How did your objections to the way research was being conducted at Crater Lake change your relationship with colleagues?
I don’t think I ever objected to the way they did their research. I was always insistent on the need to explore the sewage problem and the clarity question. I felt that we needed to address these questions up front. We needed to do some tracer studies, bioassays which unfortunately were never done. If indeed sewage was getting into the lake, then we needed to assess its effect. One way to make this determination is through EPA’s provisional algal assay procedure or -in -sit u bioassays with C-14. I knew how to do that work, but none of it was ever done. When I had a chance to comment on their lo-year report, I felt that they had done a great job of monitoring and developing a primary data base for historical comparison. They had been doing some excellent research through [Bob] Collier, [Jack] Dymond and some other researchers. However, I felt that they were neglecting the sewage issue. It was sort of being swept under the rug, even during the 10 year research program. I don’t think the word sewage came up in the 10-year study, so I was very critical of the report. On one hand, I supported the things being done. I even said you need a 100-year effort [in monitoring]. It routinely should be done as part of park management, there should be no question. You should have money for lake monitoring every year. You need to ensure that the lake is not diminishing in quality, and the way you do that is to monitor. There are a lot of interesting research questions that need to be addressed. As a result of my comments on the ten-year study, I received a blistering letter from Dave McIntire who was one of the authors. He felt personally insulted and felt that I was way out of line in criticizing the report. I don’t even want to read you the letter because it’s almost worthy of a lawsuit for defamation of character. Dave had always been a good friend of mine and suddenly he turns on me because I’m being critical of the park for not addressing the sewage issue. He viewed my activism as an ego trip, in that I had made up my mind that sewage was going in the lake, that I was angry and that my ego was damaged. I don’t know where he came up with all this stuff, but in any case, I was somewhat hurt by the letter because I feel that the realm of science is argument, debate, and disagreement. That’s how we advance. You don’t advance with consensus – – there’s no such thing as consensus in science. I’ll bet you that 90 percent of the papers that appear in journals today are going to be shown to have been incorrect, if not totally incorrect. But that’s how science advances. The arena of science is disagreement, it’s battling, until you come out with the right answer. You can’t have a bunch of nice guys saying we all agree. As for changing a relationship with a colleague, my relationship with Dave McIntire was forever dashed.. I’ve never heard from him since and never replied to the letter. I was really hurt by it.
