Lower coast gazette., 1913-12-06
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1913.
The Lower Coast and Other Leyees.

O1urE a stir among the newspapers has oc-
o,,,rod in New Orleans within the last week,
brought about more particularly by the riVal
conventions for the promotion OF levee work
that were held on Saturday, November 81, IN
Nav Orleans. The Newlands bill, pending IN
congress. which contemplates enormous appro-
~nriations ard ties the country together from the
.Je+ties up to the Canada line by a system OF
loveas whore levees are needed and by a sys-
tenn of dams, reservoirs, water powers and lrr'-
cation schemes where the levees are not needea
has it's friends and promoters, although the
ideas involved are so complex and in degree an
tagonistic to each other.
The rival bill. which meets with the approx
al Of the Mississippi River COMMISSION anu %
our Board of State Engineers, and we oeleve
with the approval generally of those persons IN
Louisiana who are most familiar with tne le'ee
situation here, contemplates higher, greater anu
larger leyees and more thorough control OF them
end the retention of the water OF the river
within the limits of these levees from the hlgn-
lands up above Cairo clear through to the mou'h
of the river. The levee system hes demoh-
strated it's own success and the crevasses our
mo recent years have been reduced to a MIN
imurn as compared with the great floods tnat
rnread over the country so frequently formerly.
MANY Of our people forget that the marglnso OF
croft in cotton, cane and other agriculture were
1nuch wider twenty, thirty or forty years ago
than they are now and it is the narrowing mar
gins of profit, the higher cost OF labor and the
withdrawal Of thousands of able bodied men
from the agricultural fields to the cities, that
are l~essening the profits OF agriculture Wh'le at
the same time the perfecting OF the leVee sys-
TEN as is going on every year, IS so concentart-
ing the waters Of the great Mississippi Valley
within the levees that the Lover Coast IS be-
coming the point where all these waters must
pass out to sea and where. with the loV'lands
adjacent and the high levees fronting us, we
are compelled to be extremely vigilant in their
maintenance.
Il has been demonstrated to the satisfaction
of our engineers that practically every break
that has occurred in the levees since 1850 could
have been prevented had greater precautions
and not very expensive ones, been taken Tor
their preservation. In 1890 the. famous Nor
2 gufEa lENGG WGo CGoCQ, tiC AAoV SiilS IA e"NANJ
or thirty years. With high water then coming,
it was chen found, ard since then has been
found to be difficult problem to ascertain what
level the water mag reach when it is retained
by the closure of these outlets. The MorganZa
outlet having existed for so long a time, the
river doubtless was Swallowed below that point
and when the floods came, although the rev
bIorganza levea was greater in height and in
cross section than anything previously dreamed
of, the water rose SO high there that it ran
over the top Of it from two to three feet deep.
as Captain Kingman, then in charge OF the
levee, told the writer of this article. The de-
s~truction of that levee led to its reconstruction
on still greater lines. that have been maintained
ever since.
It would seem almost automatic that If there
be any food that fell within the water shed of
the Mississippi Valley, that with the Tennessee
River reaches up in the mountains OF Alabama;
on the north reaches to the Allegheny noun
tains up 10 New York state ard in the OHIO
Valley penetrstes the entire plains OF the state
OF Indiana aischarging its waters also into the
Ohio River and so on with the states west up to
the Canada lire. This vast water shed by a
given conjunction of meteorological conditions
is liable to have tremendous foods. We have
frequently read OF hoodsi in the Kansas towns II
that semi arid state, where the water was sew.
eral feet deep in the towns and great harm was
done by these floods. These are natural con.
ditions that we cannot we'll get rid of, and BY
no means Of which we thus far have any knowl
edge. This water must all go to the sea and g
as quickly as possible and with free transi
from the tributaries into the Mississippi Rive
and on down to the Gulf we believe that from
an engineering point there is no insuperabt
difficulty and the efforts of the nation to con
troll this water should be concentrated upol
that one point of putting the water through TIL
water channels to the sea with the quickes
possible dispatch.
The antagonistic idea to this that has de
veloped latterly has been that the water shoul
be retained in the great basins in the Rodk
Mountains, where much water is needed 70
irrigation and where immense water poWe