300 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



STREAM FLOW AND EROSION PROBLEMS OF NATIONAL 



IMPORTANCE 



Practically every section of the country is confronted by one or 

 more serious problems of stream flow or erosion. The densely popu- 

 lated areas share with the areas of low rainfall the immediately vital 

 problem of obtaining adequate and constant quantities of water for 

 human consumption and other domestic uses. The latter areas are 

 confronted with the additional problem of supplying water for 

 irrigation of agricultural land. Populous industrial communities 

 require water, often in huge quantities, for various manufacturing 

 processes. Large sections of the country that receive light in their 

 homes and energy in their factories from water power are concerned 

 over low water in the streams. The threat of low water and clogged 

 channels must also be considered by those portions of the United 

 States where stream-borne commerce is important and navigable 

 harbors give access to the markets of the world. Floods are often an 

 appalling problem not only to the great fertile lowlands but also to 

 highland valleys. And erosion the washing of precious surface soil 

 from land exposed to rain and melting snows is a problem common 

 to nearly all parts of the United States and acute in many. The mag- 

 nitude of the problems of stream flow and erosion, considered in 

 detail and region by region later in this discussion, may be judged 

 for the Nation as a whole from the paragraphs immediately following. 



DOMESTIC AND INDUSTRIAL WATER SUPPLIES 



Very heavy concentration of population and industry in certain 

 areas, such as the North Atlantic seaboard, the Ohio River Valley, 

 and parts of California, has created a demand for huge public water 

 supplies. The main urban centers from Boston to Baltimore con- 

 sume 2,000,000,000 gallons of water daily; in the Philadelphia district 

 more than half of the consumption is by industrial plants. Boston 

 plans to tap a stream 60 miles away; New York now goes 92 miles 

 for part of its supply. The investment of New York in dams and 

 reservoirs is $66,000,000; the adjacent communities in New Jersey 

 plan a development to cost about $45,000,000; Baltimore is at work 

 on a $30,000,000 project. 



The great drought of 1930-31 in the northeastern United States 

 revealed the acuteness of the domestic water-supply problem, bringing 

 not only great actual inconvenience to rural and urban populations 

 alike, but in the cities raising the specter of epidemics and uncontrol- 

 lable fires. For example, while some farmers in western Kentucky 

 were hauling water for livestock 20 miles, the public water supplies of 

 several towns and cities in the Ohio Valley had to be supplemented by 

 shipments in tank cars. Among them was Lexington, Ky., which, 

 after drawing water by trainloads from pools in the Kentucky River 

 for several weeks, constructed a 25-mile pipe line to the same source. 

 The United States Weather Bureau at Cincinnati in its report on the 

 Ohio Valley situation in October 1930, stated: 



