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as reported in the letter addressed by the Chief of Engineers to the Hon. Riley J. Wilson, chairman of the House Committee on Flood Control, and has come to the following conclusions:

"First.-The substitution of what is called the Eudora floodway for the Boeuf floodway is of such unquestioned benefit to a great portion of the citizens of the northeast portion of the State that the circumstances which contributed to the possibility of its use as an adequate floodway should be hailed as a great engineering triumph.

"This satisfactory and economic solution of what was a difficult situation represents the first great dividends received from the establishment of the hydraulic laboratory at Vicksburg.

"There has been some expression to the effect that it is unnecessarily wide. Attention is invited to the fact that this floodway is dimensioned to carry a certain quantity of flowage, 700,000 cubic feet per second, as determined by experimental results. The willingness of the United States Government to pay for flowage rights is a deterrent to any disposition on its part to secure excess floodway area.

"The board of State engineers offers this criticism: That the guide levees of this floodway should be extended further downstream than their present proposed termination and feels sure that this can be done within justifiable limits of costs and without unduly reducing the reservoir area at the lower end of the fifth Louisiana levee district.

"Second.-The board of State engineers approves of the proposed construction of a back protection levee extending from the head of the Eudora floodway north to the Arkansas River, as a necessary line of defense for the protection of the populous Boeuf Basin and which back protection levee will come into service only during a superflood such as might occur when the Eudora floodway, plus the accelerated discharge through the proposed cut-offs, will be insufficient to pass the flood flow in the main section of the river immediately south of the Arkansas River.

"Third.-The board of State engineers approves the proposed maintenance of the present river levees between the head of the Eudora floodway and the northern junction with the protection levee above referred to, at the 1914 grade, but urges that the cross-section of such levees be made to conform with the 1928 cross-section rather than with the section applicable to the 1914 grade as proposed.

"The purpose in mind in providing a long length of below-grade levee as a flood-reducing device assumes that that levee will withstand crevassing until the flood stage reaches the top and goes over the top. Therefore, the necessity for increasing the section to a degree comparable with the section of the mainline levees is apparent.

"Fourth. The board of State engineers is in accord with the proposed construction of a floodway at or near Morganza, extending from the Mississippi River to the Atchafalaya River backwater, and with a control structure at its head, so that the discharge through the floodway will begin when the Angola gage reads 49 feet. Such a floodway will be most effective in providing flood protection to the lower section of the Mississippi River where the greatest density of population and greatest property values prevail.

"Fifth. The board of State engineers is in full accord with the proposed raising of the levees from the head of the Morganza floodway to the head of the Atchafalaya River to full standard grade and cross section, but believes that the project should go further so as to include also the raising of the levees to full standard grade and section from the head of the Atchafalaya down the east side of the Atchafalaya to the junction with the north levee of the Morganza floodway.

"Sixth. The board of State engineers concurs in the recommendations made and urges, as items of prime importance: (a) The proposed rapid completion of the guide levees in the Atchafalaya Basin; (b) the improvement by dredging of the discharge capacity of the Atchafalaya River and its outlets; (c) and the early undertaking of the proposed additional outlet to the Gulf of Mexico, west of Berwick. These proposed works in the Atchafalaya Basin constitute the heart of the flood-control plan for Louisiana.

The fifth Louisiana levee district is dependent on them. The lower Red River Valley is dependent on them. The lower Mississippi River, from Baton Rouge to the Gulf, is dependent upon them. The great city of New Orleans with assessed values exceeding by one and one-half times the combined assessed values of all the levee districts in the State, is dependent on these works in the Atchafalaya.

"The board of State engineers does not feel that it should be called on for an expression of opinion on matters other than the engineering features of the proposed plan. It recognizes that certain hardships will be occasioned in carrying out a project of this kind. In the accomplishment of any great project it is often necessary to do a little harm in order to do a great good. This necessity should not stand in the way of the approval of the plan. The United States Engineer Department, even under the limitations of the present Jadwin plan, have stretched the provisions of the Flood Control Act to the limit in the interest of the citizens. It is reasonable to expect similar just treatment in the future.

"The matter of payment for rights-of-way is perhaps predicated on an erroneous assumption that assessed values were somewhere at or near real values. If that assumption is wrong, it would seem that it is a matter that can be adjusted on a fair basis if properly presented.

"With the exception of certain minor details which the board of State engineers feel can be satisfactorily adjusted with the United States Engineers, it wishes to record its approval of the proposed modifications. It comes as near being a perfect plan, consistent with justifiable outlay of funds, as it is possible to conceive, and so much superior to the provisions of the present plan of flood control that there should not be any hesitation on the part of this convention in heartily approving it." Respectfully submitted.

BOARD OF STATE ENGINEERS,
By JOHN KLORER,
Chief State Engineer.

