The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1913-04-14
FLOOD PROBLEM TO
BE MET AGAIN

1ldC6 OIL lu6 edIlu WAS dUSOlplife dlu
the rain entered it. The capacity to
absorb water of the soft duff soil of
woodland, or the heavily crossed soil
of meadow is almost unlimited. Once
in the soil the entire rainfall sought
the stream-beds slowly. rainfall
such as those in Ohio and Indiana
should affect streams and rivers grad.
ually and keep them bank-ful for sew
eral weeks or even a month. The Ohio
floods rose in a day and abated in a
week.
The reason of this is that the sur
face soil is no longer absorptive. Gull
tivated farms, hard roads impervious
to water, square miles of cities with
paved streets, ganitoid cutters and
concrete sewers have replaced the
ancient woodlands and meadows. The
natural rain we still have, but an un-
natural soil receives it.
The purpose of draintiles on farms,
of paved streets, of roofs and cutters
on houses and concrete sewers is to
carry water quickly to the rivers. But
the rivers were planned by compe-
tent Providence, who meant or intend
ed the water should tarry little and
not hurry away to the river beds. Our
rivers are therefore, just as surely out
of date as horse cars. 1t is everyone
wanting to get home at, the same time
that causes traffic COMPOSITIONS in
great cities; and more cars and more
tracks and greater stations are being
provided. 1t is because all the drops
of rain get to the rivers at the same
! time that causes the congestion OF
water which we call floods. So far
we have done nothing to relieve our
! streams of this congestion, but all our
work has been aiding the rain drops
| in their effort to arrive simultaneously
and add to the congestion.
The writer has recently seen arti-
cles giving the impression that the
drainage of lowlands and flood proven
ton go handin hand, and that the or
| sanitation which stands for drainage
1also stands for flood prevention. NO
two things could be more incongruous
or more Incompatible Drainage is
science of hurrying water from lands
Into streams. 1t is sometimes ques-
ton of turning swamp into dry lana
and keeping it so by artif1clally rapid
exile for rainfall 1t is sometimes only
question of preventing land from pc
coming wet by refusing rainfall to de-
LAY.
Swamps and wet lands were all part
| of Natur's scheme for drainage. Each
acted as a reservoir But the swamps
cannot be replaced, drainage cannot
be undone; in fact drainage IS one OF
the greatest achievements OF pheno-
menally progressive people. Our
steadily increasing millions OF people
must be fed and the wet LANDS, the
meadows, swamps and WOODLANDS
must be put to broad uses. Ii the nat
Iural state of the watersheds cannot
he reattained, the remaining natural
function, the rivers, must be altered
TO meet the natural conditions.
Leyee building alone will not sui
flee. as the flood heights are contln-
ually increasing. Only by controlling
waters. not by combating them after
they reach the flood stage, Will our
floods be prevented.
Chief photographer NJ 0. Leighton
has often proclaimed the Feasibility OF
controlling floods at the head waters
[by holding the water in natural feser-
lyoirs and let it slowly into the rivers
for final release. These ideas are
further upheld by the. Newlands-Bart-
|holdt River Regulation Bill introduced
in Congress two years ago. calling TOT
HasE