346 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the region. According to the Chief of Engineers of the United 

 States Army, about 7,860,000 short tons of freight were carried on 

 the 14 principal rivers of the South Atlantic drainages in 1928. 



The 1932 report of the Chief of Engineers shows that enormous 

 sums have been spent by the War Department during the past 50 

 years in the improvement, chiefly by dredging, of these navigable 

 waterways and harbors. Existing improvement projects have cost 

 about $33,000,000 in that period. 



The total sum spent by the United States in the improvement 

 and maintenance of channels in South Atlantic streams, since the 

 founding of the Republic, would come to a much larger sum. 



FLOODS 



As might be expected in a region where differences of 30 to 60 feet 

 in the height of large streams may occur within a few months, floods 

 are sometimes very destructive. They are generally the result of a 

 succession of rains, rather than of a single very heavy storm. The 

 Santee River drainage basin, a high proportion of which has been 

 cleared, appears to suffer particularly heavy losses, although records 

 are fragmentary. Near Spartanburg, a flood in June 1903 took over 

 50 lives, swept away 14 cotton mills, and caused a total property 

 damage of over $3,500,000. Unofficial figures, furnished by the State 

 forester from Weather Bureau sources, indicate that between 1913 and 

 1922 South Carolina suffered losses of^ $19,337,000 practically 

 $2,000,000 a year. Among recent floods in the region as a whole 

 those of 1928 and 1929 were the most severe, causing damages in the 

 three States of over $9,000,000. Virginia has suffered much less than 

 the Carolinas from high water. 



Glenn has indicated the great change which has taken place in the 

 behavior of the South Atlantic streams. In addition to increased 

 silting, this change has included greater irregularity of flow, and more 

 frequent and higher flood stages. He states that this change is 

 " reasonably believed to be due to the denudation of steep mountain 

 slopes and their consequent erosion." Most of the change in the 

 behavior of the streams he places at about the period of 1885 to 1890 

 when there was a rather general revival of industrial activity after 

 the slow recuperation from the Civil War depression. 



URBAN WATER SUPPLIES 



A considerable number of municipalities in the region derive their 

 water supply from surface streams. Among these are Richmond, 

 Va.; Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C.; and Spartanburg and Columbia, 

 S.C. Storage is necessary, and here also control of silting presents a 

 problem. For example, the municipal reservoir built by Raleigh in 

 1914 has been reduced more than one third in capacity by silt from the 

 cleared land which makes up a portion of its watershed. A reservoir 

 built in 1923, the watershed of which is wooded, has been silted very 

 slightly. 



PERCENTAGE FORESTED 



About two thirds of the total acreage of the region is in forest 

 cover probably a higher percentage than in the earlier period when 



