Proceedings of 1st- Annual Convention (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DRAINAGE ENGINEER George M. Warren Drainage Investigations. U. S. Department of Agriculture. The message I bring you today is along somewhat different lines from the usual optimistic treatment of drainage topics. I shall find fault, but the purpose is that it may help to better work. Nearly twenty-five years ago a friend of mine for whom I was doing some engineering work said to me: '' Engineering is nothing but judicious averaging." Now, I like to think that civil engineering is something more than "judicious averaging" and believe that it is. In the last few years it has been my privilege to look with more or less care into the history, the costs, and the physical conditions of a considerable number of drainage districts. The history of the average drainage districts runs about as follows: A few earnest landowners enlist the services of a surveyor, a civil engineer or an attorney in a proposed reclamation project. Not infrequently some of these professional gentlemen have already canvassed the situation and "nursed up" a fairly favorable sentiment for drainage, or in other words, they have virtually acted the part of promoters. A survey of the lands is made, levels run, the benefits estimated, the cost of the work estimated, the annual maintenance cost guessed at, plans and a report prepared, and the proper legal authority petitioned for the organization of a drainage district. Often the petitioners meet with much opposition from disaffected landowners, entailing heavy legal and court costs, but in the end the district is quite generally established with minor changes. Commissioners are appointed, an assessment equal to the surveyor's or the engineer's estimate of cost is spread, contracts awarded and the construction work begun. Most frequently, before the...