our report, and they agreed that it was feasible. They
felt that the project was a feasible project and that it was cost-
effective; they recommended it. Veil, then came the issue of
going to PG&E and negotiating with PG&E regarding the electric
power plant.
Lage: Would PG&E end up getting more power?
McLean: No. They would have been compensated; we had a formula. This is
why we had this electrical engineer. Ve brought him into the
picture because of the electric power plant and PG&E. He was an
expert on these matters . He had represented power companies at
the Public Utilities Commission. He was very cognizant of
compensating and what you would do in a situation like this. This
is not anything new; it has been done in many, many other
instances where you have to take an old plant out and relocate it.
And because PG&E had water rights, all of these things had to be
taken into consideration. They had rights to this power, and they
had rights to the generation of power by the use of the water from
the Mokelumne. Well, their plant would have been under two or
three hundred feet of water.
Lage: Was the plant above the Pardee dam, then?
McLean: The plant is above the Pardee dam. Right now the tail water of
Pardee comes up pretty close to the power plant. Well, if you go
in and build another dam, the Middle Bar site, five hundred and
some odd feet high, then the PG&E electric plant would be under
five hundred feet of water. Now, there were various ways to take
care of that. One thing, you could just locate the pipeline for
the plant downstream below the new dam and build a new power
plant, or you could build a new power plant within the confines of
the dam, utilizing the head that they have, and have an
independent power plant. Or you could compensate them for the
loss in power that they normally generate on that plant, and you
generate more power in the new plant.
Lage: You were saying that Bechtel looked at it and originally thought
it was a good idea.
McLean: Yes. Bechtel looked at it, and they approved our report. They
went over our report very thoroughly regarding the cost -benefit
ratio, and they approved it. But as I say- -and I don't know the
full story and am only quoting what little bit I know- -evidently
Mr. Breuner, who was then president of the board, or McFarland,
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who was the general manager, did not want to go through all the
negotiations with PG&E to build this project. As a result,
Bechtel reversed themselves on it and said "no* on the project.
Consequently, we didn't go ahead with it.
Lage : Did you hear some of the story on what happened?
McLean: Veil, 1 heard some of the story, but I didn't get all of it. And
I'm only quoting from what I know, but I do know that on the first
report that Bechtel came out with they accepted our report and
said the project was feasible, with a good cost-benefit ratio. I
never saw what their final report was, but I heard that it was
turned down. And then they recommended the high dam at Camanche.
The High Dam at Camanche
Geological Problems with the Site
Lage: You also had put forth the high dam at Camanche as an alternative?
McLean: That's right. They recommended the high dam at Camanche, and we
were very skeptical about that for several reasons. One was the
seepage losses in the reservoir itself. There was an aquifer that
we knew was under the reservoir that would create problems with
the higher dam at Camanche.
Lage: So some of the water would sink right down into the aquifer?
McLean: That's right. After the dam was built we got into some real
problems . One of the first problems that came up was that we had
a serious leak in dike number one.
Lage: Now, what were the dikes?
McLean: You see, the site for the reservoir was surrounded by a perimeter
of hills, and the dam was built in a narrow section. The high dam
created a problem which the lower dam did not. The high dam
created problems where these valleys that went up toward the
reservoir had to have dikes, which were small dams. Some of them
are around one hundred feet or more high, and along the south side
of the so-called reservoir we built a continual string of what we
call dikes, or dams; they're small dams. Well, shortly after the
reservoir was first built we ran into a serious leakage in dike
number one, and we had to drain the reservoir very rapidly. The
seepage coming out of the dike was beginning to show a brown
color. This indicated that there was erosion taking place under
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the foundation of the dike. We were afraid that we would have a
failure .
Lage: And what is downstream from these dikes?
McLean: A failure of dike number one would flood the town of Lockford,
farmland, and could reach the city of Lodi. The damage could be
in the millions of dollars.
Efforts to Prevent Dam Failure, 1966
McLean: This also was coupled with a very high phreatic line in the main
dam itself.
Lage: What's that?
McLean: This shows that there was uplift pressure beginning to occur at
the base of the main dam. So we had to drain the dam immediately,
and we drained it by every means that we could. We opened all the
outlets and drained the reservoir. Two things we had to do.
Number one, on the main dam we had to put in a drainage system and
relief wells. On the dike, we had to put in what we call a slurry
trench. This was a seal to seal the dike. What this meant was
that we had to go along the toe of the number one dike and dig a
large, deep trench. We kept the trench filled with a slurry
mixture of bentonite and water; we used bentonite as the slurry
trench. Bentonite is a very heavy material that has a high
specific gravity; although it is fluid, it has a much higher
specific gravity than water. We had to construct this cutoff down
to bedrock and then tie that in with the core of the dike so that
we stopped the leakage.
