The record-union., 1893-10-09
SURPLUS WINTER WATERS.
They Can be Controlled by a General
State System.
Marsden Manson Explains Why Re.
clanation Has Failed, and How
1t Can Succeed.

The well-known civil engineers, Mars
den Manson and c. E. Grunsky, were in
the city on Saturday in consultation with
Commissioner of Public Works A. II.
Rose on matters concerning the proposed
improvement of the river and reclama-
ton of tule lands by providing water
way that will relieve the great tule basin
of their surplus waters.
Mr.. Manson said to a RECORD UNION
reporter that all that could be done at the
present time was to consider and mature
plans for ascertaining the average guam
tity of surplus water that will have to be
disposed of, and then the board viii have
some idea of what to do and how to go
about it.
In the course of the conversation Mr..
Manson said that before any good results
could be obtained it will be necessary to
establish a system, or policy, that will
insure the united action Of all localities
affected by the winter floods. The sys-
tenor, more properly, the utter lack of
system-that has heretofore prevailed is
largely responsible for the losses Sus-
tanned in past years from inundation.
There has been no central control of
reclamation operations, each district and
individual acting upon its or his own
idea. The result has been that one To-
cality has leveed against its neighbor;
costly embankments have been thrown
up at right angles to the natural flow of
the surplus waters; natural channels
have been obstructed and Overfiows and
heavy individual and neighborhood
losses have resulted.
In order to control the flood waters, he
said, there must be compliance with
i
reclamation operations the entire length
of the Sacramento Valley. At least
$1,000, 900 have been expended by district
and private individuals in efforts to re-
claim tule lands, and most of it might as
well have been buried beneath the levees
constructed.
The overfowed lands were given the
State by the General Government in
trust, to be sold cheaply to those who
guaranteed to reclaim them. These
lands are by all odds the richest in the
State, and it was the duty of the Com
mOnwealth to see that they were prop
erly reclaimed; but the State has never
exercised any control over the matter,
and the result has been failure after fail
ure, although the lands have passed out
of the States ownership.
Now, if anything is to be accomplished
in this line, the State must step in, and,
through the officials provided for by the
Legislature, devise a general yet specific
system TO which all reclamation work
must conform.
Mr.. Manson instanced the Mississippi
River, the Rhine and several rivers in
Russia whose flood waters have been
brought into control and subjectiOn by
Government action. The Mississippi
runs through several States, just 9s the
Sacramento runs through several cOun-
ties of this State, and until of late years
fhorn I1y0S fln CronoroI ObcarVro2 for.
protecting contiguous lands. Now that
the Government has taken hold of the
matter all former difficulties have been
overcome and the great river flows for
thousands of miles down to the sea as if it
had received positive instructions how to
conduct itself.
So with the Sacramento River, only on
lesser scale. In the absence Of State con-
troll of levee work localities have been
working at cross purposes all these years
and wasting millions of dollars that
might have been used with good results
if properly applied.
The first thing to be done, said Mr.
Manson, is to make the Sacramento and
San Joaquin Rivers-the chief natural
waterways of the two yalleys-perform
their full duty in the matter of handling
the waters that flow into them from the
mountains and plains. This can be done
by a comprehensive system of levees,
strengthening anu uTeQglnR IN places.
The rest of the work is a mere matter OF
engineering skill and detail that will not
bedifficult of accomplishment if properly
handled.
He referred to the great advancement
that had been made in dredging machin-
cry, and said there are two dredging
plants owned by reclamation districts in
the Sacramento and San Joaquin deltas
that eclipse anything of the kind in this
country, if not i'll the world. One of these
machines is capable of removing 500, 600
cubic yards of material in a few weeks-a
feat that it took year to accomplish with
the machine in use when the Govern
ment prosecuted the great work of i'm
proving Chesapeake Bay.
With machines of the kind now avail
able in California it would be a compare
lively easy thing to vastly improve the
channels of the Sacramento and San Joa-
quin Rivers and at the same time in
crease the effectiveness of their levees.
Messrs. Manson and GrunSky have
been appointed consulting engineers to
the Board of Public Works, and will have
charge of the work to be done by it. They
are experienced men, and have perhaps a
better practical knowledge of the condi-
ton of the rivers than anyone else, hav-
ing spent years in the work of river in
spection while engaged in field work for
the State Engineers office and for large
corporations.