The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-05-03
PROPER ATTENTION
TO THE APPALACHIAN WATER
 SHE'D.
Would Prevent Floods and Bring Int Use Millions of Water
 Power.
Washington Special.

washington Special.
 The, greatest development of wa
 ter power that has ever taken place in the United States has been accomplish
 ed during the last few years on the rivers which drain the Southern Alp. palachian Mountains, according to an official report on the water resurces of
 this region. It is estimated that there
 is at least 2,s00,00 indicated horse- power developed by the streams which have their headwaters on this water
 shed, and more than half of this in- dicated power Is available for economic development.
 Only a comparatively small part of this has been made use of yet. but the portion that has been utilized has been
 one of the most important factors in the recent industrial development of the South. II The future the use Of this power and its value are bound to increase tremendously. Manufacturing plants are constantly increasing in number in the region, and 1t is reas- onable to expect that in time the cen- ter of the cotton weaving industry in the United States may be moved from the streams of New England, where 1t has remained for so long, nearer to the source of supply for the raw ma tsrial.
 Moreover. waterpower, or power or- IklnaIlHk m Lno bIE6dul6e VIII DO more and more in demand here, as ev- anywhere else in the country, on &C., count of the increasing cost of fuel power through dwindling fuel re- sources of the country. Already tho ater-power costs much less than the fuel and the difference will inevitably grow greater. One great difficulty of the users of water power, not only in the South. but along the New Eng afr Ftnn aa well fhnff~h rnGGthlV to a less degree. is the fact that if cannot be dependen upon the year around but must be supplemented and replaced for some weeks or months every summer by costly fuel-power. be- cause the streams run too low to be of service.
 More than this. as the years go on. mill owners are painfully aware that the low-water periods are growing longer and longer. This is because the forests at the headwaters of the streams are being cut off. with the result, that the melting winter snows and the spring rains pour off the de- nuded and hardened lana in devastat- lnR, floods. sending down for few weeks far more water than they can use and moreover. reducing the ca- pactty and usefulness of their mill ponds by filling them with hundreds of tons of sand and soil which the floods SCOUT of the unprotected upper slopes
 Nowhere are business men wider awake to the danger than in the South. If indiscrfrninate cutting of the forests on the crests of the watershed can be stopped, there is a possibility, accord ing to a recent report of experts. of increasing the development of power m to anywhere from three to thirty times the l.4o0.009 horso-water at present available. Without 1t, almost nothing can be done. The method pro posed to develop the Appalachian Riv- CT. resources to total or forty two million horse pow would catch tho surplus water of the spring and retain them until the sum- mer months when the mills now have to fall back on fuel or close down.
 The united States Geological Sur vey has kept records of stream flow in the Appalachians for a number Of years and recently they made care ful study of the possibilities of stor- age reservoirs in that region The Forest Service has published their re- port under the title of The Rela- ton of the Southern Appalachian to the Development Of Wa ter Power" as Forest Service Circular IA. and will send it free to anyone upon application. The experts Of the Geological Survey Who Haue the IT, after picking out reservoir sites and estimating their capacity and the area from which they would re- ceive the run-off consider tho figures given above extremely conservative. Even with only l.4o0 o00 horse power. the annual return at s20 per horse power per year would amount to S2S.- GOO 900 That Is equal to q gross in- come of per cent on capital of seSs Oo0 900. These figures seem to iusttfy a considerable outlay of money I.... Ahn hnnaAfs rnrnFniaah