Ross Mersereau and Ted Dyrness Oral History Interview - Part 2, September 3, 1997

Ross Mersereau: When they were out there, they were walking on somebody else's toes.

Ted Dyrness: That was an important thing.

Mersereau: Territory.

Dyrness: To avoid people impinging on other people's research sites. You'd think that with a 15,000-acre experimental forest, it wouldn't be that much of a problem. But, beginning with IBP, it became a problem. Personal differences arose, people would get mad, so Art's role was very, very important. He seemed to be the kind of guy that could do that; make everybody report where their plots are, and keep track of what everybody was doing. Because, like Ross said, people are really absorbed in their own little study and they don't have time to 00:01:00keep track of what the other people are doing. That's why you need a site director.

Mersereau: And one of the things that I noticed Jerry tried, was to keep everybody talking to each other, so that everybody would know what other people were doing. But, you take a watershed; Watershed 1 was 257 acres or something like that.

Dyrness: Something like that, yeah.

Mersereau: With a watershed that big, you could have two or three studies going on in it that could affect the streamflow. You could, if you let that happen. So, you had to watch out. The studies that we had going on in [Watersheds] 1, 2, and 3, for instance, were a number of studies that had to do with slope movement and plant succession, streamflow and sediment movement, and that kind of stuff. 00:02:00But, they all acted together and were part of the main watershed study. So, people couldn't move in and do things that would screw that up.

Max Geier: So, the difference with Art, was that there was somebody on the site who was coordinating that. Who served that role when Al was there?

Mersereau: I did.

Geier: You did, okay. How did that work out?

Mersereau: I was really Jack's hand down there.

Dyrness: Representative there, yeah.

Mersereau: That's the only way I could get by as a technician and do that, if the district [Blue River R.D.] wanted to do some logging or salvage logging, 00:03:00something like that. When I first went down there, they picked up a few logs here and there for their forestry from the Andrews. They would do it by having salvage studies and what have you, and they would come to me and say, "Well, we're gonna do such and such tomorrow. We're sending a guy out to mark some trees for salvage on the Hi-15 on the McRae Creek road." They would go out and would start marking. I remember this particular thing happening. One Friday, a technician and I went up to Hi-15 (Watersheds 6, 7, and 8), made a check, and it seemed to me every other tree was marked, particularly the western red cedar. I 00:04:00looked at it a long time, and a lot of the cedars were marked.

Dyrness: Doing okay?

Mersereau: Yeah, it looked to me like it was doing alright. So, as soon as I got back, I called Jack and told him. One of the things that always made me feel good with Jack, was he was interested in what I had to say, and how I would resolve it. I suggested he come down and we go look at it. So, he did, and he looked at it and said, "Boy, I've seen cedar like that out there that's fifty 00:05:00years old that's still standing." So, then he went and talked to the district. When he went back to Corvallis, he wrote some rules for salvage logging. And wrote them in a letter with these rules in it. When I went back out there, a lot of those marks were marked out.

Dyrness: Painted over.

Mersereau: Yeah. So, that was the kind of thing I did. When people had a complaint because of something that happened on their study, they'd say something to me, then I'd go look at it and talk to whoever I thought I needed to talk to. I never had any problems. I was saying about the rangers; whoever 00:06:00the ranger was there made a big difference. I wish I could remember his name, the first guy there. He was not for doing anything that would help us. He didn't loan us stuff, he didn't send his guys out to help us or anything. The next guy that came in was Mike Kerrick, and I never ever had any problem with Mike, and immediately, people started cooperating. They would set up a sale, then I'd get 00:07:00a call on the phone from one of the pre-sale men, and he'd say, "What about slope movement? We've got such and such on this particular sale, and we'd like to know a little more about whether we should be logging that, or should restrict it," or something like that. And if I had a good answer, I would say so. Most of the time, I would tell them to call you or Dick or Jack or somebody, and try to talk to them about those things. So, there started to be cooperation 00:08:00between the guys on the district and me, and incidentally, the station [PNW].

Geier: So, sort of the top down is what you're saying, when Kerrick came in he changed the attitudes of the people in the district there.

Mersereau: That occurred clear through Bill Aunsbaugh, when he was there. There was no problem there at all. He just let us keep working together. It was a lot different, so it depends on the person who is there too. The last couple rangers have been pretty good up there, too.

Dyrness: Oh, yeah. The ranger now, she's usually at the LTER meetings. She comes 00:09:00into town for the meetings, and that would have been unheard of years ago.

