THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



107 



GREAT WORK ON LAVACA BAY. 



Irrigating Plan in Texas to Convert It Into Fresh Water Lake. 



An irrigation project that will be the largest in 

 the rice region of Louisiana and Texas, and certainly 

 the most extensive that has ever engaged the attention 

 of capital in the State of Texas, is the one that involves 

 the construction of a dam that will convert the entire 

 upper part of Lavaca Bay into a huge fresh water lake, 

 and which has engaged the attention of promoters and 

 railroad companies for the past year. 



It is not certain that work on this great enterprise 

 will commence this year, says the Port Lavaca Wave, 

 but it is a fact that the project has been duly investi- 

 gated and passed upon by engineers and maps and other 

 drawings made and estimates of the cost of construct- 

 ing it given, and that it has been duly accepted as 

 practical. 



That the dam will be built some day is assured, 

 and it is also no 

 dream to say that 

 the dirt may fly be- 

 fore many moons 

 shall pass away. 



The proposed dam 

 is to extend from 

 Noble's Point on this 

 side of Lavaca Bay 

 across the narrows to 

 .Mitchell's Point on 

 the east side. The 

 bluff on each side is 

 over twenty feet 

 above tide level. 

 Above these two 

 points the bay spreads 

 out, and the dam 

 will create a lake of 

 over 25,000 acres and 

 be fifteen to eighteen 

 feet deep. It will 

 also retain the water 

 in the Lavaca and 

 Navidad Rivers and 

 in the Garcitas, Placedo and other large creeks, and 

 create a series of smaller fresh water lakes and afford 

 the means, according to the engineers' estimate facts 

 concerning which are coming out to irrigate fully 

 300,000 acres of rice land. The lands to be irrigated 

 are in Jackson County, between the Navidad River and 

 Carancahua Creek, and include large portions of Cal- 

 houn and Victoria Counties. 



Estimates have been made of the cost of a dirt 

 dam faced with stone and a full stone dam, including 

 locks permitting the passage of vessels and spillways 

 providing for the overflows in time of heavy rains in 

 the back country. The cost of constructing the dam 

 will not be great when it is considered that there is a 

 single project in the West, headed by' Senator Clark, 

 the Montana multi-millionaire, that will involve the 

 expenditure of $15,000.000, and that there are other 

 single projects in the great arid belt that will also re- 

 quire many millions, and not one of which will irrigate 

 as much land as this Texas project. The total costs of 

 the huge projects to reserve the stream water in the 

 West for agricultural purposes is put at $160.000,000 



by the best authorities. Then Uncle Sam is to be called 

 on to put in his mite and swell the figures to bewilder- 

 ing proportions. 



But it pays, and the projects, one by one, will be 

 completed, and Texas is merely falling into line. It is 

 not only a fact that the Lavaca Bay project will cost 

 less than any single one of the large enterprises of the 

 West and will irrigate more land, but it can be used by 

 the railroads for tracks across the waters, saving long 

 distances ; in fact, the railroad interests are allied with 

 the irrigation forces in promoting it. The proposed 

 dam will be built across the bay a fraction less than 

 two miles above Port Lavaca, and supplementing its 

 irrigation benefits it will give the town the largest fresh 

 water lake in the State of Texas, and affording fresh 

 water as well as salt water fishing and creating here 

 the greatest seaside pleasure resort on the Gulf of 

 Mexico. 



WEIR DAM MEASUREMENT. 



STRAWBOARD INVESTIGATION. 



The strawboard in- 

 vestigations conduct- 

 ed by the United 

 States Geological 

 Survey show that the 

 relation of straw- 

 board waste to water 

 supply is particular- 

 ly strained in the 

 States of Ohio, In- 

 diana and Illinois. 

 The object of the in- 

 vestigation made by 

 the Survey in In- 

 diana was to bring 

 the strawboard com- 

 pany to a realization 

 of the fact that the 

 enormous waste of 

 the valuable cellulose 

 which is carried away 

 and causes trouble is 

 'innecessary, and that 

 pollution by straw- 

 board waste can 'be 

 removed if the method of strawboard manufacture is 

 changed. The valuable materials which are now car- 

 ried away in waste waters to the pollution of the 

 streams may lie retained and converted into strawboard. 



WILL NOT BE STOPPED. 



844 MAIN STREET, GENEVA, N. Y., Dec. 29, 1903. 

 D. H. Anderson, Editor Irrigation Age, Chicago: 



Dear Sir This is to notify you not to send me any 

 more copies of THE IRRIGATION AGE, as I expect to die 

 any week, having been paralyzed for a month already. 

 I believe that I am one of your very earliest subscrib- 

 ers. I have read THE IRRIGATION AGE up to date with 

 great interest, deeming it one of the most intelligent 

 up-builders of our great West. As my strength de- 

 creases my faith in God (I speak reverently) and the 

 future of THE IRRIGATION AGE increases. 

 Yours until "incineration," 



WALTER S. CHURCH. 