Lage: When something unanticipated happens like that, or maybe
anticipated- - .
McLean: Well, this was the one thing that we were afraid of right in the
beginning, because the early geological studies that we had made
of the reservoir showed that there was a gravel aquifer under the
base of the reservoir. It indicated that we could get some
serious seepage in the reservoir. We didn't go down with deep
cut-off walls in the dam; when the dam was constructed, the plans
had not called for deep cut-off walls. Consequently, as the
reservoir filled, instruments in the dam began to show that there
was a very high phreatic line within the main dam. The only
remedy to lower that is to put in relief wells. We put a whole
series of wells along the base of the dam, at the downstream toe
155
of the dan. These wells were twenty inches in diameter and went
down into the foundation of the dam. Then we had to put drainage
pipes along to convey this water to the river to relieve the water
pressure under the base of the dam. Had this water pressure
increased, there could have been uplift pressure on the base of
the dam, and we could have had a failure of the dam.
The Decision to Build Camanche
Lage:
McLean
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
Lage:
McLean:
And these were problems that you more or less anticipated?
That's right.
So how did the decision get made to build a high dam at Camanche?
They were intent upon building the Camanche Dam. 1 was never
entirely involved. I felt that the better project was the high
Middle Bar Dam and the smaller dam at Camanche, which wouldn't
have created these problems.
But I'm thinking now of your role as an engineer and employee.
You put forth your recommendations. Are you in on any of the
discussions about the decisions? Or do you just kind of retire
from the decision?
I wasn't in on the final decision.
What about other staff people above you? Your supervisor?
My supervisor at that time was Joe DeCosta. And he was the one
who took part in all the decisions.
Did he agree with you?
Veil, I don't think he agreed with me, no. 1 think he took the
Bechtel opinions, and I don't think he agreed with me and with
some of the geological studies that we had made. At that time
they had pretty well committed themselves to building Camanche
Dam.
And just didn't look at the things that didn't support this
choice?
Bechtel became the engineer on the dam. And although it was in my
budget, 1 didn't have anything really to do with the construction
of the dam, although I did go up there once in a while. But they
156
put Orin Harder on it, and he reported directly to my chief, who
was Joe DeCosta.
Lage: So Bechtel ended up building the dam and running into these
problems?
McLean: That's right.
Lage: And they hadn't anticipated them?
McLean: They were the engineers. I forget who the contractor was, but it
was contracted out, and they became the engineer on the Job.
Lage: And then when the repairs and changes had to be made--.
McLean: I had to do the repairs.
Lage: Bechtel didn't come back to do them?
McLean: No. It took a period of time; I don't know, it took a couple of
years to fill the reservoir. Bechtel was gone by then. They had
an office and everything else, and they were gone. It took a
couple of years to fill Camanche, but when Camanche filled, then
we got the problems. It was really serious; we could have had a
failure .
Serious Fear of A Failure of the Dam
Lage: Do you remember any specifics of when the problems were discovered
and how people reacted?
McLean: I would have to go back into the records.
Lage: I was just thinking about your memories, anecdotal things.
McLean: Well, it was at least a couple of years after the dam was built
that it filled.
Lage: Did everyone see the urgency of it as you did?
McLean: Oh, absolutely, sure. Everybody knew, because here was dike
number one--. See, all of these dikes seeped water. There's no
dam in the world that was ever built that doesn't seep water. You
have relief wells, and you have drainage systems. What happened
was that the seepage water from this number one dike , which is
just south and east of the main dam, began to show dirt, and the
157
flow was increasing. We began to recognize right then that we had
a problem, that if this continued it could erode the dike. Also,
over at the main dam we recognized that we were beginning to get a
high water table on the downstream toe of the dam, and we had to
do something about it. Ve have instruments in these dams- -not in
the dikes but in the main dam- -that indicated we were getting a
very high phreatic line in the dam itself.
Lage : So that means within the dam the water is coming up?
McLean: That's right, high water pressure on the base of the dam.
Lage: Or is it beneath the dam?
McLean: Beneath the dam, yes. We were getting high pressures under the
dam. To prevent a failure, we immediately drained the reservoir.
That cost us a tremendous amount of money because we lost all that
water. The reservoir had been virtually full, and we had to waste
all the water in the reservoir.
Lage: Is that kind of thing kept quiet, or is it announced?
McLean: It was kept quiet, I can tell you that. We had it right up to our
ears, you might say, because we could have had a failure in that
dam.