Geier: Steve Eubanks and Lynn Burditt.

Dyrness: Were you there when Steve Eubanks was there?

Mersereau: Yeah. I didn't know him, but I knew of him. I knew who he was and recognized him when he came to the meetings.

Dyrness: He was a guy that really wanted to apply what was being learned on the Andrews right away, and to try it out.

Geier: It was a generational shift there of people working on the Andrews. As I understand it, right about the time the program really transitioned into the LTER, there were more registered people that were working up there, and they tended to be more at the beginning of their careers, than earlier. As somebody who lived in Blue River for a long period of time up until then, did you see a change in the way people on the Andrews related with the community of Blue River?

Mersereau: When they started to accept me, then they started to accept the Andrews pretty well. The Andrews is kind of unique in a way. It's close and has a lot of things people like. There's good fishing in there, there's lots of deer, and there's bear, that kind of thing. Those people were so used to using it that way, when we started to restrict things, there were people that weren't too happy about that. But, I didn't see people get really angry like you might expect otherwise. I think that was because they had a little better idea of what 00:11:00the Andrews was doing. They might not have agreed with everything we did, but we didn't go following people around on the Andrews to see what they were doing. We had some vandalism, and there was not a hell of a lot you could do when you told them, "No." So, we didn't run around the river telling everybody that they were destroying the place. But, now the people that are on the Andrews live in the area, and most of them are people who have been there a long time.

Geier: That was one thing that I wanted to know. When Art comes in there in mid-70s, one of the things he started to focus on, was building up the 00:12:00facilities of the headquarters site there, and people started camping out on site instead of staying in motels at Blue River and things like that. I was curious how much that affected the way people from Blue River viewed the Andrews.

Mersereau: I don't think at the beginning it affected too many people, because there weren't too many motels and places for people to stay on the river. There were a few, but not many. The people on the river that had motels and cabins and what have you, had always relied on tourists, so they really weren't impacted very much. They always had tourists in there, and there wasn't any more than one 00:13:00or two facilities available. One was right there by the golf course. And, of course, we used all the restaurants.

Dyrness: Yeah, over the years there's a lot of restaurant meals and trading at the grocery store.

Geier: Well, as I understand it, you moved from Blue River to Corvallis, in what, '76 or '78?

Mersereau: '78.

Geier: '78?

Mersereau: It was May of '78 when I came out here.

Geier: Why'd you do that at that point?

Mersereau: Al had been trying for about two years to get me to move to 00:14:00Corvallis. Mainly because we had so many areas like Bull Run and the South Umpqua, they were beginning to go down into northern California around Arcata, and doing some drilling and putting in slope movement tubes and things like that. And it was easier if we were all in Corvallis for our particular studies. So, finally in '68, I had decided that maybe we ought to move into Corvallis.

Geier: In other words, the work was moving off the Andrews into a broader range of sites?

Mersereau: Yeah.

Dyrness: '78.

Mersereau: Yeah. Al talked to Dennis [Harr] and Dick and everybody into the idea 00:15:00that Art was leaning too much on me. That there were things that Art had problems with that had to do with being, uh, what's the word I want? If he didn't like something the [Blue River] district did, he'd practically start a fight sometimes. He didn't get along with the guys in district too well. And 00:16:00because Art's "one of those guys," if he sees something wrong, he --

Dyrness: -- Calls a spade a spade.

Mersereau: He doesn't try any diplomacy, he just says so. So, when he'd run into a situation like that, sometimes he'd leave it up to me to do something about it, and Al would say, "That's not your job anymore, that's Art's job."

Geier: So, in other words, you've been there in the community for a long time, so your long-term presence there gave you some leverage. You had interaction with the district at a different level it sounds like?

Mersereau: Yeah, we had social relations and parties, and from the first year 00:17:00that I was there, we were included in those. It took about a year, but from then on, if there was a party, then they would talk to us and make sure that we were part of it.

Geier: You had mentioned earlier a little bit of friction with the district ranger, the first one and the last one when you were there, but aside from that, it sounds like your relations with the district people were pretty good then.

Mersereau: Oh, yeah.

Geier: When you left and came to Corvallis, how often did you plan on going back to the Andrews?

