Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1928-01-03

Inc KE&A3U
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3.-Flood con-
krol plans before the congressional
committee on river regulations are al
most infinite in variety.
M~any--indecd. most-of them are
too obviously impractical-not to say
crazy-for serious consideration, esen
BY lawmakers who only want some
thing started, without greatly caring
how IL turns out q generation henee,
since then they probably viii be dead
and correspondingly indifferent.
For instance
A scheme to suck the Mississippi
upstream and squirt IL over the
Canadian border, to drain into Hud-
xnn Bay!
Governors Idea
Can you imagine t~hst?-from a re-
Eponsible source.
Yet the governor Of a state is that
ideas sponsor.
Queer as it may sound, it does
recognize one essential principle
which the authors of a good many
suggestions apparently overlook, viz:
There's just so much waterloo
much to drink, too much to eyapo-
rate, too much Tor the soil to absorb,
and occasionally too much for nor
NAL river channels TO hold-which,
somehow or other and sooner or later,
the valley must dispose of; and while
one particular locality may manage
to head IL off BY means Of a dam,
divert IL with q dixie. or empty 1t
through a s~piilway, 1t almost newt
ably will flood some other locality.
Almost inevitabyl-but not quite
mot necessarily.
IL a flood can be stood up on edge,
and kept so. it can conveniently De
rolled put Of the way, like n hoop,
provided there's an adequate slope
to roll it down.
Stick 10 Levees
This II why the Mississippi river
commission and the board of army
engineers have stuck so stubbornly to
levees.
Only levees can keep a flood stand
Ing on edge.
Reservcirsg
A flood consists Of so-and-so-many
gallons. acres Dr. cubic feet Of water.
In none Of these respects is its vol
ume in ths least reduced by picking
il up and setting it down somewhere
EA1N M6UGE NHG nAnAC VI 4G~LAN0AA@
Making a reservoir out of an Ar
kansas county may prevent a Louisi-
ana parish from being flooded, but
shat will Arkansas say about it2
Such Is the army engineers res
soning.
Rivermen gathered in Washington
for the flood hearings quite generally
agree that the army engineers have
- H-4.~M - that THAR I'D
herence 10 the levee solution of the
Mississippi valley problem has been
so severely criticized.
The experts view IS that the en-
rineers' solution is the correct one
perhaps subject 10 some modifieatios
and that its failure is due TO an
attempt, in response TO popular de-
mand, TO make floods stand on an
impossibly thin edge.
That "a to say, settlement has
crowded literally into river beds, and
the engineers have been expected TO
deal with hogsheadsful Of water as
IL they were mer taspoonfui.
Gulf Coast Rising
Whether or not the Mississippi is
raising its bed between levees Is a
bitterly disputed point which it seems
M IL il ought TO be easy to settle
with a sounding lead-and yet, it is
not so easy.
The bed, toward the river mouth,
Is rising, but is il rising dispropor-
tionately between the levees?
The whole gulf coast is rising.
IL Is rising due to the Mississippi's
silt deposits, and il is rising from
underneath - geologically - and APP
preciably.
Naturally ii "backs up" the river.
The engineers hoop-the flood on
edge - rolls at a pretty brisk clip
10 the gulf. the more slowly il rolls,
away upstream. Inc nearer II gets
and the stronger its tendency to tip
over.
(Anothcr Dispatch Tomorrow