CYPRESS CREEK DRAINAGE DISTRICT, ARKANSAS. 13 
cost 15 cents per yard owing to the unusual depth of cut and to the 
added work of placing the spoil in good levees. The total cost of the 
floodway and the auxiliary 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 removing 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 watercourses 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 
298,450 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 
as would be benefited by the improvements. On this basis the fol- 
lowing described boundaries are proposed, as a result of the survey : 
The district should include all of Desha County tying south and west 
of the Arkansas and Mississippi River levees, as now constructed and 
surveyed, except that part lying west of the following described line: 
Beginning 2,000 feet north of the southwest corner of sec. 7, T. 9 S., 
R. 4 W., and running east to the left bank of Choctaw Bayou; thence 
following the left bank of Choctaw Bayou to Walnut Lake; thence 
following the left bank of Walnut Lake to the north and south 
