The total loss in the drainage area of Pompton River was $350,000.
CENTRAL BASIN.
Over the Central Basin there was the usual impounding of flood waters, but the effects were not materially different from those described in the report on the flood of 1902. The damage along this basin from floods of this character is accumulative by reason of the fact that the presence of water over the land for so long a period kills the desirable feed grasses and fosters in their place the coarse meadow grass. This effect has been observed for some years, particularly since the flood of 1896. It is estimated that over the Central Basin the damage to crops and arable land alone arising from the floods of 1902 and 1903 amounts to $300,000. A statement of the damage arising from the later flood can not separately be made, as its effect upon the fertility of the meadow lands can not be determined without the experience of a planting season.
LOWER VALLEY.
The flow of the stream through the constricted channel at Little Falls and on to Great Falls at Paterson is given in the weir measurements on page 17. It was attended by comparatively large damages, the features of which were not materially different from those described in the previous report. The pumping station of the East Jersey Water Company, situated just below Little Falls dam, did not suffer as severely as during the previous flood, by reason of the fact that extensive and effective barricades were placed so as to keep a large part of the water away from the pumps. This was not accomplished in the flood of 1902. The total damage in this district amounted to nearly $200,000.
The channel contours were changed somewhat in this portion of the stream. In the river at the pumping station of the East Jersey Water Company there was completed a somewhat interesting cycle of changes, described in the following extract of a letter from Mr. G. Waldo Smith, chief engineer for the New York aqueduct commissioners, and formerly engineer and superintendent of the East Jersey Water Company:
"No better illustration of the old adage, 'The river claims its own,' could be given than that offered by the action of Passaic River at Little Falls, New Jersey, at the point where the works of the East Jersey Water Company have been constructed. These works were built between 1897 and 1900. In the course of the work the river channel for a distance of several thousand feet down stream from the power house was drained and improved, so that the head on the wheels at the ordinary stage of the river was increased about 6 feet. From the time this improvement was completed to March, 1902, through the action of the ordinary flow of water and moderate floods, this head had been reduced about one-third. The great freshet of March, 1902, cut off about another third, and the recent flood has completed the cycle and entirely wiped out the benefit due to the river improvement, and the water at the pumping station stands now at almost precisely the same level that it stood before any improvements were undertaken. New bars were formed in approximately the same location as they existed before, and, so far as possible, except for the changed conditions brought about by the building of the power station, the condition of the river is not dissimilar to that existing when the work was commenced.
"In this connection it might be well to state that a New Jersey drainage commission, in blasting out a channel below the Little Falls dam some years ago, dumped a considerable portion of the excavation in the deep water under the Morris Canal viaduct.
"The action of the two great floods, March, 1902, and October, 1903, has washed a large part of this material out of this deep hole and piled it up in the river about 300 feet below where the river widens, and reduces the force of the current.
"I have made no estimate of the amount of material deposited in the river, but offhand should say that it would be at least 100,000 yards."