FLOOD06503 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

~ THE FOUNTAIN RIVER FLOOD PROBLEM Page 10 issued at least three major reports on the Fountain Water- shed (References 2, 3, and 5) containing valuable investi- gations of the economic and technical factors involved in basinwide land and water management programs. The most recent of these, published in 1951, proposed an over-all "Plan of Improvement" requiring a total expenditure of about $4.1 millions over a several year period on a wide gamut of 'land-treatment, vegetative management, and structural water retardation practices, About 78 per cent of these costs were to be borne by the Federal Government under various assistance schedules, the balance by local government and private interests. Department economists estimated a cost-benefit ratio of 1 to 1.3 for the program, and Soil Conservation Service and Forest Service hydrologists calculated tha~when completed, it would reduce flood crests in the Fountain River by an average of 44 per cent and sedimentation by about 58 per cent. Both urban protection and agricultural produc- tivity would, on the basis of the calculations, benefit substantially. A modification of this plan was included in the report of the Arkansas-White-Red River Interagency Committee published in 1955 by the Bureau of the Budget (Reference 10). The plan had been previously accepted by the Governor's Inter-Agency Coordinating Group for Colorado and published in their 1953 report (Reference 9). A striking feature of this plan was its specification of 2800 low detention dams (about ten per section of land) tc be dispersed at strategic locations over the southeastern plains portion of the Fountain basin, which was identified as the Number One flood-producing portion of the watershed. The accompanying map, "Fountain Basin Sector" is reproduced from a plate prepared for the Inter-Agency Committee by the lulsa District of the U. S. Corps of Engineers.