Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1909 — ADVISES INDIANA HARBOR OUTLAY [ARTICLE]

ADVISES INDIANA HARBOR OUTLAY

War Department Engineer Recommends Improvements. ESTIMATED COST IS $62,000 Report of General Marshall Mentions the Calumet River, Michigan City and the Wabash and White Rivers. Announces That Money Appropriated For the White Has Been Converted Into Surplus Fund of the Treasury. ■Washington, Nov. 16.—The report of General W. L. Marshall, chief of the war department engineers in charge of river and harbor improvements, sub; mits a plan for the betterment of Indiana harbor at an estimated cost of $62,000. The chief of engineers looks with favor on the development of the Calumet river in northwestern Indiana. The anqual commerce on that river has now reached six million tons, the principal items being iron ore, grain and coal. It is steadily increasing and new manufacturing plants are steadily occupying the river banks as fast as the twenty-foot depth is carried upstream. It is proposed to apply the funds now available and those asked for the year ending June 30, 1911, to continue the enlargement of the channel progressively upstream, according to the project adopted in 1905. Turning basins are also to be put in. The annual commerce in the Michigan City harbor now amounts to a little over 33,000 tons and consists principally of lumber and salt. In 1909 $40,500 was appropriated with which to improve this *harbot, but owing to the extensive damage done by the severe storms of last winter it was necessary to divert $39,500 of this amount toward urgent repairs. The report devotes considerable attention to the Wabash and White rivers. It announces that, in view of the fact that no appropriations for the VS abash river have been made since 1902, no further reports for the sections of the river “above Vincennes” and “below Vincennes” will be submitted until additional appropriations become available for work on the river. The funds available during the last ixtcen years, the report says, have o: been sufficient to maintain the • r< ihrt was done prior to that time ■ t ■ keep the river free from snags id bars. Sinking of White river, the report ■ that at present-there is no comIr<’e- si ce project for the improvenl “t of ■l;!s river. In view of these •. together with the repeated recommendation that the river is not worthy of improvement, the balance of a former appropriation has been converted into the surplus fund of th© treasury, and no further report will be made on this river unless congress shall authorize its improvement.