Save River

“ Year after year a hundred thousand levee builders, with forty thousand teams of mules or so, and operating huge dredging-machines, repair the damage of the spring tides, build new levees, raise old ones, and pave the banks with revetment—great Willow-tree carpets or rugs covered with broken stone to keep the flood in bounds by stopping the washing away of the soft river banks and the undermining of the protection. ”

“ But the future battle-fields are perceived to lie toward the sources, at the eaves, as it were, of the watersheds, the headwaters of its tributaries as well as its own. No deepening, embanking, straightening, canalization of the river is to be permanently effective until all danger of flood can be removed. ”

“ The people who were having the hard time were those who were fighting the flood at the levees. If a levee broke, the water would pour through and the swift rush of the torrent would cut out the softened ground; swirls would dig deep blue holes, and probably great sand and gravel bars would wash over land worth a hundred dollars or more an acre, and ruin it—by the hundreds of acres.
Having landed their refugees, Sibley and Jimmy ran around to the river front, and went up into the bayou, where they found their cabin boat. ”

“ Nevertheless, one thinks pitifully of the tens of thousands who, in congested districts, each winter suffer unto death for want of fuel; and here is this wealth of forest debris, the useless plaything of the river. But not only wreckage of this character is borne upon the flood. The thievish river has picked up valuable saw-logs that have run astray, lumber of many sorts, boxes, barrels—and now and then the body of a cow or horse that has tumbled to its death from some treacherous clay-cliff or rocky terrace. ”

“ When it rains too much, many rivers rise and overflow their banks. The farmer's crops are destroyed, his cattle drowned, and his buildings washed away. We can lessen the danger from these floods, which are very bad in such river basins as those of the Ohio and Mississippi, by building reservoirs in the highlands where the rivers take their start. If when summer comes these rivers are too shallow for safe navigation, the reservoirs can be opened and the streams supplied with this stored water. ”

“ We must push forward the development of our rivers for power, irrigation, navigation, and flood control. We should apply the lessons of our Tennessee Valley experience to our other great river basins. ”

“ Stream water comes from the surface of the land or out of its porous underlayers, then flows seaward through its creases and folds, affecting the land and the land's creatures along the way and being affected by them. Thus, as we have already noted in more than one way, the management of land and the management of water are closely intertwined, from the way human use of a flood plain may demand structural interference with a river's old habits, to the way erosive farming in some West Virginia valley may help to make it harder to navigate Swedish newsprint into Alexandria by ship. ”

“ On looking back, below me is spread out the narrow, winding valley, between its two mountains, widening at that point into an extensive bar, through which, on account of the many dams, canals, and other obstructions, the tortured river seems to have infinite difficulty in forcing its way. There is also the collection of tents, and the miners engaged in cooking, and collected in small groups about their camp-fires, for it is a cool morning. There stand the wrecks of our aqueduct and canal; the bare half channel of the river, and the surface of the bar scarred and pitted over. ”

“ But the truth is that it forms a watercourse dependent at present upon floods, admitting of navigation for hundreds of miles at certain seasons, and at others being as dry as the Arno at Florence or the Manzanares at Madrid. By a series of dams and canals this river might be navigable all the year round. The same remark applies to several of its tributaries, and to rivers generally running toward the inland centres [Pg 236] and flowing into the Murray. The governments of the several colonies have long realized the importance and the necessity of a grand and comprehensive system of irrigation. ”

“ Stringent prohibitions with regard to refuse, the enlargement of sluice-ways and the compulsory raising of their gates for the passage of floods, the removal of fish-traps which are frequently blocked up by leaves and floating rubbish, a reduction in the number and width of the piers of bridges when rebuilt, and the substitution of movable weirs for solid weirs, greatly facilitate the discharge of a river, and consequently lower its flood-level. ”

“ It is especially so as regards the most important of points, that of the underground connection. Of course, wherever there is running water at hand, a river, or even a tiny stream that never dries, the matter is easy enough, but as in the great majority of buildings to be protected such water does not exist, the solution of the question becomes more difficult, and frequently one of the greatest perplexity. It tends even to be more and more so in consequence of the progress of sanitary arrangements under which towns and villages are ‘drained’ until the soil has been made as dry as a rock. ”

“ Council Lake in the foreground National Forest lands lie at the headwaters of practically every large western river. This means that the water supply for the western people used for domestic use, water power, and irrigation is being protected from pollution and destruction. ”

“ They are as vital to our commerce and industry as any matter now dealt with by the State, affecting our material well-being, and they are every year increasing in extent and importance. As regards the principal rivers—the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees, the Clyde, and the Wear especially—they are now controlled in accordance with the recommendation made by the Duke of Richmond’s Select Committee, that “each catchment area should be placed under a single body of conservators, who should be responsible for maintaining the river, from its source to its outfall, in an efficient state.” ”

“ It is a National obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the Mississippi and its tributaries, without delay, under a comprehensive general plan covering each river system from its source to its mouth, designed to secure its highest usefulness for navigation, irrigation, domestic supply, water power and the prevention of floods. ”

