The age of ditching and draining and devastating damage to the ecosystem of the Cache River watershed

When the upper Cache River emerges from the Shawnee Hills it intersects a wide, relatively flat valley stretching from the Ohio River on the east to the Mississippi River on the west. The Cache intersects the Ohio River not far upstream from its junction with the Mississippi River. When early French explorers first encountered the mouth of the Cache it was jammed with logs and obscured from view. Thus, it was the named Cache, meaning hidden or stored in French.

The Cache Valley, which is actually the ancient course of the Ohio River, receives water flowing into it from the Cache River and several other tributaries. During major flood events backwater from the Ohio at the mouth of the Cache River would actually flow eastward, or backward along its ancient course, 80 miles to rejoin the Ohio at the mouth of Bay Creek.

1807 Public Land Survey records defined the lower Cache basin as a “lake,” as a “pond,” as “inaccessible” and as having “water too deep to wade.” Section lines had to be surveyed on ice or not at all.

The 11,000-acre area between Bay Creek at the Ohio River and the Cache River, referred to as the Black Sough, was described in 1807 by Public Land Surveyors as a “lake,” as a “pond,” as “inaccessible” and as having  “water too deep to wade.” Section lines had to be surveyed on ice or not at all. The Cache valley downstream from the Black Slough was also described by terms such as swamp, lakes, ponds, and scatters.

This unique landmass at the junction of two of the word’s greatest rivers, with its mystifying, complex and crazy hydrology, was basically considered to be “inaccessible and drowned.” The only logical solution for accessing the valuable timber and conversion to farmland was to drain the massive wetlands.

By the 1870s sawmills began processing the plentiful timber for lumber, railroad ties, boxes and charcoal. Drainage and land-clearing efforts were beginning to bring bottomland under cultivation. But, the worst was yet to come. In 1905, A.H. Bell, Chief Engineer of the Cache River Drainage Commission explained that drainage of the “exceedingly crooked and winding…meanders” of the Cache could be increased significantly by digging a ditch straight into the Ohio.

The Post Creek cutoff was a great success at draining the land—but its effect on the ecology and hydrology of the watershed…not so much! (To be continued.)

[Historical reference credit: Cache River Area Assessment: Early Accounts of the Ecology of the Cache River Area, John White, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, 1997]

Cache River Watershed Before the Dawn of Ditching and Draining

John James Audubon painting of the Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis). In December 1810, Audubon wrote, "...thousands of parroquets, that came to roost...at night, were to me objects of interst and curiosity."

The Ohio River runs clear, thousands of Carolina parakeets are roosting in hollow trunks of large sycamore trees, wolves and panthers are plenty, bear, buffalo and beaver abound, and giant cane grows 30 to 40 feet high in brakes up to a mile wide.  Cypress-tupelo swamps and floodplain forests cover over 250,000 acres, while the remaining quarter million acres are a combination of rich hardwood forests and oak barrens. (John White, Cache River Area Assessment: Early Accounts of the Ecology of the Cache River Area, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, 1997)

This was the Cache River Basin at the very southern tip of Illinois as described by early explorers in the 1600s and 1700s. The incredible abundance of wild game and clean water began attracting settlers, which initiated a downward spiral on the unique wetlands ecosystem. In order to understand the how and why of these impacts it helps to understand a little more about the Cache and the lay of the land.

The Cache begins its 110-mile journey through the basin in northern Union County near the little town of Cobden. It meanders through the Lower Shawnee Hills in a southeasterly direction through Union County and starts heading more south than east through Johnson County until, near the little town of Belknap, it hits a wide valley carved by the ancient, former course of the Ohio River. At this point, the Cache makes an about-face and follows the old river course through the Cache valley to end its voyage at the present Ohio River between Mounds City and Cairo.

By the end of the 1800s, after settlers had worn out and abandoned the farmland in the uplands and logged all the accessible timber in the basin, they set their sites on the land and timber in lower, flatter Cache valley.

Enter the age of ditching and draining and devastating ecosystem damage. To be continued…..next week!