BOARD00021

• Board Meeting Date: 7/12/1965
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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to have a feasibility as far as water is
concerned?"

MR. SLIZESKI:

"This is right. This is our basin flood
control plan which, as I said earlier, we had
originally expected to complete in June of
this year and submit to the Chief of Engineers I
but which, because of our economic problems,
we had asked for guidance from General Walker's
office and they had given us this guidance and
told us to proceed and take another eighteen
months to convince, primarily, the economists
of the need for this.

I think it is appropriate at this time,
I don't want this to appear facetious to you,
because this is deadly serious to us. I think
there is a moral here. I'd like to quote from
the remarks of General Jackson Graham, the
Chief of Civil Works in the office of the
Chief of Engineers, Army Corps of Engineers,
which he made to the Board of Rivers and Har-
bors in the early part of June this year. In
concluding his remarks, (and all of his re-
marks were excellent I thought), he was deal-
ing with this problem of the economic criteria
that we are faced with, he said:

'Of course, basin-wide planning and
engineering a major flood control works is
a complex activity which takes time to a
degree which tries the patience of those not
responsible for competent engineering. For
those who seek some simpler method of coping
with the flood problems there is a substitute
which I offer without recommendation. It is
a charm against the danger of flood which is
taken from a Middle Eastern book of magic
dating back to about the Second Century, A. D.
Here it is as printed in a recent issue of the
Saturday Review, and I quote:

I

"If a river or a lake overflow its banks
and the oncoming waters should endanger your
home, then make a man of stone and engrave
upon the soles of the feet the names of these