10
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, May 16, 1968
Area soon to be inundated
Ozawkie gives way to Perry Reservoir
GAUNT REMAINS
Rv Diane Lazzarino
Ozawke, Kansas, soon will be under 150 feet of water! It will become part of the massive Perry Reservoir.
The skeletal structure of the school building waits to be buried by the water in Perry Reservoir.
A small town that dates back in earliest Kansas history, Ozawkie is snuggled in the hills in mid-Jefferson county—approximately 25 miles northeast of Topeka. Nearby small communities include Perry to the south, Meriden to the west, and Valley Falls to the north.
The drive around the barren streets is, indeed, a sad one as you look at the small white frame homes, some partially dismantled where useable lumber, shingles, door and window frames have been removed, and the crumbled foundations left when entire homes have been moved away. The feeling begins to creep over you that you're attending a wake knowing that soon the body properly will be buried.
The business district sprinkled along the highway leading into town is just as ghost-like as the skeleton that remains of the old red brick school building.
The reservoir that will soon cover the small community is a unit on the Kansas/Missouri River Basins to be used for flood control and related water resources development. It will cover, at its peak level, 25,000 acres and have a shoreline of 160 miles.
It's so strange to walk along a sidewalk partially covered with long grass that leads to a gate with flowers blooming on either side of a fence from a long ago planted garden, through the gate and stand looking at a gaping hole that once served as a cellar for someone's home.
The dam is constructed of rolled earthfill, with a concrete core. It is 7,720 feet long and its maximum height above streambed is 120 feet.
Controlling a drainage area of about 1,120 square miles in the more humid section of Kansas, Perry will protect 3,200 acres in the Delaware River basin below the dam and will contribute to the protection of 53,000 acres along the Kansas River and additional areas along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
The Kansas City's, Perry, Lawrence, Bonner Springs, and other communities will share in these benefits. In the 1951 flood, resulting from the uncontrolled Kansas River, these areas suffered a substantial portion of the nearly one billion dollars in damages which were experienced in the Kansas River and the lower Missouri River basins. Because of its strategic location, Perry Reservoir will effect important control in reducing
flood crests along the lower Kansas River.
In addition to temporary impoundment of flood-waters, the reservoir also will store on a more permanent basis a conservation pool which will be available for supplementation of flows for downstream uses, such as water supply and water quality, and for recreation.
The recreational possibilities of Perry Dam is one of the bright spots for the people of Jefferson County. Although many problems are involved in the future, the expected millions visitors a year (40,000 a day on a peak weekends), by its third year of operation will mean a big boom to all of Jefferson County.
Public agencies, both federal and state, will build eight major access areas to the water for public use. The dam building agency also purchased a collar of 300 feet of land from the flood pool shoreline—this strip of land will guarantee the establishment of lakeshore development for the future years.
Above this land, private landowners will be able to improve their land for recreation use by the visiting public. Such development will be the key to the future of the population living in this area.
The Kansas State Park and Resources Authority has leased 1,700 acres from the U.S. Corps of Engineers to create state park areas, which will be opened late next summer or in the early fall. The state's five-year development plan calls for two recreation areas on the west shore where picnic and camping sites will be built.
At least eight business firms already are developing subdivisions near the huge lake. These will involve more than 700 acres. These subdivisions call not only for housing but such things as roads and streets, sewer and utility lines, swimming pools, boat rampss—all the facilities needed for people bent on water sports. Water sports have become big business in Kansas with the construction of the numerous reservoirs and lakes connected with this conservation project.
Both the state and KU, under the direction of George Beal, professor of architecture at KU, have counseled with leaders from the eight effected communities within Perry's reach so that they may make optimum use of the opportunities that will be afforded them.
One real estate developer, whose activities have led him to other communities in the area of big reservoirs, said that Jefferson County is among the first community to have gone into such thorough advance planning with local people taking the lead in meeting their problems.
KU Extension is among the most active in the development of the program. It established the Jefferson County Community Project with an office at Oskaloosa and two full-time staff members.
