New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-09-01
THE LEVERS OF LOUISIANA.

THR LEVERS OF LOUISIANA.
Louisiana is eminently the levee State
Her all Of sugar and rice, and in great de-
gree Of cotton, is dependent upon levees
for their safe maturity. The State has
nearly half her area and four-ffths her
value alluyion and beneath the leyees. No
less than l7,l36 square miles of the area
of the State is alluvial, and 1880 square
miles Of habitable country ia subject iu ex.
traordinary floods to inundation either
from the Mississippi or from Red river and
the Ouachits. How it is protected from
annual submergence from the extravasated
waters Of these streams, the people of the
State have good reason to know.
For $50 years the Inhabitants Of Louisi-
ana have fought the waters OF the Missis.
sippi under all possible discouragements of
crevasse and caving banks, and have es-
tablished the fact, that the gain is we'll
worth the struggle and the necessary tax.
Since the territory of Louisiana passed into
the possession of the United States and the
country has reared it into State, it has
rapidly grown in strength and ability to
stand the burden of levee construction.
The former method OF requiring the ripar-
ian proprietor to build the levees gave
way to tax upon all the country pro-
tected. Tne reclamation has extended in-
terror from the river, and double and treble
the area of habitable lands Of the Atchafa-
laya and its tributaries the Blsck river and
Tensas, and the large area of Red river allu-
vion These brought proprietors to sense of
the justice of extending the burden of levee
building to the whole region projected.
From about 1850, when the Delta survey
was instituted by the United States with
tacit understanding that the levee construc-
ton must become q national affair, as much
80 az the improvement of the river itself,
extending as it does through several States,
the area of cultivated alluvion increased
with unwonted rapidity, and rendered it
eminently proper and just that all within
tho sphere of it's protection should share in
levee construction.
With these general remarks We proceed
to examine the levee question as it now ex-
lists. Without levees we stand as if the
country were in q state of nature. With
partial levees, that is, with some places
open, and these the largest levees in the
State, we shall be partially protected, not
in proportion to the front of continuous
levee, but in Q ratio we can not compute
but it will follow from the subjoined des-
cription of the levees as they now exist.
NORTH OF RED RIVER, OR CoNCORDIA FAR
IsHES.
At the Arkansas boundary, on the right
bank. we have to commence with three
miles Of broken levee. The Ashton, as it is
called, is q front of high levee that has not
been closed since the war. 1t has caved
away till the plantations fronting there are
chiefly gone, and fortunately the cotton
wood thicket that has sprung up has caused
the deposit to form until the whole. front
has raised to near the high water mark.
This limits the water discharged and will
render the task Of leveeing it but light COM
pared with che original estimate. Besides,
the caving has come nearly to an end, and
some power will soon have to close it.
The water poured out comes down IN rear
of the plantations first on Bunch's Bend,
and in high water it overhows ali the region
Of joss bayou, Bayou Macon and the
Vicksburg and Shreveport railroad, and
when added to the twenty miles of open
levee in Arkansas, assists to fill up the
swamp reservoir and submerge the rear of
plantations all the way to Red river.
Next to the Ashton begins the Bunchs
Bend levee. For ten miles round the cut
lower end, the levees are good and need no
repairing. In fact, the river is thrown on
the Mississippi side, down below Skipwith's
Landing, to three miles above Lake Provi-
dence.
The oaving which has rendered it so dan
gerous and expensive to keep the levee
from breaking in front Of Longwood, and
Elton, & Benham's house, may be consider
ed az arrested, and carried to the left bank
and hence the levees are relieved down to
below Lake Providence without more than
. mere patch.
The Bass lsvee begins at Montgomery's,
and continues thence down to the
lower end of the Bass plantation. This
levee broke last spring, and has been open
all the season. A levee rising from ten to
eighteen feet in height will have to be con-
structed for two and half miles in extent,
or the consequences will be frightful. The
water from the crevasse attacks first the
plantations of Transyslana, Wilton and
Goodrich, and thence spreads and fills the
swamp reservoir in rear of Milliken's Bend,
and all below; tending, of course, to sub
merge the railroad and all plantations on
the Tensas and Macon. Here alone we can
pat 200, 900 of the SOO,0 900 cubic yards the
Levee Company can build.
This ia one of the three grand openings
Of the levees of the State. Shall we close
it?
Thence the levee is pretty good to STAN
boul and Airlie, where patching at both
will have to be reeorted to. But 5000 or
10000 cubic yards will cover both. The
same may be said of the Hawes Harris
levee, at the Terrapin Neck. A patch of
600O or 1000 yards will probably be neoes-
ssry. But at the Terrapin Neck cutoff. and
at Omega and below, the caving encroaches,
and the commission will have to decide be-
tween patching of 5000, 10000 or $4,000
yards, and building new levee of nearly
a mile, and twelve to fifteen feet high. This
would consume $4,000 yards.
Thence we proceed but q mile or two to
the Millikins Bend levee and crevasse.