Mersereau: We still had our own studies on the Andrews, and at the time, we didn't think Art's bunch would carry on the studies in the way we wanted them 00:18:00to. There were indications that John Moreau was the guy that did most of the stuff for them, and that he thought it was important enough to do it that way. We had a system set up that we felt gave us the best record, and there were times when he didn't think it was necessary to follow those rules. So, we just kept doing our thing, and every once in a while Al would say, "I think we can let John take over this." So, eventually he was doing it, and he's doing a real 00:19:00good job now. It's the main reason I think why it isn't necessary to have so many technicians running around down there for our studies.

Geier: If you think about the Andrews at the time you moved up to Corvallis, and what it was like when you first started working there in '66, what kinds of things would you identify as main differences in terms of landscapes or facilities or people there, and how it had changed?

Mersereau: Seems to me, when I first moved up there, I didn't have a very good 00:20:00view of the big picture, of everything I was doing. It was a question of just learning this and learning that and learning something else, until I got to do the job and understood what I was doing. When I got ready to leave, that was second nature. I felt if I went out and something was wrong, I knew how to fix it, that whatever I would do, even if it wasn't according to the study plan, I would do it if wouldn't affect the study at all. And also, I was able to look at 00:21:00various studies that were suggested and know that I could go in and help build them, or I could help set them up, or I could help do them. That is what I had learned was important in preventing somebody from doing something that would spoil their study. At least I felt that way.

Geier: You found that changing later?

Mersereau: Oh, you mean at that time?

Geier: Well, I guess I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that this was the way you felt when you first started working, as you started working there, and becoming used to it.

Mersereau: No, I meant when I left.

Geier: Oh, okay.

Mersereau: I mean, if they were going to set up a new study, then I had people 00:22:00coming and asking me about the study, and whether they should do this or do that or do something else. I felt I had learned enough so that I could put some input into it, not that they needed to do everything I said, but this was a problem that we had gone through, and we found to be a problem. And if you've got a way of doing things that will resolve that problem, then there is no problem. But, people are not out there all the time, and don't really realize what is going on 00:23:00out there, any more than I did when I started. When I went out with Dick after I first came up, and I looked at Watershed 3 and it's going across the flume, and it's going across an area about so wide, and it's only about that deep. It's really kind of a nice, peaceful thing to happen. When it starts to rain, and you go out there, you don't have anything like that. You have something that's like this deep, and you reach down in there with a bottle to get a water sample, and 00:24:00you can feel boulders.

Dyrness: Passing through the flume.

Mersereau: Yeah, passing through the flume.

Dyrness: That's why it was designed that way, to pass them through. Yeah.

Mersereau: And you just don't have any idea. When most people are out there, they go out there during good weather. They don't go out during bad weather. And yet, those things happen, and you've got to be prepared when you set up a study. The same thing happens because of the snow. I felt a lot more comfortable out there then, than I would ever have when I first started out.

Geier: I'm sure. How did that kind of knowledge of on-site characteristics make its way back so people designing the studies would have knowledge of it? Were 00:25:00you involved at that level at all?

Mersereau: I don't know, other than just talking, like to Al and me.

Dyrness: Other people that design the studies, like Dick and Jack and maybe Dennis Harr would have spent some time sampling in the middle of the night. They know what's going on. They're not just sitting in a lab, and having no field experience and sampling during storms and so on.

Mersereau: One of the comments in the technician meeting that the technicians that we had at the time were smart enough that they could understand what a 00:26:00study was all about and what it was supposed to do. If they went out and something was wrong, they could fix it.

Dyrness: Or come back saying this study has got to be changed.

Mersereau: Yeah. I felt that by the time that I moved up here, that people would trust me enough to do whatever needed to be done. The biggest complaint at the technician meeting was that half of those technicians never saw the study plan, 00:27:00because the study plan was stuck away in somebody's file and was never offered to them when they went out.

Dyrness: That is bad.

Geier: They didn't know what they were supposed to be doing.

Mersereau: So, they didn't really know what the study was supposed to be all about. And they were treated like they didn't know anything.

Geier: You said that didn't really happen at the Andrews, in that way.

Mersereau: It did not happen in this project.

Geier: Going back a little bit, you were talking earlier about your interaction with the Blue River District [Willamette National Forest], and a couple of examples of chance interactions, like when they're coming out to look for you, or when these trees were marked for logging. Was that a typical kind of interaction, or was there a more common way that you would be dealing with them on a day-to-day basis? How'd they get to know you so well, is what I'm asking?

Mersereau: Well, I had my office right in the station. If I was in the station, 00:28:00I took my coffee break with everybody else. So, I knew all the guys and I lived in the station house, which was right in the middle of everybody else.

