"FATHER OF WATERS."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 71, 24 March 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

"FATHER OF WATERS."

UNCONQUERED MISSISSIPPI.

PROBLEM OP CONTROL.

FAILURE OF LEVEE POLICY.

(By W.E.H.)

In 1303, during tho great Civil War in the United States, when the Federal armies captured Vicksburg, tho last Htrongliohl held by the Confederates on tho Mississippi, Abraham Lincoln Is reported to have said, "Now the father of waters rolls unvexed to the sea." So far as tho Mississippi is concerned, the mighty river still rolls on unvexed; but it, cannot be said that the cotton, rice, and sugar growers along the banks arid bottom lands have oeen unvexed. Ever since the French first settled Louisiana, iu 171 m, the great river has been a source of trouble to the people occupying both bunks, for miles on cither side.

The Mississippi, with a slow current in its lower reaches, deposits so much debris on its wide hud that the latter is slowly being raised. In 1717, when Newlands was founded, the French found it necessary to build up banks, called kwecs, along each side of the river, to guard against overflow, especially in flood time. As settlement spread inland, the same policy had of necessity to be followed, not only up the Mississippi, for hundreds of miles, but also up its great tributaries, the Red River and the Arkansas. As time went on, and the river continued gradually to raise its bed, it became necessary to strengthen and raise the levees—until now the system of levees is almost comparable to tho threat Wall of China. Its double length, on the two sides of the river, would provide a dam crossing the United States from New York to Los Angeles, and part of the way back again. But they are not, they never have been, they never will be, high enough. There was a great flood in 1785, a greater one In IH2B, greater ones stil! in the 'forties. The record of the river stages at Cairo, TL w- th ° ohio P oura ita waters into the Mississippi, read 494 ft in the great of 28r ' 8, Jt that mark in 1802, went higher still in 1807, set new marks in 1897, 1012, 1022, and last ood . w 'th its high water mark ot oGft. at ( airo, marked the highest water in the history of the mighty river. The levees, reducing the width of the available channel seem progressively to increase the flood danger against which i,hey are supposed to guard. Bridges Impossible. The levees are great earth banks built up on either side of the river, to a height of about 30ft. A traveller in a "team boat on the Mississippi looks down from the decks of his steamboat on the plantations ua either side of him -Even in New Orleans, 90 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi, the docks nre than H V go £ d T y ,eet hi gher than the old French market alongside. There are no bridges in the lower course of the Mississippi— for two reasons. Tho engineers have never been able to Irive down deep enough through the silt to find a solid bottom, and the difficulties with ffi? 08 had to rec koned Until some more satisfactory arrangement than obtains at present ?, made, bndges are out of the questiol, Trains have to be broken and run across • ['. ea — all traffic has to be handled in this antediluvian war sur prising to a visitor in US.Adhere X'tl? difficulties seem to bo ml bo overcome. The levees have always been a urn goeTon Bu h t ?r ° W9 . more aCUte 118 " me done bv fl T t,mC3 the dama g« wi?h tL ! fl°ods was trivial compared ith the damage done now. The river , a f . ew side channels, through which ™ ch °< «"> »*'«' rushed in flSl "to? bottom?' a"" ?. hal thcJ «»«therette bottom lands, which were mostly of a Stoirs R -i d aCtPd 88 natural reservoirs. Besides, there were then many auxiliary outlets, as far up the relief 43 HS City ' In O?flo5d ♦hi u ar ?u 6 over-charged river through these outlets, which led by shorter streams to the Gulf of Mexico Congress, appealeo to for safety meaR*or r n - 79; Cr6ated a Mississippi Rtver Commission to develop a comprehensive plan for flood control. The p an, when completed, was known as the levees only, or "confinement only" plan. It proposed to close all the outlets of the Mississippi, except the many jnannela at the mouth of the river, and to b.nld a solid line of levees from the head of the channels at the mouth to v- a j • inc,UfJe(l no relief works of any kind—just confinement between earth wallf. This policy has been consistently followed ever since 1879—and has gone bankrupt. The levees are almost completed to the full size approved by the Commission. Yet, were they all built up to that size, without a single low spot, arid were they all to hold, the 1927 flood in the Mississippi River would go over the top of every one of them. That is what it did last year. Through the broken levees the waters rushed like dozens o<f Niagaras: the thousands who toiled to keep them from weakening fled. Over the rich "sugar bowl" country of Southern Louisiuna, where most of the sugar crop for the United States is raised, the great inland flea surged onward, irresistibly, fruinously, with a dreadful slowness. At New Orleans the waters rose, although one levee was dynamited farther up to give the city relief. Wider Measures Needed. A strong opposition to the "levee whL fn f' y grCW Con K rc9H > which, bnnU ri ! avour levee-building and bank development, insisted that an Act be passe,! to develop a broader and more eff etive plan of flood control. To this end they proposed a bill, creating a SZTTn„ t0 , make a comprehend study Of all drainage basins, and to aring forward a plan providing for the r° WU i tt:r r , e ? ource3 of the United States for beneficial purposes—irrigation, navigation, power—in place of tneir wuste in destructive floods; for re I by spillways and other works; and foi the creation of adequate levees and bunk protection to keep the remainder ot the inter-state drainage off the lands that were to be protected. In 1917 this bill was passed, together with an appropriation of ten million dollars a year for five years, to be spent on tha "levees only" policy. But the chief proponent of this measure died, and the section relating to it was repealed. So nothing new was donef and the old "levees only" policy still held the field. The effect of the 192 J 7 flood will be to convince the people of the Mississippi Valley that the levees alone cannot protect them from great floods.