SWS CR-16 loan UILU-WRC-74-0090 HISTORY OF DRAINAGE CHANNEL IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH REPORT NO. 90 IN THE VERMILION RIVER WATERSHED, WABASH BASIN By RALPH C. HAY and JOHN B. STALL ILLINOIS STATE WATER SURVEY URBANA, ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANACHAMPAIGN WATER RESOURCES CENTER SEPTEMBER 1974 WRC RESEARCH REPORT NO. 90 HISTORY OF DRAINAGE CHANNEL IMPROVEMENT IN THE VERMILION RIVER WATERSHED, WABASH BASIN by RALPH C. HAY and JOHN B. STALL Illinois State Water Survey Urbana, Illinois FINAL REPORT Project No. A-068-ILL HISTORY OF DRAINAGE CHANNEL IMPROVEMENT IN THE VERMILION RIVER WATERSHED, WABASH BASIN The work upon which this publication is based was supported by funds provided by the U. S. Department of the Interior as author• ized under the Water Resources Research Act of 1964, P. L. 88-379 Agreement No. (14-31-0001-4013) UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS WATER RESOURCES CENTER 2535 Hydrosystems Laboratory Urbana, Illinois 61801 September 1974 ABSTRACT HISTORY OF DRAINAGE CHANNEL IMPROVEMENT IN THE VERMILION RIVER WATERSHED, WABASH BASIN For this 1250-square-mile basin in three counties in east-central Illinois, documentation is given for the 105 legal drainage districts formed between 1880 and 1974 to provide for surface drainage. Also traced is the human and social drama associated with the 150-year conversion of swamp to rich cropland. When Illinois became a state in 1818, and for decades afterward during which early settlers came in, east-central Illinois was a wide, flat swampy expanse covered with big bluestem and other swamp grasses. Settlers described vast ponds cov• ered with green scum, swarms of mosquitoes, cholera, milk sickness, ague, and fever. They considered the land worthless. An early resident refused to trade his riding horse and saddle for 640 acres valued in 1974 at about $1 million. Drainage ditches were constructed by floating dredges assembled at the site. Upland ditches were made straight to serve man's needs as there were no natural curving streams or drainage channels to follow. A 1908 improvement of Saline Branch main ditch shortened it from 19 to 14 miles; the grade was increased from 3 to 4 feet per mile. This historical study reminds readers of the vast amount of brutally hard work and sustained effort contributed by thousands of people to conquer the swamps, to convert them to rich cropland, and to provide the man-made drainage improvements which are accepted as normal by most people in 1974. The legal drainage districts are still in existence and carry out mainte• nance of ditches. They offer considerable potential for working with other units of local government to enhance further developments in water resources, environment, and drainage. REFERENCE: Hay, Ralph C, and Stall, John B., HISTORY OF DRAINAGE CHANNEL IMPROVEMENT IN THE VERMILION RIVER WATERSHED, WABASH BASIN, University of Illinois Water Resources Center Research Report No. 90. KEY WORDS: channels, drainage, drainage districts, drainage history, swamps CONTENTS Objectives 1 Background 1 Acknowledgments 3 Commentary by the senior author, Ralph C. Hay 5 Procedures 5 From swamps to rich cropland 15 Early conditions 15 Channel development 20 Drainage district organization 22 Channel location and design 24 Construction 27 Review of selected districts 28 Big Four drainage district 28 Beaver Lake and Saline Branch 31 Upper Salt Fork 34 Grant Township No. 1 36 Application of study to water resource problems 38 Suggestions for future studies 40 References 41 HISTORY OF DRAINAGE CHANNEL IMPROVEMENT IN THE VERMILION RIVER WATERSHED, WABASH BASIN by Ralph C. Hay and John B. Stall OBJECTIVES 1. To document stream conditions for the natural prairies of central Illinois, in what is now the Corn Belt, as they existed about 150 years ago at the time this area was settled by pioneers. 2. To trace to a major degree and document the physical man-made changes in the Vermilion River, and changes in the water environment; to trace to a minor degree changes in the quality of life, in agricultural production and in economic conditions all as related to drainage channel improvements in east-central Illinois. 3. To trace over the past 150 years the social attitudes, needs, problems, methodologies, and accomplishments as a result of the development of channel -improvements in the east-central Illinois prairies. 