Geier: And that was all the way through the time that you left in '78?

Mersereau: Yeah.

Geier: Okay. I was just thinking now with the headquarters up there on the forest, it sounds like that opportunity is less common. Is that true?

Mersereau: I think maybe not as much as it would have been, if we'd been out there to start with. There's better communication now than there was before. Cooperation is there if they want to ask for it. I think that when the 00:29:00cooperation wasn't there at the beginning, it was kind of a block to getting some things done. But, it didn't take any time at all to run out there and pick up a boulder and call somebody out there.

Geier: It sounds like things are a little bit more institutionalized now that the cooperation level is higher?

Mersereau: Right, right.

Geier: How are you doing for energy levels here? We've been out here for a while here. I've got a few more questions. I wanted you to explain how you would 00:30:00describe the level of staff involvement in decision-making processes at the Andrews. In other words, how directly were you asked to participate in decisions about facilities on the Andrews, studies on the Andrews, problem-solving, those kinds of things?

Mersereau: I felt like, well, how would I put it? If Jack wanted something done, 00:31:00he would call. If he wanted some information about something, he would call and we would talk. One time we decided to have a sale along Lookout Creek, and we were planning on leaving a leave strip along the stream. About that same time, we were planning on having a shelterwood sale [logging method retaining 40-50% of tree cover], and we'd been talking about shelterwood, but we didn't have 00:32:00anything on the Andrews that you could call a shelterwood. So, Jack came down, and he and I went out and we laid the sale out. And it wasn't Jack saying, well, we're going to do this, this, this, this and this. I wrote it down and we handed it in. It was Jack asking me what I thought. It was kind of a thing where I felt that what I had to say was important. And that's the way Jack worked. I never felt like Jack was one of those guys that would sit back and just tell everybody what to do. He just wasn't that kind of a person.

Dyrness: Yeah.

Mersereau: He made it real easy to get the technicians and the scientists to 00:33:00work together.

Geier: And he worked for some major changes in the way the place was run from the early involvement with Jack and implementation of IBP, the transition to the long-term ecological reserve, and the changes in the structure of the administration out there, like Art McKee coming in as site director, the transition from Jerry Franklin to Fred Swanson, things like that. How did you see it from a staff perspective? How did those kinds of changes influence the kinds of things that you did, or the types of problems that you encountered and had to resolve? Because we talked about it, apparently, there's a pretty strong personal relationship you had with Jack that helped solve a lot of problems.

Mersereau: Well, not only Jack, but Ted and Dick and Al and the other people 00:34:00that we got together with. There were some changes in the kinds of studies that we took on, but they were things that were small. In the studies Dick [Fredriksen] was doing, Dick was doing most of the Watershed stuff. Dennis Harr, 00:35:00who was also a hydrologist, had some ideas about things he wanted to do that were different than what Dick was doing. And so, there had to be some shifting of monies and effort into some of those things. Al and I talked about this kind of a thing that was happening. I don't know that there were any really hard feelings, except that I think both Fred and Dennis must have felt they were just kind of sitting there twiddling their thumbs, because there wasn't enough money 00:36:00to do the things Dick was wanting to do, and the thing that they were wanting to do. So, there were some changes there, but there was a period of time in there when Dick was mentally not able to handle his part of it, and so things got changed. He was kind of left doing his thing, or trying to finish up on his thing, and not being able to finish it. That was kind of hard, because when he started having problems, he would come down to my office and say, "When you're 00:37:00out there doing such and such, what is it that you do?" Or, "What did you do at this particular time?" I would explain to him, he would leave and in about an hour, he'd come back and say, "Ross, tell me, when you were out such and such at such a time ..."

Dyrness: Exact same question?

Mersereau: Exact same question. And, it was hard. I had a lot of respect for Dick and what he was doing, what he had found out and everything. It was hard to put up with that.

Dyrness: When did that start occurring? What year?

Mersereau: Oh, that was in the early '80s.

Dyrness: Early '80s.

Mersereau: When we found out he [Fredriksen] had Alzheimer's, we began to understand. That kind of left it open then for Fred and Dennis to get in their stuff, and we started making changes in things that we did. And I began to learn things that I hadn't known before, and that was fun.

Geier: It sounds like part of your job out there was continuously learning.

Mersereau: Oh, yeah. Anytime anybody started a new study then it was. Particularly, if I was supposed to do part of it, I had to learn what it was we 00:39:00were doing.

Dyrness: And why.

