Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 1 of 3 · from the scan, no model involved
‘Flood control’
RIGHT AFTER a period of excessive rain (but not flooding!) is as good a time as any to pass along — approvingly — the views contained in a recent New York Times article. The Times reports from Washington that conservationists are being joined by “hydrologists, community planners and Federal study groups (in) calling for less emphasis on man-made control structures and more reliance on ’strong zoning laws that limit settlement — and therefore damage — in flood-prone areas.”
It is an important trend for this area to be aware of, since one past-Agnes reaction in Loudoun and Prince William Counties (and to a lesser extent, in Fauquier, too) was to undertake studies of such “flood control” measures as channelization and networks of dams.
Two such studies are already under way for the Catoctin and the Bull Run. The Bull Run study is directly linked to flood damage suffered in the Manassas-Manassas Park area after last summer’s hurricane-spawned flooding. These, studies would do well to heed the Corps of Engineers itself, which now admits in such places as New Orleans that “we do not seek, nor can we ever attain, 100 per cent flood control,” and of Luna Leopold, a U.S. Geological Survey flood expert on leave to teach at the University of California, who says: “Twenty years’ of experience has taught me that there are very real limits as to what can be done through engineering to prevent floods.”
93.3%