Great Dayton Flood - Miami Conservancy District Creation

Miami Conservancy District Creation

Rather than accept defeat from the flood, the people of the Dayton area were determined to prevent a future disaster of this magnitude. Led by Patterson’s vision for a managed watershed district, on March 27, 1913, Governor Cox appointed people to the Dayton Citizens Relief Commission. In May, the commission conducted a 10-day fundraiser which collected over $2,000,000 (in 1913 dollars) to fund the flood control effort. They hired hydrological engineer Arthur Morgan from St. Cloud, Minnesota who later worked on flood plain projects in Pueblo, Colorado and the Tennessee Valley Authority, to come up with an extensive plan to protect Dayton from future floods.

Morgan hired nearly 50 engineers to analyze the Miami Valley watershed, precipitation patterns, and determine the flood volume. They analyzed European flood data for information about general flooding patterns. Based on this analysis, Morgan presented eight different flood control plans to the City of Dayton officials in October 1913. In the end, the city selected a plan based on the flood control system in the Loire Valley in France, consisting of five earthen dams and modifications to the river channel through Dayton. The dams would have conduits to release a limited amount of water, and a wider river channel would use larger levees supported by a series of training levees. In addition, flood storage areas behind the dams would be used as farmland between floods. Morgan’s goal was to develop a flood plan that would handle 140% of the water from the 1913 flood. The analysis had determined the river channel boundaries for the expected 1,000 year major floods, and all business located in that area would be relocated.

With the support of Governor Cox, Dayton attorney John McMahon worked on drafting the Vonderheide Act or the Ohio Conservancy Law in 1914. The Act allowed local governments to define conservancy districts for flood control. Controversial elements of the Act gave local governments the right to raise funds for the civil engineering efforts through taxes, and granted eminent domain to support the purchase or condemnation of the necessary lands for dams, basins, and flood plains. The Ohio legislature passed the Act in 1914 and within days after Governor Cox signed it into law, the Miami Conservancy District was created with Morgan appointed as its first president.

The constitutionality of the Act was challenged by a lawsuit brought by a landowner impacted by eminent domain in Orr v. Allen, and attempts were made to amend it through the Garver-Quinlisk bills. The legal battles continued from 1915-1919 and reached the US Supreme Court, but in the end, the law was upheld.

Since its inception, the Miami Conservancy District has protected the region from flooding over 1,500 times. Ongoing expenses for maintaining the district comes from property tax assessments collected annually from all property holders in the district. Properties closer to the river channel and the natural flood plain pay more than properties further away.