Mersereau: And why. If I was going to have to go out there and fix something, I had to know. And, we spent five years helping a fish project that Bill [Meehan] had when he first started in our project. He set up a five-year study and myself and Friday and Carlos and Al did all the work. Bill would go out when he could, and when he couldn't, we'd handle it. So, we had this whole new fish study, and it involved all kinds of collecting insects and counting fish and measuring fish 00:40:00and checking the streamflow and everything else, so you'd just keep learning things.

Geier: One of the things here with the administrative changes I was talking about earlier, you were talking about difficulties with getting a radio and things like that earlier on. How did you deal with expenditures or equipment needs, things like that?

Mersereau: Yeah, they did. Al did a lot of checking around and trying to work with companies like Bell Telephone. We were finally able to put a radio in a 00:41:00truck, so that at least we had the radio along with the truck. Then we were able to get access to a radio from the district that they were either going to get rid of, or that we could buy separately. We started getting those and when we did that, it helped us a lot in some of the things we did, because we started doing a lot of surveying. So, when we were studying slope movement that was some of the work of Fred and George. George was a geologist. Those two had studies set up for slope movement, and we did surveys the full length of some of those 00:42:00slopes that were a mile-and-a-half long, and with cross-lines and everything. So, having the radios made it easier to communicate along those lines. Then there were times when we needed a radio when it was really necessary to get help.

Geier: So, it made a difference not having to go to the PNW Station to get approval? I'm trying to get a grip on where the money was coming from at this point. Is it coming in through IBP?

Mersereau: The money was still coming from the PNW.

Geier: Oh, okay.

Mersereau: It's just that we're able now to kind of channel it into a little bit 00:43:00different direction. I remember Al and I and Carlos and Friday, all going to the store buying new rain clothes and rain boots and stuff like that, and the station [PNW] paying for it. And then there came a time when they decided they didn't want to do that. But, we were able to talk the station into being more safety conscious. We tried to get them to buy into sending at least two people 00:44:00instead of having just one guy go out. It got to the point where we were going out with at least in two people each time we went. And the only time that we would go out by ourselves, would be if it was in the middle of summer and things were easy and there wasn't a great deal of danger.

Geier: It sounds like, from what you said earlier, you always preferred to have Al with you anyway when you were out there, so this is just more of a formalization of a preference you had.

Mersereau: Right.

Geier: What did you do if Al wasn't there? Were there other people that you 00:45:00tried to take out in the field with you, if Al wasn't around?

Mersereau: We had Al and myself and George when he was here. Carlos was Spanish-American, and Friday was a Spanish-American.

Geier: Friday?

Mersereau: Friday, his name was Louis.

Geier: Okay.

Mersereau: He came with that name. (Laughter) We asked him when he first got there what his name was, and he said, "Friday." So, that's what we called him.

Geier: Carlos' last name was what?

Mersereau: Carlos' name was Hernacia or something like that.

Geier: They were the ones that came in about the time you were building the shelters?

Mersereau: Yes, when we were doing rebuilding at 9 and 10 [watersheds]. When I 00:46:00first started up there, one of my first jobs on 9 and 10 was to build a gauging station. Then they put in the stilling well with a board across the top, then set the instrument on top of that and put the float in, and they just had a cover that they just set over it. Al said, "We need some stations." He told me about what size, so I spent part of the winter getting the material and making some stations. In order to make them easy to haul up there and put together, I 00:47:00made each side a unit in itself, and then I just drilled holes through and put bolts in them. Did the same thing with the roof. So, the first summer when we were up there, he and I took those stations up and put them in place.

Along about the second year I was there, Dick decided he needed more water samples. What he needed was a system where he could get a series of samples that represented the amount of water coming down and going through the flume. The flume was a box constricted at the front end; it's called an H-flume. At the 00:48:00beginning, we had those, and later, when he wanted to change it again, he had us put in a different kind of a flume. We had to build a small building alongside the regular station, and put our jugs and sampling equipment in there. He made a timer box that was activated by the height of the water, in which a float passed through some magnets and operated some switches, so the instrument would know what the height of the water was, and how often it should take a sample. So, we 00:49:00started out with this little gauging station with all this equipment in it, and then, of course, one of the first things that happened, everything froze up. All the tubes froze and we spent a lot of time working on that, trying to get it so that it would always be available to take a sample. That's when we started trying to figure out a way to heat the stations.

