SACRAMENTO RIVER COMMERCE 



JOHN C. ING 

 Secretary of the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce 



THE head of navigation of the Sacramento River is at Red Bluff, many 

 miles above Sacramento, and presents a navigable waterway from 

 that point to Suisun Bay. The floor of the great Sacramento Valley 

 embraces an area of about five thousand square miles, while the slope 



of the Sierra Nevadas, with their high elevations, has an area approxi- 

 mating nine thousand square miles. The slope of the Coast Range moun- 

 tains has an area of about three thousand square miles. All this area forms 

 the great watershed of the Sacramento Valley, and the Sacramento River 

 is required to carry this heavy drainage to tidewater. 



In this regard the Sacramento River presents a unique engineering 

 problem from the standpoint of navigation, irrigation, and reclamation. 

 When one takes into consideration the fact that this river, from the head 

 of navigation to its mouth, and the country tributary to it on either side, 

 are nearly all embraced in one Congressional district, one can then appre- 

 ciate the reason that heretofore it has been very difficult to secure proper 

 recognition at the hands of the Federal Government. The diversified inter- 

 ests of the Congressional districts of California have demanded of their 

 representatives special effort to secure appropriations for needful improve- 

 ments. Nowhere in the United States do we find a navigable river as 

 important as the Sacramento confined entirely within a single State. But 

 we often find them the subject of inter-state problems, which have support- 

 ing them in the Congress many representatives of a number of States, all 

 working in unison in the interest of the common need. 



The fact, therefore, is obvious that the Sacramento River, in years gone 

 past, has received but slight appropriations for the maintenance of its navi- 

 gability, and these were principally for the purpose of removing snags in 

 the upper regions of the river. The people of California, however, can now 

 see the dawn of a new era in river improvement. Federal engineers have 

 been appointed and made exhaustive reports upon the present conditions. 

 The proposition of fifteen feet of water from Sacramento to the sea, the 

 increase of the navigable depth of the river from Sacramento to the mouth 

 of the Feather to nine feet at low water, together with the plan of the 

 Federal Debris Commission of restraining the debris washed down by the 

 hydraulic mines into the river, are some of the things that make the agri- 

 culturist, horticulturist, and the people of this great valley feel encouraged 

 at the outcome of our future development. 



At all times of the year the river is navigable as far north as Colusa, 

 more than sixty miles above Sacramento. And with the incoming of new 

 transcontinental railroads and interurban electric roads, with termini al- 

 ready secured on the waterfront at Sacramento, it is not an unreasonable 

 prophecy to assume that the commerce of the Sacramento River will be 

 very materially augmented within the next few years. The farmers adjacent 

 to the river have every facility in the shipping of their products. They need 

 but deposit them on the banks, and the numberless steamers that ply the 

 river convey them to the markets at a very nominal cost. 



The money that the State of California, through its Board of Public 

 Works, has spent has had a most beneficial effect upon preserving the 

 navigability of our rivers, but there is much yet to be done; and to that 

 end was formed, by act of the Legislature, the Sacramento Drainage Dis- 

 trict, which embraces nearly all of the country contiguous to this great 

 waterway. The purposes are to reclaim the swamp and overflowed lands 

 and conserve the navigability of the river as well, the estimated cost of 

 which, when completed, will aggregate nearly twenty-five millions of dol- 

 lars, part of v/hich is to be borne by the State of California, part by the 

 landowners, and a part by the Federal Government. 