Mr. KLORER. With respect to the present Senate bill 3531, Seventyfourth Congress, second session, being a bill largely embodying these same recommendations of the Chief of Engineers, there is no new or additional change, of an engineering nature, proposed affecting the State of Louisiana, that was not included in the House bill of last April; and the board of State engineers, after an informal conference held yesterday evening by three of its five members, who are present at this hearing, reaffirms its position taken last April on the House bill.

Having in mind the limitation in height to which levees may safely be built, and the comparatively small flood-height reduction obtainable from the 26 reservoirs on the White River and the Arkansas River, and the conservative estimate of flood-height reduction that may be expected from cut-offs, the board of State engineers does not see how the project flood can be passed down the valley without the aid of a diversion floodway; and in view of the lesser acreage involved, the lesser development disturbed, and the lower floodway ground elevations-being features that exist in the Eudora floodway, as compared with the Boeuf floodway-approves the former as the more desirable route.

Senator OVERTON. Do you wish to read that entire statement?
Mr. KLORER. No, sir.

Senator OVERTON. I would say, then, that you indicate to the reporter how much of it you desire to be filed, and then you may read the rest of the statement.

Mr. KLORER. The statement I am about to read is an extract from an address that was delivered by me last Friday night, before the Louisiana Engineering Society, on the subject of the flood-control project in Louisiana and the present status of that project. And in the course of that address there was some reference made, naturally, to the cut-offs. I should like to read a few pages, here, that bear on the subject of cut-offs. Because as everybody has noticed, it has entered quite a lot into the discussions that have been taking place around this table.

Senator OVERTON. Would you like to file your entire statement, however, Mr. Klorer?

Mr. KLORER. Yes; if it is agreeable to the committee. The original paper was some 20 pages, and this is considerably shorter. I think that everything in this particular extract is germane to the subject that has been discussed.

At the hearings conducted by the Flood Control Committee of the House on these proposed modifications submitted by the Chief of Engineers, considerable opposition developed against the substitution of the Eudora floodway for the Boeuf floodway, by property owners in the parishes through which the Eudora floodway passes; to wit, East Carroll, Madison, Tensas, and Concordia. At first it appeared that the dissatisfaction arose on account of the proposed basis of payment for flowage rights; namely, one and one-half times the assessed value, but it appears that this was not the only objection. The anticipated curtailment of parish revenues due to the reductions in assessments on account of revised values to be given to lands in the floodway area, was represented as affecting the ability of the parishes to meet interest payments on the school-district bonds, drainage-district bonds, and other obligations issued by these parishes. The presence of the floodway through these parishes was considered by the protestants as a deterrent to any future development of the parishes.

The opposition urged the abandonment of the Eudora floodway, and that the reduction in flood heights be obtained by means of reservoirs to be constructed on the Arkansas and White Rivers and by the fullest development of cut-offs on the Mississippi River between the Arkansas River and the mouth of the Red River.

The Chief of Engineers was requested by the flood control committee to advise it as to the possible reduction in flood heights that might be expected from these two methods. He stated that the Mississippi River Commission had made a study of available reservoir sites in the valleys of the Arkansas and White Rivers and had found 13 sites suitable for the purpose on each of the two tributaries, or 26 potential reservoirs in all; that the estimated cost of constructing these reservoirs was $126,719,000 as against $103,000,000, the estimated cost of the Eudora floodway; that for a 1927 flood, their effect would be to reduce the outflow at Arkansas City by 350,000 second-feet, and this was estimated to correspond to a reduction in stage of 4 feet. The estimated high-water elevation of a confined 1927 flood is 68.9 on the gage at Arkansas City; and of the superflood, if confined, 73.1. Consequently, after allowing for the reduction in flood height attributable to the 26 reservoirs, a confined 1927 flood would be 2.4 feet higher than the 62.5 ultimate height of water proposed to be carried down the main river at that point, and the project flood would be 6.6 feet higher. So that this excess height represents the reduction in flood height that must be accomplished by cut-offs, with reservoirs in operation, in order to obviate the necessity for the Eudora floodway.

The Chief of Engineers, while admitting certain reductions obtainable by means of cut-offs, would not commit himself as to what the quantitative effects would be on crest stages, nor did he give any estimate of the costs of making the cut-offs.

This reference to "cut-offs" brings to our notice the most impressive, audacious, and gratifying feature of the entire flood control plan; impressive, because it upsets the policy and theory of many, many years; audacious, because it challenges the right or custom of the river to select its own path down the valley, and lays down its future course with chain and transit; gratifying, because it justifies the judgment of many engineers who labored hard and long for an experimental river hydraulic laboratory, with a view to substituting the application of scientifically observed results for tradition and folklore ideas that previously ruled in dealing with the river.

