In United States federal legislation the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1916 provided Federal money for the maintenance and improvements of specified rivers and harbors across the United States. This act in particular aided the

Cape Fear River The Cape Fear River is a long blackwater river in east central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River (North Carol ...

in North Carolina and the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

in Arkansas. Most importantly, however, it authorized the scraping of a shipping channel in the St. Clair River on the border of

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

and Ontario, Canada, as well as including a provision to build a speed bump protruding several feet above the river bottom to slow the river's overall outflow. Since the St. Clair River formed the major northern part of the Great Lakes Waterway with Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River in the south, with its mouth forming the largest river delta in North America, the project was intended to be of great importance, both in terms of prestige and in improving overall trade with Canada. The Welland Canal between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, which allowed shipping traffic to bypass

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...

, had been under construction since 1913, and the St. Clair project was seen as complementary to better connect

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

with

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...

. While the foundation was laid, the project itself was never completed.

References

1916 in American law United States federal legislation Nature conservation in the United States United States public land law {{US-law-stub