CTPEESS CEEEK DRAINAGE DISTEICT, AEKAjSTSAS. 13 



cost 15 cents per yard owing to the unusual depth of cut and to the 

 added work of phicing the spoil in good levees. The total cost of the 

 floodway and the auxiUaiy ditch system necessary was estimated 

 approximately equal to the cost of the ditch plan presented in the 

 following pages. 



The floodway plan is not recommended because the unusual diffi- 

 culties of construction have rendered the estimate of cost less certain 

 than that for the ditch plan, because the attitude of the landowners 

 in general is opposed to a channel between levees, but principally 

 because of the greater danger if maintenance work is neglected. 

 Very few drainage ditches are regularly inspected and kept in even 

 fair condition, usually being entirely neglected until serious overflows 

 occur. An ordinary ditch is injured little when its capacity is 

 overtaxed, and aids in removmg the water quickly both during and 

 after the overflow period. If this floodway were constructed, 

 however, and by reason of improper maintenance or unprecedented 

 flood flow it should be overtaxed, not only would great expense be 

 necessary to repair the damage to the levees, but the embankments 

 remaining in position would tend to prevent the water from returning 

 into the channel. 



DITCH PLAN. 



This plan includes the clearing of Bayou Macon and Boggy Bayou, 

 but otherwise generally disregards the natural v/atercourses for main 

 drainage channels. It is presented as being the plan that will give 

 the best drainage results with the minimum difficulties of construction 

 and cost of maintenance, and is discussed in detail below. 



THE RECOMMENDED PLAN. 



DRAINAGE DISTRICT BOUNDARIES. 



Cypress Creek drainage district, according to the boundaries defined 

 in act 110 of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of Arkansas, contains 

 208,4.50 acres, or 466 square miles. The total drainage area tributary 

 to the district is 658 square miles, of which 188 square miles are in 

 Lincoln and Jefferson Counties (see fig. 4) and 13 square miles in 

 Drew County. The drainage district should include only such land 

 a,s would be benefited by the improvements. On this basis the fol- 

 lowing (lescribod boundaries are proposed, as a result of the survey: 



The district siiould include! all oi Dc^slia County lying south and west 

 of the Arkansas and Mississippi River levees, as now constructed and 

 sur\-eye(], except that part lyitig west of the following described line: 

 Beginning 2,000 feet north of the southwest conuu- of sec. 7, T. U S., 

 K. 4 W., and ruiniing east to the left bank of ('hoctaw Bayou; thence 

 following the left bunk of Choctaw liuyou to Walnut Lak(5; thence 

 following the left bunk of Walnut LuUe to the north und south 



