The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-03-26
TANNING "OLD MAN RIVER"


 Spring floods sweeping down the many trib- utaries of the Ohio and Missouri join those the upper Mississippi to tax the channel that great est of inland waterways, but government engineers confidently predicting that although all their plans for the most gigantic river control system in history not yet realized there appears little danger of repetition of the disastrous floods of old Old Man River will be swollen and angry and ready for his per ennial rampage and fully prepared for the death toll as the last great flood year of 1928 But the U S. Army Corps of Engineers that the valleys will find their enemy of yesterday the friend of today
 For with allotments approximating $l70000000, the Public Works Administration has made it possible for the army experts to bring much to compe- tion their elaborate farflung program to turn what always has been Americas worst to life and property into comparatively wel-behaved and navi- gable waterway system by which great freight bearing vessels may dock at cities formerly landlocked.
 And even though a super-flood period should rive this spring when the water in the thousand of tributaries reaches the lower channel control program for which the PWA allotted S44 900 900 has been so constructed that certain portions of the leVees may be broken and waters drained into pools for storage until the danger past These will confine water that longer spread over vast acreage washing out crops destroying livestock and soil and causing death and devastation. And while melting snow and heavy rains have inordinately swollen tht tributaries for many hundreds of miles to the eas and thousands of miles to the of the Mississippi the engineers say that only abnormal precipitation in the valley of the Father of Waters itself during the next few months would overtax their elaborate system of levees revetments permeabe banks and dykes and other artificial controls.
 The alotments of PWA have enabled the Army Corps of Engineers to complete 84 percent of their vast flood control plans Included were the construc- ton of giant cutoffs of nearly 200 miles of great wire mats to halt erosion, of 42 miles of permeable dykes 27s9 miles of the most modern types of evees More than 27,O00 square miles have been brought under Hood protection on the big river alone which is only part of the program. The locks and dams being con- structed with the PWA allotment of Sl7OOOOO OOO in the upper Mississippi the Missouri, the Muskingum the lyeart the Monongahela and other tributaries of the Ohio as well as in the Ohio itself will only keep those streams navlgable but result in prevention of property damage that has amounted to many millions annually and occasionally great loss of life
 Completion of reservoir dams and flood control projects Tn the Muskngum watershed in Eastern Ohio for which S2500000O was allotted and in the Tygart river valley, to which PWA allotted $lOOOO OOO will spare those from floods that have ravaged them TOT years. A dam and reservoir near Grafton w Va will control high waters in the Monongahela These together with s22,000000 allotment for the Ohio ane other tributaries, providing for many thou sands
 A sl7,753,l08 allotment for flood control work or the Missouri dovetails into the Fort Peck Dam nov under construction in Montana at the Missours head waters Like the Tygart and many other waterway projects, Fort Peck Dam is to prevent floods in the spring and to insure navigation in the summer. Fol the construction of this huge embankment which Will create lake ITS miles long, PWA set aside $25 100000 The S33500000 for dams and channel work il the Upper Mississippi will make it possible for steam boats to reach the docks at Minneapolis and permi sizeable steamers to carry freight from the mouth the Mississippi to any dock in the Great Lakes.
 Thus tanning Old Man River and his almost in nuInerable contributing children is of the out standing achievements of the ambitious public work program now nearing completion By the Judicou allotment of more than five billion dollars 3067 of tn nations 3076 counties have been given an opportun ity to enjoy the benefits of unemployment plai which has not only created permanent values vastl beyond that figure but has already placed billions the pockets of workers employed directly the and for material manufacture often in factories ia distant from the project itself.
 TEACHERS QUERY IANDON