The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1921-01-13
MISSISSIPPI RIVER SEEKS NEW
Va OUTLET &Sa~
CONTINUED from page ~

DonaldSonville."
y This remedy is also supported by Sen
ators Ransdell, Sanders, and Broussard,
and Representative Wilson, as well as by
the Louisiana Flood Control Association,
but there is another considerable faction
which maintains that it. is impracticable,
because of the tremendous strain which
would be put on the, levees all the way
from the mouth of the Red river to the
Gulf, and because this added water would
increase the Aood-water level by about
three feet at New Orleans. The surface
of the Mississippi river at food height is
now several feet above the main business
streets of New Orleans, and there is a
variation of some 81 to % feet between
mean low water and food height. 70.3
Thus, the opponents of the plan to di-
vorce the Red and Atchafalaya from the
Mississippi, who are led by John Klorer,
a member of the Louisiana State Board
of Engineers, claim the danger to New
Orleans would be greater if the entire
stream of the Mississippi were confined
to its levee-walled present channel than if
part of those waters were allowed to seek
the sea by way of the Red and Atchafal-
ava rivers. They, therefore, would seem
to advocate that control be placed on the
main river, so that only a certain part Of
its waters could How through the present
channel to provide for the commerce Of
the port of New Orleans, without putting
undue strain on the leyees, or endanger-
ing the city. -,9k gd7 hi aua aa.s.
This plan, however, takes no cognizance
of the flooding of between 1000 and 5000
square miles, of arabic, cultivated land, in
eight parishes, with, consequent loss Of
millions in potential or, actual production
every year through the havoc wrought by
these food waters of the Mississippi being
allowed to go out through the Red and
the Atchafalaya. ~,
The project to divorce the Red and the
Atchafalaya from the Mississippi, with
out doubt would save all this land, and
the crops and the farmers thereon, but it
would endanger as much more land below
the mouth Of the Red rivef, as we'll as the
city of New Orleans. ~.
Some years ago, NJ. F. Jefferdo, a civil
engineer devoted to public works, pre-
sented a plan, through Popular Mechanics,
whereby canal would be constructed con-
Meeting the Mississippi and the Atcha-
falaya, through which the flow Of the
food waters of the Mississippi could be
controlled. This plan would save both
the farming lands and the. city of New
Orleans, would increase the commerce on
the Atchafalaya, down past Morgan City,
which probably would become a port COM
parable with Mobile, and still would leave
the, main channel flowing clear past New
Orleans and out through the jetties to the
sea-. This plan will be one of those con-
sidered at the conference. go 'I'''.. y
Still another plan, on which government
engineers under Major Dent have been
making surveys, is to find an auxiliary
channel from New Orleans to the Gulf
to help the main channel Of the Missis-
sippi to carry of these Aood waters. The
state Of Louisiana and the city Of New
Orleans are now completing a. canal,
known as the Inner Harbor and Naviga-
ton Canal, some six miles long, connect
ing the Mississippi river, through locks,
with Lake Pontchartraih, and running
across the lower business section of the
city. This canal, which was to have cost
&,oOO,oOO, has so far cost approximately
$4,000, 900, but connects only with a shall
low lake, whose greatest depth is II feet,
in spots, and whose average depth is nine
feet. 1t is obviously impossible to dump
the tremendous volume of the food waters