If all the letters and all the communications were public between the two it would show that Doug has written some letters that would really make people mad. For instance, when the 10 year report came out, Doug basically ripped it apart and asked the same questions, “Does this report answer your basic charge in the legislation, to study and protect the lake?” It looks like you’ve done a lot of other research that may not be in the same vein as the charge you were given. He sent that letter to all the congressmen. The scientists working on the lake today felt pretty hurt that he would try to do this to them, even though the science that they did was as good as any that could be done.
Didn’t the number of scientists working on Crater Lake increase markedly?
Oh absolutely, with Jack Dymond, Bob Collier, and Goldman. Charles Goldman was part of the planning for a 10 year program through the AAA S and held at Oregon State. He convened that presentation. There were a lot of experts in every field brought in just to answer the simple question, “Has Crater Lake changed?” I think that is what Gary Larson is after right now. The problem is that some of the methods used in the early research weren’t documented well enough to repeat, so we don’t know exactly what some of the numbers mean. A Secchi disk dept of 45 meters in 1936, what does that mean? What was the size of the disk, what was the day like, who was doing the observing? We don’t know any of that. Today we have lots of Secchi data and I know that Gary is going through that with a fine tooth comb looking for trends. If you asked him today, he would say that we just don’t have enough data. It could take decades before we see some kind of repeating cycle or tend in the clarity of the lake, for instance. That goes for phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish and all of those things. Mark Buktenica has worked up there many years, too. The fish cycle is pretty well documented now because of his work. Some of the biological cycles are shorter than the long term physical cycles of the lake itself, which would depend on climate.
Did you work consecutive years starting in 1983?
I finished my graduate work in 1985. For some reason I thought I was done with my old life, and my new life would now start with something professional. I started working for an environmental consulting group in Medford, Neilson Research. They were doing work with Crater Lake on bacteria. They needed a chemist. I was in Corvallis and this was in Medford. I thought, what were the chances of me finding a chemistry position is southern Oregon? I left graduate school to work for this group. I think Doug was involved in this, too. Doug and John Nielson had worked together. John mentioned to Doug that he was looking for a chemist and Doug mentioned this to me. I met John and he hired me as a full time chemist in Medford. That was maybe September 1985, but by Thanksgiving, I was let go. He was bidding on some government projects that didn’t come through. The day before Thanksgiving was my last day of work for this environmental firm and this was kind of devastating. I thought this job was it.