Lage: And that would be dangerous for the downstream area?
McLean: Oh, it would have washed everything out downstream. Imagine if
you turned loose 400,000 acre -feet down that stream; why, you'd
have really had a mess. It was serious. It was real serious.
Lage: So the cities downstream, you don't go and tell them you've had
this problem?
McLean: No. We didn't tell anybody about the problem. We recognized it,
and as soon as we recognized it the order was given to drain the
reservoir, and we did. We drained the reservoir immediately, and
we immediately went to work on the relief wells on the downstream
toe of the dam and also on the dike.
Digging Relief Veils and Slurry Trench
Lage: When you say the downstream toe, I'm not sure-
McLean: That's the downstream toe of the dam.
158
Lage: What exactly does that mean?
McLean: Well, let me draw you a little sketch. That's the best way to
explain it.
Lage: Okay, let's look at the sketch [see following page].
McLean: In an earth- filled dam or a dike, particularly in the dam itself--
Lage: Is this an earth- filled dam?
McLean: Yes. They're both earth-filled dams. You have a dam that looks
like this. We'll say this is your foundation down here. In the
center of this dam you have a clay core that looks like this.
Lage: This is the top of the dam.
McLean: This is the top of the dam, yes. This is the crest. And you have
a core that looks like this that goes usually up the top. This is
what you call the shell.
Lage: what's the shell made of?
McLean: The shell generally is rolled material. This is clay.
Lage: Is that from local materials?
McLean: Yes. From local materials. Generally it can be gravel, or it can
be mixed material, conglomerate material. Then on the upstream
face you have what is known as riprap . This is for water and wave
protection.
Lage: This is the reservoir over here?
McLean: This is the reservoir; this is the water in here. We'll say that
your water is up to here. Now, normally your hydraulic gradient,
or your phreatic line or whatever you want to call it, comes
through like this. On the back of this you have what is known as
a drainage system composed of a fine material, sand, and graded
gravel, and this is your drainage system. This comes out here,
like this. In other words, this drainage system comes out like
that. When you get seepage through a dam it will go through this
clay core, although it is supposed to be impervious. Generally
you'll get a little drop off your line, like that. And then this
seepage that comes through this core will drop down and go into
the drainage system and waste into the main stream.
Lage: And then you see it come out over on this side?
158a
Drawing by Walter
McLean
159
McLean: Oh, yes. Oh, sure. You measure the seepage behind it. And
that's what indicated to us that we were getting some serious
seepage through the dam.
Lage : But you expect some of this?
McLean: Yes. Normally, you expect this. You have instruments in the dam
that measure this pressure. What we found in here was that the
pressures were an increase of pressure in here--
Lage : Underneath?
McLean: --underneath the base of the dam due to leakage, or whatever it
was, down in this area.
Lage: Below the dam itself?
McLean: That's right. Below the dam itself. And this causes serious
concerns about what we call uplift pressures on the toe of the
dam.
Lage: Is this the toe?
McLean: This is what we call the toe, right here. This is the toe of the
dam, the downstream toe of the dam. When you begin to get
pressures under here, you begin to worry about the stability of
the dam itself. You're not supposed to get them. This system is
supposed to relieve that. So what we had to do was go in and put
wells down in here, like this, way down. We went way down.
Lage: So this is in front of the dam under the river that comes out of
it?
McLean: This is on the downstream toe part of the dam. This is the
reservoir. We put in these relief wells. We put in a whole
string of them along the base of the dam, and the purpose of that
was to get below the foundation of the dam and relieve the
pressure under the base of the dam.
Lage: Did you put more under here?
McLean: We put a whole string of the wells along the base of the dam, and
these became, basically, what we call artesian wells. In other
words, the water flows out of these pipes and relieves the
pressure under the base of the dam.
Lage: So it flows from underground and comes out of these relief wells?
160
McLean: That Is correct. And that lowered this pressure under the dam.
Then we connected these relief wells into a drain pipe. We laid a
pipe along there, and we connected all the wells. Now we measure
the quantity of water that's coming out of these relief wells so
that we can determine if it's increasing, decreasing, or staying
the same. We know, then, from the instruments in the dam, that
these relief wells are doing the job of relieving the pressure
under the base of the dam.
Lage: Is this something that continues to be a concern?
McLean: Veil, no. You watch it constantly. Once we installed the relief
system it relieved the pressure. Had it continued, the dam could
have failed.
Lage: You would have had upward thrust?
McLean: That's right. There was a possibility of failure in the dam. The
relief wells basically took away that danger. And by monitoring
the flow and seeing that these relief wells are open and flowing,
the dam will remain stable.