4. To relate the 1974 hydraulic conditions of the Vermilion River stream system to past drainage channel improvement developments to provide a frame of reference for future decision-making regarding stream channel• ization, the environment, and man's needs and welfare. BACKGROUND Today any water resource proposal is required to provide an environmental impact statement describing the damages and benefits that may result to the environment. Environmental costs and benefits are now considered crucial ele• ments in evaluating the project. This study has developed from interest in both present day environmental concerns and more than a century of drainage improvements. In recent years stream channel modifications intended to provide better drainage and flood protection have come under serious criticism especially by environmentally oriented groups. Some of this opposition has become ex• tremely critical. For example, an article in Reader's Digest by Miller (1970) focused public attention on and aroused opposition to projects involving "dredging" and "channelization of natural streams." More recently, James Modson's (1972) article in Audubon Magazine made a critical attack on chan• nelization. Opposition and criticism have been focused to a considerable extent on projects planned and executed by the Corps of Engineers and the 2 Soil Conservation Service. Critical views have been expressed by Congress in House Report No. 93-530 (1973) issued by the 93rd Congress entitled "Stream Channelization: What Federally Financed Draglines and Bulldozers Do to Our Nation's Streams." [This report has been cited twice recently in editorials of the Champaign-Urbana Courier.] Criticism is also being felt by local drainage districts. Channel im• provement projects in east-central Illinois in the Saline Branch Drainage District in Champaign County and Scattering Fork Drainage District in Douglas County have been under verbal and legal attacks by environmentalists. Only the Scattering Fork project, now completed, has had federal technical and financial assistance from the Soil Conservation Service. The Saline Branch ditch-clearing project, still delayed by litigation, is being financed entirely from local resources. In these two cases, and in hundreds of others in Illinois, drainage im• provements consist of constructed channels which require periodic maintenance to serve their intended purpose. Recognition of these problems has had a direct influence on initiation of this study. The writers believe there is need to develop better understanding of and appreciation for the efforts of the past to organize legal drainage districts and construct these many drain• age channels. Figure 1 shows a modern dragline cleaning out a drainage chan• nel, and figure 2 shows a dredge boat used in Illinois at the turn of the century. Figure 1. Modern dragline cleaning a drainage channel. (Courtesy of the Soil Conservation Service) 3 Figure 2. A floating dredge boat at work on Camp Creek Special Drain• age District west of Seymour in Champaign County on June 30, 1907. The dipper or shovel is submerged at the end of the vertical beam. A similar dredge was used during that same period for dredging Beaver Lake and Saline Branch. (Cour• tesy Champaign County Historical Society) These hundreds of small units of government, the drainage districts, in Illinois contribute substantially to the great number of local government bodies, more than in any other state. In 1974, a period of land use changes, water resource planning, and environmental protection, drainage districts face an uncertain and hazardous future. Hopefully this study may help de• velop perspective for those who plan the future of local drainage districts and their many channels. Acknowledgments This study has been produced largely by Ralph C. Hay. A Professor of Agricultural Engineering Emeritus at the University of Illinois with long experience in land drainage, Mr. Hay was employed one-fifth time at the Illinois State Water Survey as Engineer for the one-year duration of this project. The project was carried out at the Illinois State Water Survey under the general supervision of Dr. William C. Ackermann, Chief. It was based on an idea of John B. Stall, Head of the Hydrology Section, who directed the proj• ect. Norman G. Dickey, student technical assistant, worked part-time on the project. Drafting was done by John Brother, William Motherway, and Linda Riggin of the Graphic Arts Section. Mrs. J. Loreena Ivens and Mrs. Patricia A. Motherway edited the final report. Photographs in the report not otherwise credited were taken by Ralph C. Hay. The Technical Advisory Committee to the project included Benjamin A. Jones, Jr., Associate Director, Agricultural Experiment Station, and Professor of Agricultural Engineering; and Robert M. Sutton, Director, Illinois State His• torical Survey, and Chairman, History Department, University of Illinois. Figure Z. George W. Pickels, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois until 1944, writer and teacher of drainage technology and accomplishments. No study of drainage matters in Illinois would be adequate without a special acknowledgment of the extensive early work of Professor George W. Pickels (figure 3), Civil Engineering Department of the University of Illi• nois. He was an outstanding teacher of drainage and flood control and au• thor of a text Drainage and Flood Control Engineering published in 1925 and 1941 by McGraw Hill. The text has been widely used and is still useful in 1974. Professor Pickels, with F. B. Leonard, Jr., wrote Engineering and Legal Aspects of Land Drainage in Illinois, printed in 1921 as Bulletin 42 of the Illinois State Geological Survey. It is a thorough and accurate description of many drainage district accomplishments, highly useful to this research study.