The picture accompanying this article captured a moment when my dad demonstrated his technique of water witching. As I remember it he walked around some and found a spot where the twig started vibrating and bending down which indicated a find. He was never convinced that he possessed any unusual ability in this matter, even though not everybody can experience dowsing. I can’t. Whenever I’ve tried it the stick is just a stick, dead in my hands.
Some believe the practice can bring results, others like the U. S. Geological Survey say underground water is prevalent, and it would be hard to drill a well and not find water. The USGS makes the point that water witching cannot determine depth, quantity, or quality of the find.
We’ve all been duped into buying something only to have regrets later. It might’ve been an object, a service, or an idea that did not prove to be what we thought at first. Not so long ago prospective farmers bought into the false concept that rain follows the plow. Land agents used that theory as a selling point to bring immigrants to the west and homestead the land. Of course, an influx of people meant money would circulate and some would land in their pockets.
As a consequence of the faux-theory, many acres turned “wrong side up.” Then when droughts occurred, the wind rose and raised that land to the air in huge clouds. An example of the damage can be seen while driving through the local region known as the sandhills. Many of my relatives lie scattered about in several cemeteries in that area where we visit every year. They probably dowsed for water too. It has been turned back to grassland, and now we hear meadowlarks singing again.
Cities persist on locating and thriving on the banks of rivers. Then when these rivers flood people wonder why something isn’t done about it. There do not seem to be any wild rivers that engineers won’t tackle by building big dams to plug the flow. The depression of the 1930s came along and FDR wanted to put people back to work again. Under the direction of the Public Works Administration a dam in northeastern Montana began to bloom in the landscape to harness the Missouri River.
Over ten thousand workers came from all over to hire onto one of the construction jobs even though it paid just fifty cents an hour. Completed in 1940, it was just the first of six mainstem dams constructed on the Missouri River. This huge dam measures about 10,500 feet in length. Since no local infrastructure existed to accommodate that many workers much effort went into building housing, roads, or shopping. Government housing couldn’t be built fast enough which resulted in the rapid building of a slew of temporary shanty towns.
When those engineers were done with their work on the Fort Peck Dam they must have been itching to continue. Next up was the Garrison Dam in North Dakota. Not quite as large as the Montana dam it still measures out at two miles in length. The government town of Riverdale rose to house workers, but again it wasn’t fast enough or big enough. Several shanty towns appeared to meet the housing needs. Ever hear of Dakota City, American City, Sitka, Silver City, or Big Bend? They existed during the construction period and disappeared as fast as they were built.
The workmen wanted recreation when they weren’t working and congregated in saloons. One in Silver City employed seven bartenders and as many waitresses to serve the crowds. The manager stated, “I can remember when this was so packed people had to wait to get in.” When one of these boomtown entrepreneurs saw the end of his good fortune he pulled out for Arizona saying he was heading for another federal dam site to build another town. He was a true boomer.
The Corps of Engineers went on to build four more dams on the Missouri River: Oahe, Big Bend, Fort Randall, and Gavins Point. Now the river is well under control, right? Nope. In 2011 the river flooded with disastrous results. Because of the volume of water, the Corps had to open the spillway gates which resulted in the evacuation of 900 homes in Burleigh and Morton counties.
A meteorologist in Bismarck stated the flood was created by a “perfect storm” of conditions with a late spring thaw of very deep mountain snow coupled with a heavy rain runoff in other areas. Consequently the water level in Lake Sakakawea rose so high it threatened the dam and the Corps felt obliged to relieve pressure by opening the gates. We lived there at the time and can attest to the problems of water spilling into the city.
Building dams and providing for a reservoir requires land and stories of displaced people can be told, too. We’ll save that for next week.
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