From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for March 9, 1974:

“Good Farm Acreage Steadily Toppling Into Kansas River” was the top headline on today’s front page of the Journal-World. Several local farmers were listed as losing their land to the Kaw, including Larry Schaake (who had lost an estimated 25 acres), Homer Altenbernd (about 15), Bob Schellack of Linwood (14), and Bob Lothholz, Eudora (an estimated 15-20). A township road near the Lothholz farm, once thought to be safely distant from the river, was now only 50 feet from the bank. The farmers said that, with the exception of the flood years of 1903 and 1951, the erosion had never been as steady and as rapid as it was this year, and they blamed Perry Lake, 16 miles northwest of Lawrence. Bob McIntyre, district conservationist for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, explained that the reservoir was keeping the river “from three-fourths to two-thirds full” during most of the winter and that erosion took place much more rapidly at higher water levels. The land that was being carried away from the farmers was sometimes being deposited on someone else’s land, but was just as often ending up as sandbars and islands, McIntyre said.