Did you have some priorities that you wanted to go after right away?
I was very familiar with the park objectives, as I explained earlier, because I had worked with several park superintendents and Ernie [Borgman] in developing management objectives as Crater Lake, but also at Oregon Caves and John Day Fossil Beds.
Was the general management plan something that you were directly involved with?
At that point in time we did not have a GMP. We were still living under the old master plan approved in 1974, I believe. I felt there was a need for a master plan or a GMP update.
One was approved in 1977 under Frank Betts.
Okay, but it didn’t address enough things. I felt the need for a new one. I was told we just had one and it is too soon. I felt a need for a new GMP, I really did. We
Was it difficult to orchestrate CPSU studies?
Frank and I did all we could to encourage research programs. One of the things that I had grown increasingly concerned about was the lack of sound scientific data based on the ecology of Crater Lake itself. There had been a lot of people who had done studies of the lake, yet what piqued my concern was an article that compared large bodies of water like Lake Tahoe with Crater Lake (35). These big bodies of water have thermoclines, though I may not have the right term. The zones or strata in these lakes are somewhat stable, and I don’t remember the depth of distance, but something like the upper 500 feet is such that it just stays constant and the strata below that, the next 80 feet or 100 is a different zone and stays stable. But there wasn’t enough solid scientific evidence to support this theory. There was also the concern about geothermal activity. Was the bottom of Crater Lake completely dormant, or is something still going on? There just wasn’t enough information. USGS was already doing some work in the park, and they found an ideal space to study.