Then, a little later, Dick decided he needed more than what was there; he needed something that really would work. So, we redesigned all the stations. By this time, I got a bright idea, and I told Al. I said, "We do all this work and there 00:50:00was nothing to show for it." Our designs and labor, the materials, and all that kind of stuff. There was nothing that would deter anybody from going ahead and trying to do anything. The thing that happens most of the time when you're not a professional builder, is it takes you forever. Because you do something and you make a mistake, so you have to redo it. Then you do some more and you make 00:51:00another mistake, and then you have to redo it. So, it'd take all summer long to rebuild each station. And, when we stopped to think about everything that we had to do, that was about when things were beginning to change with the IBP and everything, and we were getting more and more and more work. To have to stop and rebuild that station was getting to be a real problem. So, I suggested to Al we hire a carpenter and that he'd be the foreman. He'd sit down and work out the details and materials that we would need, and we could go out and order the material from wherever we could get it the cheapest. In the meantime, he would 00:52:00tell us when to start, where to start, and what to do and what not to do, and, as it turned out, we got a really fine carpenter. We got a contractor who had the time to spend. He spent a whole month out there and we did two stations.

Geier: Who was that?

Mersereau: I can't remember his name.

Geier: Okay.

Dyrness: He was from Blue River.

Mersereau: Well, he was from the other end of the south end Springfield.

Dyrness: Springfield.

Mersereau: Out toward that end, over Cedar Flats [Just east of Springfield near McKenzie River]. Anyway, he would run up there and he'd line up the work, and, boy, we did everything. We hauled rock and we hauled concrete and we put in the flumes and did all the work. Then, when it came time to do the house, he says, 00:53:00"Okay Ross, I want you to take this down." He said, "You lay that board out there and I'll give you the figures." And he'd measure and he'd give me a number and I would measure on the board and make a mark, and he told me everything and when we got done, he grabbed the saw and he went, "zim, zim, zim." And we had the side. (Laughter) It took the two of us probably about two hours, to put up all the side and framing of the roof, and then he put two of the guys to put the shingles on. And, we finished up with the windows and all that kind of stuff, and built steps and anything that needed to be done.

Dyrness: So, it really was wise to have a carpenter.

Mersereau: Oh, yeah. And it didn't cost us all that much to get him to do that.

Dyrness: Leave it to a professional, huh?

Mersereau: We did 10 first, and then we went over and did 9 [experimental watersheds]. If that did nothing else, it taught us how to do those things. That's why I felt like I could help.

Dyrness: Next to your experience on the Andrews?

Mersereau: Yeah.

Geier: So, were the two of you enough with all this help, is that right?

Mersereau: Yeah.

Geier: Okay.

Mersereau: We did everything but put the instruments in. Then he was done at the end of that month, and we started putting instruments in, setting them up and 00:55:00surveying the levels of the water and everything in order to get them in right. We were able to put some heaters in there so that it wouldn't freeze up on us and everything.

Geier: Do you recall how that person was contracted?

Mersereau: I'm not sure. I think Al probably went through the phone book. Or maybe he heard about him from somebody, I'm not sure. But anyway, it was that kind of thing that allowed us not only to do the work, but to know what to do 00:56:00and to be able to transfer that knowledge into all the rest of the stations that we put up. We put up stations for earthflow equipment and we put up stations on the Bull Run. Dennis [Harr] had some studies up there. It was just one of those things that Dennis says, "I want this," and we did it.

Geier: I was just thinking, we're going over three hours here, we should probably stop this. The tape's gonna run out in a second anyway. But I just wanted to give you a chance, because I asked a lot of questions, and if you had something that you wanted to add here that I hadn't asked you.

Mersereau: Well, I was trying to figure out what it was you were going to want to know, because a lot of the things that I know a lot of people know. But the 00:57:00things that I thought of more than anything as far as the Andrews, were the people that were involved, at least when I was there. I think it made the studies and the data and everything that we did, more valuable. It made it more true, just because of the kind of people that were involved, not only as far as the data was concerned, but the things that we kept shifting to and doing. We had different people who had different ideas about what to do. They're doing 00:58:00things up there now that wouldn't have dawned on me in a thousand years. And they're working off of satellites. I can remember one time when I wondered why the heck we're not doing that. And then I forgot about it. (Laughter)

Geier: They're working off satellites totally?

Dyrness: GPS's?

Mersereau: They're doing weather reports and everything off of those.

Geier: Well, you had a lot of experience working in different capacities, going into the Marine Corps and things. Was there something different about this group of people that you hadn't encountered before?

