May, 1913.] 
Control of Aquatic Resources. 
137 
liability of destructive floods, checking the erosion of banks and preventing 
much of the formation and shifting of sand bars and the pollution of water 
which the presence of sediment means. At the same time it provides a way 
of actually paying for itself in short order, aside from all idea of the savings 
to shippers and river interests in general which would be in excess of the 
cost. The importance of this latter consideration is emphasized best by a 
brief comparison with the system now being followed. The levee-revet¬ 
ment system, as mapped out, calls for an expenditure of $60,000,000 for its 
completion. From the engineers themselves comes the statement that 
the average life of a levee is not over twenty years, which means this and no 
more; in two score years, at the most liberal estimate, the present system, 
completed, will have disappeared entirely and a new series of levees con¬ 
structed at the cost of another $60,000,000 will have taken its place, with 
conditions then no better than they are now. Considered solely on their 
own merits from the standpoint of control afforded, the present system has 
nothing, and the reservoir plan has everything, to recommend it. 
“In order to bring the river route to its highest possible degree of effi¬ 
ciency, it would be necessary to combine the reservoir system with a 
straightened course for the lower river, by which combination every evil 
would be removed and absolute control for all time would be insured. The 
reservoirs would make it possible to regulate the flow of the streams, pre¬ 
venting both floods and very low water, and at the same time, through 
developed horse power, pay for the improvements. The corrected or 
straightened course would shorten the route and effectively put an end to 
caving of the banks with all the difficulties arising from it at present. 
Together the reservoirs, with the necessary forest conservation and cor¬ 
rected course, would remove the sand bar problem—the one greatly lessen¬ 
ing the actual amount of sand carried into the river, the other giving the 
current increased power to sweep its own channel clean.” 
While it is probable that some of the advantages claimed may 
not be entirely realized, especially in the case of extreme flood 
there is, it appears to me, so much of virtue in what this author 
claims that it should be given great weight in any general plan of 
flood control. It appears, however, that such a method should 
be strongly re-enforced not only by the conservation of forests 
and thickets on uplands and hill sides in the head waters of 
streams, but that the stream valleys should, to as large an extent 
as possible, be planted in willow and other moisture loving shrubs 
or trees, which serve as a natural check to the stream currents 
and therefore retard the flow and serve to distribute it through a 
longer period of time. 
There is another phase of the subject, and the phase which 
appeals directly to me. That is the biological side of the problem 
of utilization of water. While this phase seems to have been 
largely neglected, it appears to me that it is worthy of fully as 
much consideration as the utilization for power or navigation 
and particularly in connection with its bearing on flood control. 
The neglect of this phase is probably due to the fact that in our 
ordinary processes of culture we have come to consider water in 
excess as undesirable and make efforts to eliminate it rather than 
to conserve it. For the culture of our ordinary crops it is, of 
course, true that an excess of moisture is detrimental, and tile 
