Evening star., 1927-04-24

:
/ Mississippi is again wreaking its
/ periodical justice against man who
! has dared to poach on the preserves
| Of the father Of waters.
When the devastating floods have
! subSided and the immediate work Of
| relief has been attended to- engineers
/ of the Army and the Mississippi
/ River Commission again will resume
the task of controlling this mighty
waterway. Just where the fight to
subdue the river will end none will
forecast, but il is known that more
than one engineer who has given the
problem consideration has come to
doubt seriously whether the fight
should not be begun all over again
and with radically different tactics.
Year by year the miles and miles
of levees have approached closer and
closer the actual channel of the Mis-
sissipi 50 that owners of farm lands
could profit more from the fertile
acres, made rich by millions of tons
Of rich silt cast up by the river.
Higher and higher the levees had
risen until the great floods of 1912 and
1918 destroyed the labor of years.
Then the real levee building race
down the valley from Cairo, H., TO
the Gulf of Mexico began. Missouri
higher. Tennessee, Mississippi, Ar
kansas and Alabama had no alterna-
tive save to follow suit and build
theirs even higher.
Held I'm Check Ii Years.
Damned back, the waters rushed
on down the 1000 miles from the con-
auence OF the Ohio to the Delta Tor
l3 years the river was held in check,
Now, with the greatest force in 81
years. the waters have risen, torn
asunder the great leVeeS created after
the 1913 inundation with the greatest
food in history, and the engineers
must tackle the problem anew.
In this connection the suggestion
TO President Coolidge of James NJ.
Thompson, New Orleans publisher,
that giant spillways be constructed
TO carry off the overflow in time OF
floods, thus relieving pressure on the
levees. is under consideration. A series
of giant dams providing artificial
storage basins on the Miami River,
seems to have solved the Ohio food
control problem following the Dayton
disaster.
But the volume of water here is
infinitesimal compared with that flow
ing down the Mississippi, which, with
West Virginia and Pennsylvania to
Alabama and from the Dakotas to
Louisiana.
Officers OF the Engineer Corps Of
the Army in Washington declare there
is more water going down the Missis-
sippi at this time than ever before
and that undoubtedly those in direct
charge OF Mississippi navigation and
fiood-control work will gain much
valuable knowledge from what has
occurred this Spring in building future
levees and in going ahead with other
phases of work on the river and its
tributaries.
Will Figure Height.
For example, it was pointed out
by officers here, that, among other
things, the engineers will figure out
how high the level of the water might
have gone if some of the levees had
not broken and allowed it to spread.
officers of the Engineer Corps here
say that spillways have been con
sidered from the start, but taat this
method OF protection has it's com
plications. A committee of Army
officials is now engaged by direction
OF Congress on an investigation of
the adyisability of spillways in the
vicinity of New Orleans.
No one denies spillways would be
an advantage, according to one
Engineer officer in the War Depart
ment. He added however as one
problem, the possibility that "if you
start the river through a spillway
in time of flood it may stay there
In the latest annual report of the
Chief of Engineers of the Army this
comment is made on the problem of
Mississippi flood control:
1.-The duty Of developing a plan to
prevent or reduce to a minimum
damages caused by floods was as
signed to the commission (the Missis-
sippi River Commission) by the or.
ganlc act. After exhaustive studies
covering the advantages and limita.
tions of reforesting, reservoirs, cut
offs and outlets, as steps toward re-
ducing flood heights, it was decided
that levees afford the only practical
means for flood control in the lower
Mississippi Valley.
May Change Levees.
"The problem of protecting sue
cession of basins below Cairo, covering
an overflow area 600 miles long and
so miles wide, through which the
run-off from watershed of 1,240, 600
square miles was flowing toward the
Gulf, was a complicated one. The
river carries about 1000 900 cubic feet
per second at q bank-full stage. To
reclaim and protect the fertile delta
basins requires that the excess flow
should be reduced in width from so
miles to a narrow channel sometimes
less than a mile wide, and carried to
the Gulf of Mexico between levees."
The plan heretofore has been to
build the levees up to three feet above
the highest recorded floods, it was
explained at the War Department. The
collection of data on what is taking
place during this unprecedented flow
may suggest revisions in future levee
construction.
While the levee system starts at
Rock Island, H., and extends down to
the head of the passes, the real prob
lem lies from Cairo down. where the