In recent years several measures have been implemented or proposed to conserve the water and land resources of the Arkansas River Basin. Droughts and floods have focused public attention on such conservation. Less spectacular, but nevertheless important, problems confronting conservationists include streambank erosion, channel deterioration, silting, recreational demands for water, and irrigation needs.
Congress has authorized the U. S. Corps of Engineers (by the Flood Control Act of 1941) to construct six dam and reservoir projects in the Verdigris watershed. Two of these--Hulah Reservoir in Osage County, Oklahoma, on Big Caney River, and Fall River Reservoir in Greenwood County, Kansas--have been completed. Other reservoirs authorized in the Verdigris watershed include Toronto, Neodesha, and Elk City (Table Mound) in Kansas and Oologah in Oklahoma. Construction is underway on the Toronto Reservoir and some planning has been accomplished on the Neodesha and Elk City projects.
The possibilities of irrigation projects in the Verdigris and Walnut River basins are under investigation by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (Foley, _et al._, 1955:F18).
An area of 11 square miles in Chautauqua and Montgomery Counties is included in the Aiken Creek "Pilot Watershed Project," a co-operative effort by federal, state, and local agencies to obtain information as to the effects of an integrated watershed protection program (Foley, _et al._, 1955:131).
Few accounts of fishes in the area here reported on have been published. Evermann and Fordice (1886:184) made a collection from Timber Creek at Winfield in 1884.
The State Biological Survey collected actively from 1910 to 1912, but localities visited in the Arkansas River System were limited to the Neosho and Verdigris River basins (Breukelman, 1940:377). The only collection made in the area considered here was on the Elk River in Elk County on July 11, 1912. The total species list of this collection is not known.
In the years 1924-1929 Minna E. Jewell collected at various places in central Kansas. On June 30, 1925, Jewell and Frank Jobes made collections on Timber Creek and Silver Creek in Cowley County.
Hoyle (1936:285) mentions collections made by himself and Dr. Charles E. Burt, who was then Professor of Biology at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas. Records in the Department of Biology, Kansas State Teachers College at Emporia, indicate that Dr. Burt and others made collections in the area which have not been published on.