The Basis of the Case against Reservoirs for Mississippi Flood Control

There has been a fifty-year controversy between the proponents of reservoir control and of levee control for Mississippi floods. The writer is not attempting to settle that issue. He does not know the aggregate possibilities for reservoir control, and any estimate made without very extensive and thoroughgoing investigation can be but a guess. It is a fundamental axiom of sound engineering that when great issues are at stake, no conclusion of large importance should be left to chance. Actual and definite studies of actual cases are necessary. Until they have been carried to a point where, as nearly as is reasonably possible, all major possibilities have been conclusively determined, there is no adequate basis for far-reaching engineering policy.