The Mississippi enterprise. (Jackson, Miss.) 1938-current, 1944-04-08
Power OF Protection

Last spring, when rumors of i'm
minent floods reached the people
of Oklahoma and Arkansas they
smiled confidently and pointed to
the new SIS, 100000 Pensacola Dam
on the Grand River, which allegedly
had been constructed to protect
their lives and property from
floods.
"Other sections of the country
may suffer from floods" they de-
clared, "but we won't. The Pensa-
cola Dam will protect Oklahoma
and Arkansas"
Nevertheless, flood waters swept
over these two states last May to
the tune of $127, 100000 in prop
erty damage, with a resultant loss
of nineteen lives. The Wanted Pen
sacola Dam failed utterly to safe
guard that region from disaster.
Naturally, the people were in
dignant and newspapers demanded
an immediate congressional inves-
tigation. The question uppermost
in peoples minds was, "Why didn't
Pensacola Dam protect US from
this flood?"
The answer was simple, yet IL
. 'lpspIpatingsCD spit G assurances
from the projects sponsors that
the dam was erected for flood con-
troll purposes, it was revealed that
the main idea back of Pensacola
Dam was to produce and peddle
electric power as a part of the New
Deals about crusade to drive priv
ately-owned utilities out of bust
ness. - q.
To produce electric power the
water in dams reservoirs must
be high or near to capacity. To
protect property from floods, wa
ter must be kept low so reservoirs
will be empty in order to hold the
excess flow of water.
Yes, you guessed it. The reser-
voirs of Pensacola Dam were at a
dangerously high level when the
rivers of Arkansas and Oklahoma
went on a rampage. Obviously,
when the $4,000 feet-per-second
flood crest hit Pensacola d a m,
there was virtually no room left to
take up the excess flow of water
hence it went over-the-dam and
brought about the disastrous 1913
flood.
The federal managers at Pensa-
cola Dam had kept the reservoirs
full apparently determined to pro-
duce electric power regardless of
their responsibilities for flood con-
troll. Here, indeed, is prime ex-
ample of blind bunging at the ex-
pense of, the people, 4 ~ e ~
On the other hand, consider the
Miami Conservancy District dams
in Ohio. These dams in the Buckeye
State have accomplished wonderful
results in preventing the recur-
renee of floods which once devas-
tated Dayton and other localities
along the Miami River. Each of
these dams bears tablet engraved
with this inscription:
"The dams of the Miami Con-
servancy District are for the pur-
pose of Flood Prevention. Their
use for public power develop
ment or storage would be men,
aca TN the cities halow +"
To be useful, dams must be used
exclusively for flood control, and
reservoirs kept empty until the
floods come. Only in rare instances,
where a dam is built to a tremen-
dous height and has immense space
reserved behind it for impounding
waters, is it possible for one dam
to serve the dual purpose of power
production and flood protection.
Inasmuch as the doleful expert
ence of Oklahoma and Arkansas
with the Pensacola Dam might well
be the future experience of any
locality depending upon power-pro-
ducing dams for protection from
floods, the question seems to boil
down to this: "Shall we have flood
protection, which we do need, or
shall we have government produced
electric power, which we don't
need?"
Adequate flood control is abso-
lutely essential to the successful
prosecution of the war. All things
come from the earth, and the pro-
lection of our land is of paramount
Importance, far more vital than
government-ge power. In
this connection, it is matter of
record that Americas electric utili-
ties have met and are meeting all
demands for electricity-both for
civilian and war production pur-
poses; and this has been done with
out higher rates or rationing.
America has enough electric
power, but not enough flood pro-
lection. - The Winona Miss
Times - February 25, 1914.