To date, steps have been taken to beautify these communities, and because of the reservoir's location to several large areas of population, water recreation will bring in a flood of visitors. Rescue stations on the water facilities as well as for highway safety also will be needed. The added problems of health and sanitation are being resolved with the assistance of the University.
But Ozawkie's problem loomed the largest for it was being completely displaced. The small town had to be moved, and through a citizens' committee land was purchased from the Corps of Engineers on a site approximately two miles from old Ozawkie. The citizens banned together to eliminate the possibility of one or two persons' selling lots at a profit.
Secured from the Corps just after the activation of the construction of Perry Dam is situated on the dam shore, it will provide a financial and beautifying asset to the new community. The Ozawke Development Co. is a non-profit corporation. It raised
$1,000 needed to make the original land purchase from the Corps by selling non-dividend shares at $20 each.
For the first of two fifteen-day periods, an "effected" person
could buy one lot for $500 down. An "effected" person was one who had been dislocated by Perry Reservoir. During a second fifteen-day period these persons could then buy two more lots.
Research worth $8 million a year
By Paula Myers
What topic includes everything from "The Slave Personality" to a study of "The Pennsylvanian Coal Age Fossils," from an analysis of Hawaiian Head Hair" to "An Edition of the Notebooks and Prose of Walt Whitman""
What topic encompasses most KU teachers, while utilizing more than $8 million?
RESEARCH ..
is the careful, systematic, patient study and investigation in some field of knowledge, which is undertaken to establish facts.
Research is the way to keep in tune with the modern world, to add new information to knowledge and "to remain intellectually alive." It is a way of furthering the professional development of the individual and of promoting the longer-range goals of the University.
PART OF A TOWN'S DEATH
This home is left half-standing as mute reminder of town that used to be.
Research is growing on our campus. The total amount of money given by agencies increased from $7,631,078 in 1965-'66 to $8,549,554 in 1967. These agencies include the National Institute of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Office of Education, Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, U.S. Army agencies, Office of Naval Research, U.S. Air Force agencies, other federal agencies, private and industry and Kansas state agencies.
Sixty-one per cent of all sponsored research at KU is conducted under the grants from the NIH and the NSF. Nevertheless, while the amount of NIH grants is up, the money from the NSF decreased, by $144,000, for a second year, as did project funds from NASA. The AEC and the Department of Defense began cutting back on basic researchgrants some four years ago. Faculty members who regularly have gotten support from NSF or NIH are finding the competition with their colleagues increasingly stiff.
The University has had only one significant slowdown in research development since World War II—from 1952 to 54, when the Korean War disrupted pattens of university research.
The most remarkable increase in funding came from the Office of Education, from $693,434 in 1965-'66 to $925,025 in 1967. This trend is likely to continue unless pressures from the Vietnam War become insupportable.
The over-all growth of agency funds moved just as slowly in the early 1960's as it did in 1967.
Many departments on the campus have suffered fund cutbacks in research-dollar volume—Botany, Chemistry and Petroleum Engineering, the College as a whole, Economics, Entomology, Geology, Speech and Drama, and Zoology. On the other hand Anthropology, Chemistry, Child Research, Education, English, Extension, Geography, Human Development and Family Life, Mathematics, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Medicinal Chemistry, the Museum of Natural History, Pharmacy, Political Science, Radiation Biophysics, Social Work, Sociology, and Slavic Languages and Literatures have registered increases, some as much as doubling.
Not only have the number and amount of some grants increased, but there has been an increase in the number of new proposals. This is due to a heightened consciousness on the part of faculty members that research, no less than teaching, is an important part of their responsibility.
It is difficult to comprehend the wide range of research in progress at KU. To show a microcosmic portion of the macrocosmic research world here, four professors have been interviewed on their research projects.
They are Ellis Kerley, associate professor of anthropology—"An Analysis of Hawaiian Head Hair"; Robert Baxter, professor of botany—"The Pennsylvanian Coal Age Fossils"; Edward Grier, professor of English—"An Edition of the Notebooks and Prose of Walt Whitman." and Norman Yetman, assistant professor of sociology—"The Slave Personality."