Cadillac Desert_ The American West and Its Disappearing Water - Marc Reisner [275]
Sherman opened the meeting by asking each of the assembled members to state flatly whether they had any misgivings about the Narrows site.
“The site’s fine,” said the Bureau geologist.
“The site’s fine,” said Felix Sparks, the head of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
“The site’s fine,” said the state geologist.
Everyone else had the same answer, except Kuiper.
“Well,” said Kuiper, “I might have agreed with you until ten minutes ago, when I saw the schematic my staff prepared for me. Maybe you should have a look at it, too.”
Sherman looked pained. “What are you saying, Kupe?” he demanded.
“I’m saying that looking at that schematic gave me some serious reservations about the Narrows site,” Kuiper said. “From the looks of it there could be major leakage right under the dam. If it were a nonfederal project, I’d never approve it.”
Sherman, watching Saunders and Don Christenson, whom the lawyer had brought with him, cackling silently behind closed lips, was incensed. “On what basis do you say that? Why do you say that?”
Kuiper then laid out what the schematic had told him. Sherman acted as if he hadn’t heard a word of it. “I don’t care about your schematic,” he finally interrupted. “I want to see a lengthy memo on all of this. You’ve made some very serious charges in the presence of two people who will obviously use them against this dam. You had better be right.”
Kuiper stood up to his full six feet six and glowered at Sherman, who was at least twenty-five years younger. “Young man, you’ll get your lengthy memorandum,” he growled. “But don’t you tell me what I’d ‘better’ be.” Then he stalked out of the room.
Kuiper had hardly finished his memorandum later that day when he received calls from both Saunders and the Rocky Mountain News, which had obviously been put onto the story by Saunders, asking whether they could have a copy. The News reporter also wanted to take a look through his Narrows file. As a public servant, Kuiper had no other choice than to keep his files open, except on matters involving national security. He was also legally obligated to make public any document he wrote, including the Sherman memo. He invited both Saunders and the reporter to come over. The reporter from the News was just taking the file to an empty desk when Sherman stalked into Kuiper’s office.
“What is he doing here?” Sherman demanded, pointing at the reporter.
Kuiper said he had given him permission to look through the file.
Sherman was aghast. “I haven’t even had a chance to look at it,” he protested.
“Well, he asked first,” said Kuiper. Sherman looked as if he were ready to throw a punch. He walked over to the reporter and grabbed the sheaf of files. “I’m looking through these first,” he said, plopping the stack on an empty desk as the reporter stood by dumbfounded.
In Kuiper, Sherman had a messenger whom he couldn’t kill, and when he tried he seemed only to wound himself. After the incident with the reporter, the state attorney general removed Kuiper’s Narrows file for safekeeping because of the lawsuit pending over the issue. Kuiper insists he did not ask him to do it, but Sherman evidently thought he had; the whole thing reflected badly on him, because it looked as if the attorney general thought someone might pilfer materials from the file, and the person who would have seemed to have the best motive—the person most ardently in favor of Narrows—was Sherman himself. Sherman was enraged. He immediately wrote Kuiper a long memorandum impugning, implicitly or explicitly, his integrity, his motives, his sense of judgment, and even his competence as an engineer. Because he was about to leave town, Sherman dictated the memo and asked his assistant, Jerry Sjaagstad, to sign it. After reading the memo, Kuiper sat down