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It was an accepted fact from time immemorial that the result of a cut-off was to introduce abnormal slopes both upstream and downstream, and that where a cut-off occurred, the river immediately set to work to readjust the flood slopes back to normal by caving the banks upstream and downstream in an attempt to recover the lost length of the river. A cut-off was considered such a disturbing factor in maintaining the regimen of the river that it was always believed that it must be stopped from occurring by all means. classic instance was the threatened cut-off at Cowpen Neck, just above Natchez, which was fought year after year for the past 40 years, and millions were spent to hold the bank revetment in Giles Bend to prevent such a cut-off from occurring. The justification for these expenditures was the preservation of Natchez as a river city, which distinction it was alleged it would lose if the cut-off occurred and a sand bar formed on its water front. Not only that, but it was maintained that the anticipated bank caving following such a cut-off would destroy the town of Vidalia, across from Natchez, on the Louisiana side of the river. The important fact overlooked by members of the old school of thought was the difference between a cut-off located by design at a certain spot and with a predetermined direction, as compared with a cut-off allowed to take place anywhere on the long frontage of a protruding neck of land. Had the river been permitted to make the cut-off where indications pointed that it naturally would, it is possible that the dire consequences predicted might have resulted.

Cowpen Neck Cut-off was made by dredges at a selected location and on a selected course in the spring of 1933; the 1935 freshet enlarged its cross-section; it is now carrying 30 percent of the river flow, and there is no tendency evident either of Natchez losing its river frontage or of the town of Vidalia caving into the river.

General Ferguson, the president of the Mississippi River Commission, deserves much credit for the initiative, energy, and courage displayed in making the cut-offs; but it is safe to say that the United States Waterways Experiment Station at Vicksburg was a powerful ally in creating the confidence required to take such a decisive step as lopping off 100 miles of river in a total length of 370 miles.

The study of cut-offs was undertaken by the experiment laboratory in Vicksburg, as a part of a river-stabilization plan, and it was hoped that the results of the study might show that the Mississippi River Commission could be relieved of a high maintenance expense on the existing bank revetments in the bends,

without having to incur the equivalent expenditures on revetments or on other works in new locations as a result of the cut-offs. The indications are that this objective has been attained. In connection with the studies made, unexpected results developed as regards the behavior of flood slopes. For example, it was noted that the influence of the cut-off, in lowering the flood plane, was confined to that portion of the river lying upstream from the cut-off. The upstream lowering effect tapers out in a distance anywhere between 50 and 100 miles. Contrary to prevailing opinion, no pilingup effect takes place downstream from the cut-off. The fact is corroborated in the results of several hundred sets of observations. The laboratory experiments also indicate that, taking a flood equivalent to that portion of the project flood that is to be passed down the Mississippi River, that is, 1,950,000 second-feet at Arkansas City, and following the operation of four cut-offs at Leland Neck, Tarpley Neck, Linwood Neck, and Ashbrook Neck-all in the vicinity of the Greenville bends and comprised between river miles 445 below Cairo and 488 below Cairo-the accumulated total of lowering was 10.44 feet at mile 443. The reduction tapers upstream to 3.60 feet at mile 414 below Cairo, and tapers downstream to zero feet at mile 488 below Cairo.

Now, this experiment, as you will have noted, is limited to the Greenville bends, and these results were obtained by making the cut-offs in that immediate vicinity, say, in the length of river, not exceeding 40 miles.

These are the laboratory results that give hope to the citizens living in the Eudora floodway that the necessity for a floodway may be obviated and the flood taken down the main river by means of cut-offs combined with the lowering to be accomplished by the 26 reservoirs previously referred to. But it must be remembered that these striking reductions in the flood-flow line are obtainable only where such unusual conditions prevail as exist in the Greenville bends. Here the river bends sinuously back and forth for a length of 35 miles to accomplish an airline distance of 9 miles. The lowering of the flowline, as shown above, materially increases the discharge capacity of that part of the river above referred to. It makes it possible for the river to carry much more water between the river levees than the 1,950,000 second-feet provided for in the project; that is to say, it makes it possible to do so, for a short distance. But the elimination of the Boeuf floodway or of the Eudora floodway requires an increase in discharge capacity not only for the 80 miles between the mouth of the Arkansas River and Greenville, but also for that part of the river extending some 290 miles farther, to the latitude of Red River Landing, in which length the possible cut-off locations are not as numerous, nor as favorably situated to give results anything like those obtained in the locality known as the Greenville bends.

The crux of the cut-offs' effect is set forth in the laboratory report as follows:

Investigations conducted on the 10 cut-offs described in this report lead generally to the conclusion that a lowering of stages will result in immediate upstream reaches, while, immediately below, except as lowered by the next cut-off downstream, the same stage will be preserved as before. To provide for increased discharges, therefore, a considerable increase in levee heights

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