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Show Cedar Chamber Studies Flood Control A meeting, called by Dr. John Beal, president of the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce, for the purpose of completing formulated formulat-ed plans for submission of an application for federal assistance under the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, was held at Hotel EleEscalante Wednesday Wed-nesday evening. At this meeting were representatives represen-tatives of the Chamber, the Iron County Water Board, Soil Conservation Conser-vation officials and representatives representa-tives from the United States Forest For-est Service. I For the sake of expedience in ithe application for survey data it was unanimously agreed that ! papers should be drawn up im- mediately and submitted to the 'governor for consideration. As a result, a meeting was called for 1 a. m. today, Thursday, to submit sub-mit the application and to obtain ob-tain sponsors and co-sponsors for the proposed flood and watershed water-shed protection of Cedar City's Coal Creek area. Will Attend Meeting At this meeting will be Charo-Kor Charo-Kor nf rnmmprcc sooretarv Whit ney Jensen; Lee Carlson of the Soil Conservation Service, and Leland Heywood, representing the Forest Service. Data will be prepared and submitted in an initial move toward federal aid in a flood control program for jthis area. Besides the Chamber of Commerce, the District Soil 'Conservation committee, irrigation irriga-tion companies and land owners will be asked to sponsor the move. This application will simply ask the governor to release federal fed-eral funds, already allocated to i the state, to study the Coal Creek , proposition. Actual work and for- !,,iit nlint uill nnt takp UlUiaitrit ' i n 1 1 -' ' . - - i place until after the survey is' made, Dr. Beal Indicated. Many residents are aware of the preliminary report on "Watershed "Wa-tershed Conditions and Flood Potential" on Coal Creek filed! in July, 1953 by A. R. Croft fol-1 lowing the large flash flood that ! covered a considerable amout of land In Cedar Valley. Report Recapitulations Here briefly is a recapitulation of that report: Watershed conditions: condi-tions: A large part of Coal Creek drainage is in extremely unsatisfactory un-satisfactory condition from the watershed standpoint. This unsatisfactory un-satisfactory condition is due to two causes (1) natural flood source area of about such as .Cedar Breaks apd (2) flood 'source areas which have been I brought about by Ihe destruction , of vegetation, soil and the devel-' devel-' opment of a gully system by .which rainstorm runoff is quick-jly quick-jly concentrated in major stream channels. In reference to the Cedar Breaks area, Croft stated: This is of Geologic origin and nothing can be done to properly remedy the situation. However, he continued, down- (Continued on Back Page) FLOOD CONTROL (Continued from Page One) stream measures appear feasible. feasi-ble. Within the Coal Creek area approximately ap-proximately 26,500 acres are privately pri-vately owned. These owners, if the project continues, would be responsible for a portion of the cost under the federal act. Other land owners include the Forest Service, 15,000; Bureau of Land Management, 5,000, and the National Na-tional Monument, 4,000, for a to-tol to-tol acreage of approximately 51,000 Other Parties Concerned Other Interested parties would be individual land owners within with-in the city, such as the Southern South-ern Utah Power Company, who maintains a power unit in the mouth of the canyon, and possibly pos-sibly the Utah Parks Company, plus individual land owners and farmers of Cedar Valley. Future developments and action ac-tion of the governor will be reported re-ported in the near future. According Accord-ing to Heywood, the governor will consider the applications on Nov. f Croft's reports summarize the urgency of the project: The potential po-tential for damage by rain storm ( foods from Coal Creek is considered con-sidered to be very great. Floods like those of the past may be ex pected to encroach further and further onto the irrigated lands at the canyon mouth, and to make the maintenance of irrigation irriga-tion diversion works and canals a serious and costly problem. Unless the potential for runoff on the watershed Is lessened In the immediate future, it is reasonable rea-sonable to assume that much of the farm land close to the canyon will be rendered almost unusable. |