Now let's look at dike number two. Let me draw a picture of
the dike for you [see following page]. Here we have the same
foundation situation, like this. And we have a so-called dike in
here, built the same as the dam.
Lage: Just a small dam, basically.
McLean: Yes, a small dam. Under the downstream toe of the dam, again we
had a drainage system- -in other words, a place for seepage water
to drain. [refers to diagram] Here's the reservoir, over here,
and this is the downstream face. We had a drainage system here.
We noticed that the water that came through this drainage
system was beginning to become turbid. The flow was increasing,
and it was getting to be turbid. We were worried about the
increased turbidity and flow and what could be done to correct it.
We knew there was an aquifer under the base of the dike that was
causing the problem. Because this dam foundation had never
completely gone down to bedrock, we decided that the only way we
could stop the seepage was to install a bentonite slurry trench to
bedrock at the upstream toe of the dam. We excavated a slurry
trench along the toe of the dam down to bedrock with a large
trench. The trench was kept filled with slurry during excavation,
and the slurry connected to the clay core in the dam.
Lage:
This is behind the dam, on the reservoir side?
Drawing by Walter
McLean
0;
> §
$ "
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,
particularly—and 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 Paul1 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
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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
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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 reason—of 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
centrif ically 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 opinion—and 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?
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
screen—and 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.
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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 .
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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.
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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.
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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 N VBI 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
Clifford Asbill
John A Deadnch
Paul Hertzog
Richard Mills
Allan Ramos
Bettie Agliano
Paul Davis
Gertrude Hertzog
Anne Milhiser
Sam Rubin
Joseph Agliano
Marcia Davis
Dave Houser
Edward B McLean
Dr. F N Rasche
Gus Beckert
Aldo Davalle
Richard Houser
Lila R McLean
Belinda Rapold
William J Bettencourt
Carolyne Fahrbach
Nancy Lynn Holm
Donald McGue
Joe Smith
Joseph M Bettencouri
Charles E Foster
Charles R Hitchcock
Larry McClure
Joe T 1 Smith
Helen A Bettencourt
Dorothy H Foster
Cecile Johnson
Wesley McClure
Gunner Seymon
Jill Brenneman
Stanley Ferguson
Sadie Jackson
Theo Mailiet
Richard Soares
Dudley H Beeson
Jack H Froeming
Edna Mae Johnson
Charles Matzen
William Soulis
Elizabeth S Berg
Jesus Gill
H B Johnson
Frank Middleton
Don Spruance
Douglas Berg
Valance P Gill
Robert G A Jones
Donna Nicholas
Everett Tasto
Georgia A Coppa
Val Gill. Jr
Guy T Kuntz
Gilbert Nicholas
Jane Tasto
Lucial P. Colby
Charles Gebbardt
Ann Keshishian
C M Nickerson
Robert Turknolt
Eluabeth Cordoza
Robert Goddrich
Cecile Keavcrney
Kathleen Omick
Victor Viviani
Violet S Cobb
Anthony Gomes
Layton Landis
Kathleen O Brien
C. E Wilson
Wilma Castillo
Virginia Gebhardt
Virginia Leger
Helen Olsen
Mary Wilson
Bob Coney
Wilma Gebhardt
Evelyn Lowman
Peter Paietta
Richard Wilson
Richard B Cowell
Mark Gebhardt
Jeffry J Lewis
Lillian Paietta
James V Zeno
Jerry Connilt
Russell Gebhardt
Jack D Maitester
Bill Quarry
Violet M Zeno
Anne Howell Dean
Ruth Maitester
BEST QUALIFIED BY
,
ON-THE
-JOB EXPERIENCE
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 ?986tion 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
San Leandro
8,705
--.- . . - , —
6,049
805
1,201
2,656
Un- Incorporated
(Castro Valley,
San Lorenzo,
Hayward area)
10,496
7,756
2,447
970
2,740
Hayward (City)
306
228
36
28
78
E. Oakland
1,601
1,563
138
167
38
TOTALS
21,108
15,596
3,426
2,366
5,512
(50%)**
(36%)
(9%)
(5%)
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 Oakland—and 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
budget—replacement 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,
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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.
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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 them—I guess a lot
of my reports and every thing --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
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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 Calif omia'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.
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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
grow—and it's going to grow; you can't stop it—we'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
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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 .
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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 BAY I 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 .
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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 Company—where
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
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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 ten—whereas 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.
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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 .
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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?
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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.
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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 Far dee 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
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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
Fi thing 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 work—built 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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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323
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183
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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 backf low 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
Par dee 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
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