Japan Part 2

Travel log Part 2. When we finished our business in Tokyo we took the high speed Bullet train to Osaka. The train traveled at 130 mph back in the late 80’s. The Japanese took pride in the fact it had a 100 percent on time schedule performance. I noticed when we approached a Station, passengers readied themselves at the doors. It seemed they opened and closed in an instance. Along the way I sat at the side of the train that had Mount Fuji in view. I was looking at the mountain when something interrupted my vision. It happened so fast that had I blinked a second longer I would have missed it. It was a bullet train coming from the opposite direction. The relative speed of both trains was at that split second… 260mph.

We were met in Osaka by the local government. They escorted us immediately to a local restaurant where we feasted for two hours. They brought course after course. I wondered what this was going to cost us. The answer was nothing. Again, having the State Department make the arrangements obviously gave us special status. They must have thought that the President had personally picked us to come. If they ever found out, it was too late. By then we would have been back in Boston.

In the end we got what we came for.  Camp Dresser and McKee the engineering firm responsible for the overall coordination of the planning, design and construction of MWRA’s wastewater plant on Deer and Nut Islands utilized the techniques learned in Japan. My role as Chief Engineer for the Federal Environmental Protection Agency was to see that the MWRA completed the project and did it in a timely fashion. In my 34 years of government service it was my crowning achievement.

 As a youngster growing up in South Boston and swimming in the waters off Carson and City Point Beaches, who would of thought that one day I would have a role in cleaning up Boston Harbor. As the old tune goes…”one never knows does one.”