Mersereau: I think that they were willing to put some faith in whether I could do the job or not. I think in times before that, I wasn't so sure that anybody 00:59:00thought that what I had to say was worth listening to - (continuing thoughts on next tape).

[Tape Break]

Mersereau: -- what was going on and how important it was. I think if you're going to help somebody, you've got to have some feeling that they think you're worth doing it. That's the thing that I felt, and I don't believe there was any time at the beginning that I didn't feel that way. Particularly when Jack 01:00:00started including me in everything, and then listening to what I had to say. I think it kind of pumps your ego and makes you want to do things right.

Geier: So that stayed pretty consistent in the various periods of your work up there?

Mersereau: Yeah.

Geier: Well, probably we shouldn't take up all of your afternoon here. I may be getting back in touch with you, especially about some of the periods we haven't talked a lot about since your time back here in Corvallis, things like that. But, three hours is a pretty long time to be sitting there talking.

Dyrness: He handled it pretty good though.

Geier: Yeah, I like your stories. So, I'm gonna be working on this for the next 01:01:00several months here, and if anything occurs to you, I've asked people to provide written comments, if you have something you want to add, or recollections, people you think I should talk to, things like that.

Dyrness: Hey, have you talked to George?

Geier: George. Which one?

Dyrness: Lienkaemper?

Geier: No, I haven't.

Dyrness: Well, it strikes me that might be a good idea to talk to George. His office is right down the hall from mine, you know. He's kind of next to Carol Woods' office.

Geier: I've got it in my notes.

Dyrness: He's a GIS guy now. Computer guru. Yeah.

Geier: What was his time frame of being up there? He was up there a while.

Mersereau: I think he started before I moved up, because he was working with 01:02:00Fred. He was really kind of working as Fred's helper.

Dyrness: When did you move up again?

Mersereau: '78.

Dyrness: '78.

Mersereau: Then I moved up, then he and I and Al, worked more together. By then Carlos and Friday had left. So, there were just the three of us. He was pretty sharp. In fact he, he'd get tired of going up. I think Al was surprised, I guess, when George told him he didn't want to go out in the field anymore. He wanted to do something else. And then this other job came up.

Dyrness: Yeah, he's happy as a clam. He just sits there at his computer. (Laughter)

Mersereau: He and I shared the office for a while, next door to each other. Way back before we started getting a lot of computers around there, he was programming everything into his H.P. calculator, setting things up and trying to show me how to run the thing. And that's the one thing that I had a hard time with.

Dyrness: You're of the generation who has that the common complaint.

Mersereau: My kids, my grandkids, know more about computers than I do.

Dyrness: Oh yeah, but they're growing up with it, you know. There's not that phobia that the rest of us have to battle.

Geier: I'm not sure if I was telling you or Fred, but I've been putting material into a computer database. It's about the point where it would be useful to 01:04:00actually bring into the interviews. I could punch up on there, if you were having trouble remembering the names of stuff, I could bring them up, if you have enough of a word database.

Mersereau: Well, Fred and George, but mainly Fred, did a lot of walking around the Andrews. He walked all over that place. He must have at least hit everyplace that you and Jerry hit.

Dyrness: Yeah, yeah.

Mersereau: Only he was digging, he was digging soil pits.

Dyrness: He knows that place really well.

Geier: Now which Fred are you talking about?

Dyrness: Fred Swanson.

Mersereau: I don't know whether this stuff is in the file still. One of the old 01:05:00files was still in the office there, and in it are some old studies. The one I remember that was really interesting was the study they made on the road that they first built up to the Andrews.

Dyrness: That would be Roy Silen?

Geier: Was it the access road?

Mersereau: It was the access road that went up to the Andrews. The district built the road, or at least the logging company did. The records had to show how big it was, how long it was, how much per mile it cost to build it, and everything that they did.

Dyrness: Must be late '40s or something, huh?

Mersereau: Yeah, yeah.

Geier: Yeah, it was another four years before Roy was up there, so I'd like to see that.

Mersereau: When Roy first started there wasn't any road in there at all. And, the road went up to the scout camp. That was about it.

Dyrness: Where was the scout camp? Was it located by a swimming hole?

Mersereau: Let's see, where was it? The camp was right at the junction, wasn't it?

Dyrness: Right where the road connects.

Mersereau: Saddle Dam, right in there. Wasn't it there?

Dyrness: Oh, the Saddle Dam, there. Wow, that's not very far in. Saddle Dam is that first little dam on Blue River Reservoir.

