Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
An Interview with Bruce Sims |
Catalog Number |
2021.074.014 |
Object Name |
Recording, Video |
Scope & Content |
>>An Interview with Bruce Sims, Regional Hydrologist, R-1 (ret'd) >>Oral history interview of Bruce Sims by James Wall, February 15, 2022, Huson, MT. >>Bruce Sims served as a wildland hydrologist for the Forest Service for over three decades. Before he joined the outfit he did a stint in the Peace Corps, helping to establish a hydroecology program at the University of the Philippines. His first Forest Service position in 1979 was as Westside Hydrologist on the Siskiyou National Forest stationed in Gold Beach, Oregon. This was a period when industrial scale logging on National Forests was still in full swing and NEPA assessment work was beginning to take root and become meaningful. In 1984, he took a three-month detail to the Mt. Hood National Forest to write a hydrologic assessment of impacts to water quality for harvesting 300 million board feet of timber that had blown down in the Bull Run Watershed. He remained on the Siskiyou until 1986, when he transferred to the Santa Fe National Forest as Forest Hydrologist. In 1991, he accepted a six-week assignment to the Caribbean National Forest in Puerto Rico to assist with restoration work following Hurricane Hugo. In 1995, he transferred to the Stikine Area of the Tongass National Forest in Petersburg, Alaska. Bruce had detailed to Sitka for some collaborative fisheries enhancement work with Steve Paustian in the 1980s and had always thought working in Alaska would be a great adventure. Unexpectedly, he was asked to be a team leader for a timber sale. In July 2000, he became the Regional Hydrologist for the Northern Region in Missoula and served as the Regional Burned Area Response (BAER) Coordinator. Bruce retired in 2014 after serving 35 years and 4 months as a hydrologist in the Forest Service. He worked in four Forest Service Regions and on several details to the Washington Office (WO). |
Year Range from |
2022 |
Year Range to |
2022 |
People |
Sims, Bruce |
Subjects |
Caribbean NF Missoula Mt. Hood NF Santa Fe NF Siskiyou NF Tongass NF |
Search Terms |
Disasters International Forestry Oral History Water Water Rights Watershed Wild & Scenic Rivers |
Catalog date |
2022-09-12 |
Collection |
Oral History |