Eines eee Neeser tyvialen 11 
SLIDE SETS ON STREAM CHANNELIZATION 
AVAILABLE FREE 
Slide talks on stream channelization—a set includes 111 photo- 
graphic slides and an accompanying script—are available for use 
by Audubon chapters and affiliates, without charge. | 
The slides, collected from State Conservation organizations, 
private environmentalists and others, tell about the environ- 
mental problems that are being caused today in the name of 
“stream improvement” that consists of straightening streams 
and turning them into lfeless ditches. There is emphasis on 
the problems of the small watershed program. The majority of 
slide pictures are of channelization in Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee, 
Alabama and Kentucky. Central Midwest Regional Rep. John 
| L. Franson, who prepared it, urges people in other states, to add 
their scenes of local channelization projects. 
To borrow a set, write to Mr. Franson at 1020 E. 20th St., 
Owensboro, Ky. 42301. Tell him the date you want it. 
3. Where feasible, install in-channel devices to improve the habitat for 
fish and aquatic organisms. Potential devices are low log and/cr rock dams, 
deflectors or wing-dams, and submerged cribs to create riffle areas. 
4. Take streamside easements which would prohibit agricultural use 
of the spoil banks including pasturing and cropping and would provide 
for late summer mowing of the spoil banks to avoid disturbance of nesting 
wildlife. 
5. Seed the spoil banks with a mixture best adapted to the particular 
region and most attractive to the wildlife in the area. 
6. Plant suitable woody shrubs on top of and on the outside of the 
spoil banks to replace woody vegetation destroyed and to enhance that 
remaining. 
7. Plant a row of tall, fast growing hardwood (deciduous) trees at the 
outside toe of the spoil bank to provide shade for the stream as quickly 
as possible. 
Such measures are not suggested as a means of making stream 
channelization more palatable in general, but rather they should be used 
only to minimize the damages wrought and to make the resulting environ- 
ment as good as possible in those instances where there is no alternative 
to channelization. 
We believe a policy should be adopted under which no Federal agency 
shall modify or channelize streams or rivers for flood protection purposes 
where land treatment measures or flood retarding reservoirs or a combina- 
tion of both will provide adequate level of flood protection. Furthermore, 
channelization shall not be used where the primary purpose is to bring 
new land into agricultural production or to provide for more intensive 
agricultural use than exists at the time. 
We sincerely hope that your committee will produce some vitally 
needed changes in policies in this regard, and we appreciate the opportun- 
ity of filing this statement. 