Geier: Oh, okay.

Dyrness: Yeah, just as you hit Blue River Reservoir.

Geier: Yeah, that's right.

Mersereau: Well, in the first years that I went up there, they were still using that old road. We would come up the hill past the Saddle Dam, and then go down that old road. At the time they were working on the road that's there now. At night when I would run in there to get water samples, I would come onto spots where there were parts of a slope sliding out across the road, and it was just like gravy moving. And I'd go around the toe of it and then I'd just step in it, 01:07:00so that I could get out there and get my samples and get back before it closed the road off.

Dyrness: Yeah, that's what happened during the storms.

Mersereau: And I think that was the old road that was in the study.

Geier: That's definitely something I'd like to get my hands on, one of the old logging plans.

Mersereau: I think the first people in there. Like Don Gray. Did you ever meet him? He put in a lot of tubes to measure slope movement. He did them on Watershed 1, he did them on that interface between 2 and 3 [watersheds], and he 01:08:00did them down 9 and 10 [watersheds].

Dyrness: That doesn't ring a bell, he must have been after '74.

Mersereau: He started in '68, and that was the first year that he got out there.

Dyrness: Is that right? Don Gray [Professor-University of Michigan]. You know, the name sounds familiar, but I can't picture him or anything. Where's he at now? Mersereau: Doug Swanston didn't exactly like some of the work that he did, but I've got his report; must be still out in the garage. I've got his study, anyway.

Dyrness: Is he still around?

Mersereau: Well, he was from Michigan and he came out in the summer and set those up, in fact; he set them up in Seattle, some here, and some down in California.

Dyrness: Don Gray.

Mersereau: He was an engineer.

Dyrness: So, he published a report on this?

Mersereau: Yeah.

Dyrness: Where did it appear?

Mersereau: I don't know whether it was in a journal. I know it was in a publication like this [USFS report].

Geier: That's one of those things that you could get back to me about. If it occurs to you, let me know.

Dyrness: Yeah, if you could, write a note or something.

Mersereau: I was trying to think of, I forgot about Fred, I mean about Doug Swanston, too.

Dyrness: Did he do any work down there though?

Mersereau: He put in some [inclinometer] tubes.

Dyrness: On the Andrews?

Mersereau: On the Andrews. He put them on the slide that comes down across Lookout Creek, above the road junction that goes to Carpenter, there's a big slide that goes clear across the creek.

Dyrness: Kind of a land flow [earthflow] type of thing, yeah.

Mersereau: And he put in some tubes there.

Dyrness: What are they, strain gauge tubes, or what?

Mersereau: No, they were inclinometer tubes. He put them in there and down at Powers [Oregon].

Dyrness: Did you help him on this?

Mersereau: Well, Carlos and Friday did a lot of the work to put them in. And then, I helped read them all. Spent a lot of time running around doing that.

Dyrness: What years would be?

Mersereau: Oh, that seems to me like it was in '70. Boy, they started up before I moved from Blue River, so it had to be before '78. Maybe '75, somewhere around there.

Dyrness: '75, yeah. That's the year after I left. And then, not long after that, Doug went back to Alaska.

Mersereau: Went back to Alaska, you're right.

Geier: He was only there for a year or two.

Mersereau: Yeah, but he had tubes there, he had tubes down at Powers, he had tubes down in California, near Arcata. That was something. They got a drill rig 01:12:00and took it out on those slopes, and there were times when they had to winch the rig around so that they could sit on the slope, and then jack it up so they could get a straight shot with the drill.

Geier: You were saying that was Swanston [Doug], didn't you?

Mersereau: One of the things that makes that system work, or not, is that you have to make sure the bottom end is in bedrock. And there's some ways of making sure. And he never was sure.

Dyrness: Don Gray wasn't sure.

Mersereau: Well, Doug wasn't sure either.

Dyrness: No, not Don Gray?

Mersereau: Don Gray got them in the bedrock. But, there were some questions in 01:13:00there. But these are all people that got started on the Andrews and helped.

Geier: Well, we should probably call an end to it here. Let me give you my card here, if you do find some more material. Keep this to make a copy, and I'll give it back to you.

Mersereau: Sure, I may have another copy, but it'd be quicker to, if you copy it.

Geier: And like I said, if anything does occur to you, or if you find some, what are you trying to track down here?

Mersereau: Oh, this was in the Springfield paper one time.

Dyrness: What's the date on that anyway?

Geier: '75.

Dyrness: '75, look at that.