Don't rule out upland storage
by Marty Lucas - 1.31.2003
A recent article by Bill Byrns, Corps pull plug on river study, seems to criticize the Corps finding that a large scale dredge and levee project on the Kankakee isn't feasible. However, the Corps does propose a prescription for improving the Kankakee - upland retention of water - it's an appropriate remedy and ought to be taken seriously.
The purpose of a feasibility study is to determine if a particular project would be an appropriate expenditure of taxpayer dollars - bascially, a feasibility study asks the question, "would the public benefit exceed the cost of the project?" Unfortunately, past practices by many governmental units (certainly drainage boards and the Army Corps) has been to 'cook the books' to justify massive and expensive public works projects. This practice, the essence of pork-barrel, is wasteful and dishonest and should be condemned.
To me, the fact that the Corps is recommending a distributed, low impact project, is a breath of fresh air. While I sympathize with individual landowners and farmers who believe a project would enhance the value of their property by helping them to grow a crop more reliably, the Corps owes a duty to the nation's taxpayers to ensure that their dollars are spent wisely. Wisely means in a way that will enhance the public good generating a greater value than the money spent.
Saving a field from flooding would, no doubt, provide some economic benefit. Enhancing agricultural productivity is a valid governmental activity. But if the cost of the project is five times as much as the increased value of the field, then the government would be imprudent to do such a project, especially when one considers that the increased value will be reaped by one particular property owner, not the general public.
It seems likely that one of the main reasons the Corps isn't currently doing anything along the Kankakee is the unreceptive, closed minded (even hostile) attitude they too often encounter when trying to work in the basin. This attitude is well described in the Byrns article. Too many local officials seem to believe that the only purpose of a study is to support a conclusion they've already reached: 'let's do what we always done, dredge, doze and levee'. If the local officials want progress they need to be receptive to Corps recommendations. That means embracing the idea, and practice, of upland storage.
Upland storage isn't going to result in a grandiose project, but it is a solution worth giving a serious try. The problems of the Kankakee originate at the headwaters - a river is no better than the sum of its tributaries. Upland storage could help reduce flooding on those fields downstream. It would certainly help control sedimentation and improve water quality. Systematic upland storage would improve the environment by creating a distributed network of natural and recreational areas all across the landscape of the Kankakee watershed.
Finally, upland storage could prove beneficial to agriculture. Last week I was in the Starke County USDA offices. I noticed a map of 'prime farmland soils' on the bulletin board. It showed that the majority of prime farmland in Starke County was within two or three miles of the Kankakee; this underscores the reason behind some of the local resistance to the proposed national wildlife refuge. Upland storage would help protect these bottomland areas from flooding, while helping to get many of the benefits ponds, wetlands and other water storage areas could lend to the landscape, including the creation of convenient water withdrawal sites for irrigation.
Upland storage projects would be many, and small, instead of few and large. That means there would be little disruption of existing homes and farms. These areas would enhance the landscape and would quickly become popular recreational sites.
Upland storage won't solve all the problems on the Kankakee, but it would help reduce all of those problems and (if embraced by local officials) would create few new problems. If local residents and local officials are really interested in the river, then they need to get interested in the watershed, and upland storage is a worthwhile tool to help heal the watershed.
Why do I feel so strongly about upland storage? Here at Big Eastern we've been doing it for almost half a century. More about that on an upcoming KRLog.