FLOOD CONTROL IN THE MISSISIPPI VALLEY SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1935 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C. The committee resumed hearings on the bill above referred to at 10:50 a. m., Hon. Riley J. Wilson (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We have here a few of our colleagues who desire to make statements for this record on the projects that we have been holding these hearings on. I see here Mr. Ford, of Mississippi; Judge Driver, of Arkansas; and Mr. McGehee, of Mississippi. Mr. Whittington, do you want the Representatives from Mississippi to go on now, or Judge Driver? Mr. WHITTINGTON. I am sure that these gentlemen would like to make their statements; but, you know, Judge Driver has been here for some time. It is up to you gentlemen. I have no desire to control that. The CHAIRMAN. I thought that there might be some emergency because of which perhaps some particular member would like to go first. Mr. McGEHEE. Go ahead, Mr. Driver. STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. DRIVER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS Mr. DRIVER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, while interested in the problems of the Mississippi Valley, and recalling with interest my connection while a member of this committee with the flood problems and the formulation and the passage of the Flood Control Act, I naturally am interested in the engineering features that have been so thoroughly presented to this committee by the engineers, and the geographical and local interests explained by the people interested in the problems growing out of recurring disastrous floods. I compliment the chairman of this committee on the great patience manifested in the course of the hearings on the recommended modifications of the existing project. When the existing law was framed and passed, I do not believe a more thorough investigation was then entered upon than you have provided on this suggested modification in connection with the existing plan. I recall the interesting fact that this committee is responsible for the subsequent developments. We realized at the time of the adoption of the so-called "Jadwin plan" of control that the suggestions were rather hurried, that the investigations were limited and that there were certain phases in the recommendations of the engineers that were due to the economies of the situation, which is a bad policy when you deal with a problem of the magnitude of the control of the floods of the great areas comprising the Mississippi water group. I recall the apprehension of the people on account of the provision made in the way of fuse-plug levees. That situation carried in itself a threat to that great area south of the location of that improvised method and, I have always been convinced, it was a most careless suggestion in connection with the control of floods for the interest of the people. I recall that it was through a resolution from this committee that we stopped the work until a more thorough investigation could be had into that particular phase of this problem, and of the measures which had been taken in order to provide for the necessary guarantee against the devastation of those areas to the southeast. I hope that out of this mass of engineering information that you have received you will be able to frame legislation that will provide a greater security for the people concerned, and at the same time will be in due deference to the interests of that great valley within the sphere of the influence of those works. It was through the resolution of this committee that the engineers were directed to make an investigation into the influence of the bend cutting of the lower Mississippi River through which it was hoped to straighten the channel, increase the velocity of the water, and thereby bring about a more rapid displacement of the flood crest. I am very much pleased at the progress which has been made in that direction, and the promise contained of ultimate influence in lowering the flood heights of the river. The engineers are not quite as frank as we who have so carefully studied this work and are familiar with the engineering problem and the hesitancy of the engineers when they change a program. We know at what it is aimed. We know the purpose of the engineering talent, the best in the world, constituted of our Army engineers, when directed to protecting the property interests of the valley in all sincerity. They will not tell you today that there is a prospect of success attending their present experiments in the lower valley, but I am convinced that they have prosecuted that experiment sufficiently to convince us that they are going to succeed in reducing the flood levels of the river sufficiently to make it safe for the property interests concerned. Of course, they could not say so, because of this fact, that if one of those engineers should today give us his opinion on the security that he is able to provide, and then something should occur that would cause the devastation of property interests, and the loss of lives, it would result in destroying the Engineer Corps of the Army, but we who have witnessed this operation and who are convinced of its influence can speak out, and I am convinced today that it will ultimately have that result, and we are rapidly approaching the time when this influence will manifest itself on the whole flood structure. I am particularly concerned, however, Mr. Chairman, in the portion of the recommendation of the engineers for the control of floods on one of the tributaries of the Mississippi, in the St. Francis Valley in Arkansas. The St. Francis is one of the most turbulent rivers in the United States, as is proven by the fact that during the period of the past 9 years, 6 of those years have brought the visitation of floods to the residents of such valley. In order to appreciate the meaning of a flood in the St. Francis Valley, I call the attention of the committee to the fact that if at the period of the early floods a crevasse or crevasses should occur in the levee systems of the river, the condition of the soil and the water conditions generally are such that it is a matter of impossibility to repair the breaks in time to fend against the oncoming waters from the rains that occur during the period of the later days, and therefore it is frequently a fact that the floods in the St. Francis area devastate lands as much as two or three times during the flood years. Now, this is not the inundation of an area of limited population. It is the infliction of all of the difficulties and the dangers and the losses on one of the most populous sections of the Mississippi Valley, a highly developed section of our country, all alluvial in character, and the most fertile that you will find anywhere in the Nation, as has been frequently mentioned by witnesses, and the proof of which is found in their statements of production on the acres menaced by frequent floods. The people in this valley are in an anomolous condition in several respects. I call the attention of the committee to a map of the St. Francis River. You gentlemen will note that it flows for some 350 miles through the Mississippi River flood plain. This river has its source in the hills of Missouri, about 75 miles southwest of the city of St. Louis, in the county of St. Francois. It flows through the hills in a southerly direction for 150 miles, coming upon the flood plain at a place called Wappapello, in Missouri, and flows through the Mississippi River flood plain to its junction with the Mississippi River about 8 miles north of the city of Helena, in Arkansas. In 1893, the people living along the Mississippi River in Missouri and Arkansas realized that with the increasing flood heights with which they were threatened, it was necessary to construct a connected and consistent