Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1908 — LOWER RIVER MUST BE DREDGED [ARTICLE]

LOWER RIVER MUST BE DREDGED

Observer of Conditions Since Upper Drainage Began Insists that the Work Must Be Continued. ————• W ‘ ---1^ —— V . TJ» Adam Nagle, one of the. best farmers in Jasper county, and a manof careful observation, expresses the be- ■ lief that the completion of the present Iroquois ditch is certain to have a permanent bad effect on 'the lower lands down the river, and he is convinced that it will be demonstrated that the proposed lower river ditch will have to be built before there can be any relief from the high waters that are certain to be so destructive to crops in the low lands; He has been making some careful investigations since the dredge ditch was begun to the north, and finds that now the water in the basin lands to the south raises as much in a half a day as it formerly did in three days with no more rain. He has known the river to create a rise in the slough of three feet in half a day, and it does not run off as rapidly as it did before the upper stream was dredged. Mr. Nagle does not take any stock in the theory of Lewis Alter that the dry muck soil will absorb most of the water during heavy, rains, and therefore dump the water to the channel no more rapidly than it was done previously when the channel was on the level with the surface and the soil never dried out. Mr. Nagle says that the purpose of the drainage scheme is to redeem the nforth land and to run open ditches and tile ditches into it in great numbers and these will carry more' water into the channel after any rain, large or small, than e - er before, and that it will have a tree swing until it reaches the lands below and that it will then overflow them beyond any doubt Mr. Nagle farms the Mohnett land, a thousand acres, and much df it lies along the river, and he says that if the upper drainage has the effect on the lower land he thinks it' will have, and his investigations make him think it will, he would be afraid to plant corn or any other crop in the low lands, for he is certain that any heavy June rain would dump enough water down there to overflow the cultivated land. The proposed lower river ditch would cost about SIOO,OOO and would mean the digging of about 12 miles in a direct line, and would cut off about 36 miles of the present channel. After it was completed the land own-, ers of Newton county would probably find that it was necessary to carry Itondbwh. ■ The completion of the Howe ditch, and all the vast amount of water |twilllsrlng "from the Ipw lands at its source, up about Lee, will also greatly add to the troubles that -will confront the farmers that petitioned for the lower extension, and it is not improbable that the ditch will eventually have to be carried down as proposed.