Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1907 — KANKAKEE DRAINAGE REPORT. [ARTICLE]

KANKAKEE DRAINAGE REPORT.

Agricultural Department Presents a Feasible Reclamation Plan. For several years the department of agriculture at Washington has been conducting an investigation with a view to reclaiming half a millioh acres of swamp land in the Kankakee region of northern Indiana. Its report has been given out for publication.! It outlines a feasible way of taking the kinks out of the meandering Kansakee and transforming about 500,000 acres of land that is now practically worthless into fertile tracts. The cost is estimated at $1,000,000. At the close of the year 1906 the main channel of the river had been straightened by dredging from the upper end as far down stream as the west i lines of Laporte and Starke counties. The improved channel at this point had a bottom width of fifty feet and discharged upon the flow line of the river. From this point to the Momence Rock in Illinois, a distance of seventy-two miles by river and across the two counties in Indiana — Porter and Lake on the north and Jasper and Newton on the south—no attempt had been made to improve the river. The watershed lying above the Momence Rock comprises an area of 1,320,000 acres, ot which approximately 400,000 acres is a marsh plain. It is abont eightyfive miles long, the surface being characterized by scattered sand islands |or ridges covered with a sparse growth of scrub oaks situated in the midst of extensive plains of marsh which were formerly covered with water during the larger portion of the year. The soil is not uniform in char acter nor equally fertile iu the several parts of the valley, some being a sane y loam of high natural value and others that undeveloped turf and muck whose real value is not known. The upper portion is quite uniformly underlaid with clay, while the sub-soil of the lower valley is river sand. The sand islands arise above the surrounding plain and furnish a welcome residence spot to farmers of partly reclaimed land.

The course of the new channel was selected with care and it is represented on a blue print map which accompanies the report. The following is given as the general description of the plan: The distance by river from the Starke Jasper county line west to the Momence moraine is seventy-two miles. The length of the straightened channel as established by this survey, 41.8 miles, of which 35.5 miles are in Indiana and 6.3 in Illinois. The new line cuts off 84 bends of the present stream, mak--271 miles of entirely new channel and 14.3 miles of improved old channel; that is, one third of the new course will be ’on the line of the present stream and two-thirds will be new work or out-offs. The fall in the 41.8 miles is 36 feet. The width of the proposed new channel is 105 feet at the Jasper county line and 190 feet wide at the state line.