“ Because of this spreading habit of the stream, the few villages along the way are planted on the higher land at the base of the bluffs, or on an occasional sandy pocket-plateau 245 which the river, as in ages past it has worn its bed to lower levels, has left high and dry above present overflows. Some of these towns, in their fear of floods, are situated two or three miles back from the water highway; others, where the channel chances to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly abutting the river, which is crossed at such points by either a ferry or a toll-bridge. ”

“ This is water sufficient to inundate thirty-three square miles of level country ten feet deep in twenty-four hours. What must be said of the mental status of a people who for forty centuries have measured their strength against such a Titan racing past their homes above the level of their fields, confined only between walls of their own construction? While they have not always succeeded in controlling the river, they have never failed to try again. In 1877 this river broke its banks, inundating a vast area, bringing death to a million people. ”

“ Here then is a location destined to attract and support a large population, for which place can be made only by steady encroachment upon the water of both river and sea. Diking is necessitated not only by the demand for more land for the growing population, but also by the constant silting up of the drainage outfalls, which increases the danger of inundation while at the same time contributing to the upbuilding of the land. ”

“ We draw the waters from our great number of immense reserve storage reservoirs, which are directly diverted to them from the run-offs of heavy river water flows. Saving us from overflowing rivers, flood control, levee construction, inundation damage, and disasters, at the same time increasing generating power of our dams. We have an efficient drainage system for our tropical crops in rain-soaked lands, excess waters of which also flow into these reservoirs. Sun rays are available to treat our vegetation, when necessary. ”

“ Among the men gained currency a half-affectionate belief in “Orde's luck.”
After this happy fashion the drive went, until at last it entered the broad, deep, and navigable stretches of the river from Redding to the lake. Here, barring the accident of an extraordinary flood, the troubles were over. On the broad, placid bosom of the stream the logs would float. A crew, following, would do the easy work of sacking what logs would strand or eddy in the lazy current ”

“ In the treatment of the flood problem, prevention, by the use of storage reservoirs, for the purpose of holding back the damaging part of the flood water, is the rational and comprehensive method, as it goes to the source of the trouble, and extends its benefits throughout the entire river valleys, not only in the form of flood relief, but by improvement of the low-water flow, due to the release of the impounded flood waters during the dry season. ”

“ A great levee, the protection of thousands of acres of rich lands, and perhaps millions of dollars worth of property, is announced unsafe. Sometimes it is decided to abandon the river line, weakened for long distances, and erect a new levee some hundreds of yards to the rear.
But if the design be to hold the line already established, then the scene is an animated one. All along the narrow ridge of earth patrolmen are watching the work at every point. Hundreds of men work day and night throwing up and strengthening the levees, upon which the salvation of the district depends. ”

“ And that problem is that men's hugely increasing numbers and their multiplying technological power over their environment have made it necessary to readjust the balances somewhat in great natural units like river basins—to restore, manage, and protect them in such a way as to be able to hand them over decent and whole and useful to the people who come after. ”

“ In the later and quieter old age of a river system, the waste of the land is yielded slower by reason of the diminishing slopes of the valley sides; then the headwater streams deliver less detritus to the main channel, which, thus relieved, turns to its postponed task of carrying its former excess of load to the sea, and cuts terraces in its flood-plain, preparatory to sweeping it away. ”

“ From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the “River of Silence”; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. ”

“ These are the dangers attending travellers in the swamps, but there are many others to be undergone in crossing lagoons, rivers, or small lakes. All the streams, tributaries of the Sabine and of the Red River below the great bend (which is twenty miles north of the Lost Prairie) , have swampy banks and muddy bottoms, and are impassable when the water is too low to permit the horses to swim. Some of these streams have ferries, and some lagoons have floating bridges in the neighbourhood of the plantations ”

“ When the inhabitants fetched their water from the springs and conduits there was a great deal of human labour employed; and as in every large community there are always people [Pg 206] ready to perform labour for money, many persons obtained a living by carrying water. When the New River had been dug, and the pipes had been laid down, and the engines had been set up, it is perfectly clear that there would have been no further need for these water-carriers. ”

“ Unfitted to some extent for the purposes of commerce by the sand-bar at its mouth, see how this river was devoted from the first to the service of manufactures. Issuing from the iron region of Franconia, and flowing through still uncut forests, by inexhaustible ledges of granite, with Squam, and Winnipiseogee, and Newfound, and Massabesic Lakes for its mill-ponds, it falls over a succession of natural dams, where it has been offering its privileges in vain for ages, until at last the Yankee race came to improve them. ”

“ They not only help to distribute the waters and beneficially control the flow of the streams, but they also catch and save from loss enormous quantities of the earth's best plant-food. In helping to do these two things,—governing the rivers and fixing the soil,—he plays an important part, and if he and the forest had their way with the water-supply, floods would be prevented, streams would never run dry, and a comparatively 54 even flow of water would be maintained in the rivers every day of the year. ”

“ The forest-born stream is the useful and beautiful one. It has a steady flow of clear water, and fishermen cheerfully come to its green, mossy banks. The buildings along its course are safe from floods, and are steadily served with the power of its reliable flow; its channel is free from mud and full of water; it allows the busy boats of commerce freely to come and go; in countless ways it serves the activities of man. It never causes damage, and always enriches and gladdens the valley through which it flows on to the sea. ”