line of levees along the west bank of the Mississippi River, throughout the alluvial area. So they appealed to their State legislatures and secured the authority for local taxation districts, with authority to levy betterments on the property, to raise the revenue with which to provide defense against the floods. Prior to that period of time the levee problem was largely an individual one. The man owning a plantation on the river front provided his own levee, and from time to time he would widen it and raise it, as we term it, but in engineering parlance increase the grade and section of the structures. In 1917 when the first bill was passed by the Congress authorizing Federal aid to the people along the banks of the Mississippi for the construction of levees, provision was made in that act, and it was a creature of this committee which had just then been organized and headed by that lamented leader in flood protection of the Mississippi Valley, Hon. Ben Humphries, of Greenville, Miss., under the provisions of that law, the Government provided $2 for every dollar raised by the local interests, plus rights-of-way, damages and the maintenance of the structures, which meant as has been demonstrated by actual figures, a share and share alike method. Under the operation of that law we continued to construct levees, the Government contributing and the local interests raising their portion of the money by taxation until 1928, when the existing flood-control law was passed imposing the duty of providing the structures upon the National Government, with the expense of the rights-of-way, damages, and maintenance in a limited way upon the local interests. Now, under the operation of the local levee district law, the people in the St. Francis area paid equally with the people in all of the other areas within those districts for protection against the flood waters of the Misissippi River. That extended over a period of over 40 years. During such period of time, the people within the overflowed area of the St. Francis River, marked in pink on this map, actually contributed over $20,000,000 for the construction and maintenance of levees on the main Mississippi River bank. At that period of time, gentlemen, the population was rather sparse within the immediate area of the St. Francis overflow influence, but with what was conceived a promise of protection against the flood waters of the Mississippi, they flocked into this alluvial section. The people from the States of the Union located there, and contributed of their energies and business acumen to the carving out of home properties along the St. Francis River. I point to this one significant fact in that respect, that along the main line of the Mississippi River, the development was in the nature of plantation properties. Large bodies of land were acquired by one person, who developed that land and formed it under the plantation system. That system_obtains largely yet along the immediate Mississippi River area. In that area we have a large Negro population, who are the farm tenants, as a rule, though in many instances we have thrifty, intelligent Negroes, who have acquired farm properties and are operating them advantageously. But in the St. Francis area, a different type of people were attracted. It was the small home owners, the white man. No Negro population is within this area, but white, thrifty, industrious people who were looking for an opportunity to found a home, and they went in there, and organized drainage and levee districts within this district. Now, I especially invite the attention of the committee to this interesting fact, that nothwithstanding we have levee districts within a levee district on the St. Francis, and in addition to that, in order to make that country a desirable country to live in, it became necessary to put on drainage works, and to take from those lands. the pools, the lakes, the places where the waters collected and stagnated and created a bad-health condition. So they organized within this area 37 local drainage districts, with the power of taxing their property in order to establish a system of drainage for the improvement of health and local conditions. These districts are responsible for the structures built along the banks of the St. Francis River, with the hope of controlling the flood waters of that stream. They have expended in that area for reclamation, and for protection against the floods of the river, over $50,000,000, from the head of the flood plain at Cape Girardeau to the mouth of the St. Francis River at or near Helena. Every dollar of the money expended is a lien against the property interests within the St. Francis districts. But they continued to improve their structures just as long as they had a basis on which to secure credit in the financial marts of the world. At no period in their existence have they appealed for aid until they had exhausted every possibility of securing funds to provide self-protection, which is the duty of every red-blooded American citizen, but they found themselves with ever-increasing flood heights, with demands for an increase in the width and an increase in the height of their structures, for demands to strengthen the structures, which demands they could not meet because they required increases in the levy of taxes on the properties of that district which could not be met, and they have reached a period where they are unable to secure an additional dollar to provide self-protection against the menace of annual devastating floods. Notwithstanding the fertility of the soil, notwithstanding the fact that it is in one of the most highly developed districts in any area within the Mississippi Valley, those people, in order to provide local finances, and to get the money with which to provide their individual farm drainage and the construction of roads, of schools, and of those other things so necessary to the lives of a progressive, forward-looking citizenship, have mortgaged their individual properties. We provided, through measures enacted by Congress, for the refinancing of farms and homes through loans, which have proved a blessing to many hard-pressed people. This legislation has saved to thousands of people their properties; it has kept people out of the breadlines of this Nation, and it is unquestionably true that millions are the beneficiaries of the wise provision made by the Congress in this respect; yet, gentlemen, the people residing in this area are absolutely foreclosed against in that respect. Not one dollar of such operations goes into this territory, because of the flood menace that threatens property. They are unable to secure a refinancing of their home loans within the towns built within the area of the St. Francis River. They are today at the sufferance of their creditors, and will continue so or lose their property unless we can secure aid from the Federal Treasury with which to complete the work so well advanced by these energetic people, striving to retain the homes they carved out of that area. I have here, Mr. Chairman, a statement made by the highway department of the State of Arkansas, indicating in red ink the sections of the highways of that State which have been overflowed, lines of communication cut, and the inconveniences which you can fully appreciate will occur when the arteries used in a business way by the people are closed. We have, throughout the St. Francis area, from Wappapello to the lower end, a perfect system of highways. Many of them are the very highest type of construction; many of gravel construction. The local communities have developed roads, but during that period of time floods have covered them, and the avenues of communication are thus cut, the people are isolated. Business stops, with the consequent damage and injury to everybody and everything that is concerned with the welfare of these areas. 131791-35-51 |