Omaha daily bee., 1885-08-08
DIGGING THE DITCH.
What The City Engineer Has to Say
About The Work,
Complete Relief From Water Prom.
ised This Fall.

II udllbu tllo ohh mhh "itIS WIN 10 VII
fellow who complains In this morning.
BEE about the Indian creek ditch
wish you would step up into my Office
minute, and I will show you just what Il
to be done" The invitation was accept
ed, and soon the CLEANER was sur
rounded by a labyrinth of maps and plats
showing all about the ditch. There wa
the old channel of the creek. "You SCI
that there used to be quite q lake strstch
Ing from Broadway southwark. Wei
the wsshlngs from above have gradually
filled that In until there Is only a littl,
channel left, not near enough to carry
the water off, and hence when a heavy
rain comes there could not but be a
flood" The maps of the new ditch wert
then shown, and explained. The plans
show the ditch as running directly south
on Fourteenth street to the city limits,
and there 1t enters the old creek channel,
going meandering off to the river. II
is proposed to continue the ditch from
the city limits, on a shorter and more di.
rect line, a distance of a mile to the
river, and this would give so great q fall
that the ditch would almost, If not quite
clear Itself, whereas now, with the pres.
ent outlet, the ditch will fill up a little
every year, and will require constant at
~tention and some expense. This line
from the city limits on, has been laid
out, and COMBINATIONS made for a right
of way, but the property got out
an Injunction. This has been dissolved,
the complainsnts retaining their rights,
in Gaze they want to appeal. The right
of way will cost about 81, 1000, and the
cost of opening the ditch will not prob
ably exceed $4,000. This Is, however,
Largely a work of the future. The pres
ent work Is the opening of the ditch from
Broadway to the limits.
The BEE man then jumped into the
buggy with the engineer and drove down
to look at the work itself as 1t appeared
on the ground. The places which suf-
fered from water by Thursday mornings
rain seemed to be all located east of the
new ditch, and south of Broadway.
Near Stewards packing house the con
tractor has kept q dam, so that the ditch
below that point might De free from
water, for the WORK could not go on
otherwise. When previous rains have
come, some of the residents In that
vicinity would slip out and dig a hole
through this dam, and let the water run
into the new ditch, the old creek channel
bsing too small to carry all the water off.
Thursday morning the rain came so early
that no one was around to cut the dam,
and the water run over the banks of the
creek, and did some flooding. The con-
ira actors naturally howl every time the dam
Is cut, and the residents there
naturally cut the dam rather than to have
the water flood them. This seems to be
n of the temporary %annoyances attend
ing the work. West of the ditch and In
other places where heavy rains always
caused trouble before, there has already
been great relief secured, and the pre-
diction is made that a like relief will soon
be felt by all. During the progress of
the work there Is need of patience, how
ever, and all cannotIgetsthe full benefit of
the work until the whole is completed.
"When will that be, Mr.. Engineer ?"
"Thls fall, l expect. You see 1T must
be done. We hoped to have 1t all done
last fall, but 1t wasn't quite reached.
| You SEQ there were all the railway
bridges to be put In. We couldn't 60
ahead and tear up the tracks. Then the
work had to be done In sections, and we
did not get all through before winter sat
In. When the Ice broke up this spring
there was lots of dirt left iE the ditch,
and 1t will have to be taken out. You
see there was no outlet for the ditch, but
when finished there will be no such
trouble. Every rain now sets the work
back, but this fall will see 1t all done.
The people ought to be a little patient,
for matters are not nearly as bad as they
were, and will soon be all right. But 1t
can't all be done at once, and reasonable
folks ought not to expect 1t. If anyone
thinks there is cause for complaint l
wish they would come to me, ard l will
try and explain it all, but If 1t does not
then seem all right l will listen to any
suggestions they may have to make as to
It,"
"Whst sabout this talk of the sewer
being below the bed of the creek?"
"Why, of course 1t Is below the bed of
the old creek. The new ditch Is larger
and deeper, and of course the sewer goes
below the bottom of the old channel, but
what they are trying to make out Is that
IL 10 DclOn tuo pOttOHi VI Ia NOW aiICuS
l think. There is nothing to that. The
sewer Is two feet and a half from the
bottom of the ditch, so that the ditch
would have to fill up nearly five feet be-
fore the sewer would be stopped up"
The further facts about the ditch are
that 1t Is about two miles In length, and
has a fall of three feet. The ditch Is
about fifty feet wide at the top and ak.
teen feet at the bottom, thus making an
abundant water way. Such q water way
seems necessary, unless the whole bot
tom Is to be abandoned, for without such
relief the water coming down the creek
would spread all over the bottoms. One
of the most p~erplsxlng features of the
work Is to get the railroad companies to
put the right sort of bridges across the
ditch. Those now in are too low, and
these are ON piles instead of being spans,
the watercourse beingiobstructed ty these
piles. When the whole ditch Is opened
this fall, there will be a great relief,
eyen with the bridges as they are, but
the ditch will not be at its best until
span bridges are put In and the extension
Of the ditch from the limits OF the river
along the proposed short line, is COM
pleted. 1t Is predicted that the rains of
another season Will not cause any trouble
/ Mt all ao that the few who haye this AGA