As for the diatoms, I would not claim that there are no diatoms on the bills. It is more correct to say we didn't find any. Looking back at my notes just now we never looked at the green money under the SEM so it could have had diatoms on them.
Tom
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Wimpy conclusions? I rest my case.
Meyer
Yes, that's absurd. He might as well say his search for diatoms was superficial and incomplete?
I talked to several well known diatom researchers at UWash and they told me one would expect there to be diatoms where the Ingram money was found ... they wanted to look at the bills and were even willing to go to Tina Bar and do several tests (good research project for their grad students) but alas Brian Ingram backed out leaving everyone stranded with nowhere to go ... it was a huge disappointment.
Brian prayed on the matter and evidently got contrary instructions to back out and screw 15 people in the process!
He didn't bother to call or email ... just left everyone hanging .... wouldn't respond ... we finally asked Jerry Thomas to intercede and he answered Jerry's call almost immediately. Jerry called us back and gave us the bad news. We were flabbergasted. We had promised to supply Brian with copies of all the research free. We felt that might increase the value of his bills at auction time, for one thing. Sometimes one does not know from where a thing cometh nor whither it goeth and for why! 
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I didn't know about that one, Georger. Too bad, I can only imagine how disappointed everyone must have been. One more thought: if the Ingrams had bleached washed the bills, wouldn't that pretty much kill the diatoms? Or could some diatoms have been salvaged in spite of the bleach wash -- maybe embedded deeply between the bills? Kaye did initially say no diatoms were found. I'm wondering if this is the reason why. If so, it's possible then that the bills could have been in the River -- it's just that the diatoms got washed out by the bleach wash in the Ingram's kitchen sink.
Meyer
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I dont really know how thoroughly money was washed and by whom. All I have is what Ingram's mother passed along to Brian to tell us, ie her washing in the sink, use of Clorox and dish soap at one point, drying on the kitchen table etc. The FBI did some lab analysis and finger printing of some bills.
When you look at the groups the Ingrams turned in, as shown at the press conference, I dont see any washed, cleaned, and pressed individual bills there ... just groups of attached bills. On the other hand we know Crystal Ingram turned in 2-4 extra individual bills later, the Ingrams had held back as souvenirs so maybe there were some individual bills not shown in the FBI press photos.
I have no idea what state the insurance company bills are in...
Somehow, we get from the the original unsorted groups shown on the table at the FBI press conference to the "individual" bills shown by the FBI (in folders) and media photos starting later, when? By the end of February 1980? I have never seen photos of the insurance company's bills. But somebody separated and sorted all of the groups shown by the FBI in 1980, to get a count and examine the order. Was there some cleaning? That is how the FBI was able to say: 'the order of serial numbers was the same as when given to Cooper'.