The Great Kickapoo river Flood of 1978 - Pt. IV

When the story of the La Farge dam controversy was broadcast on the CBS Evening News on Friday, October 13, 1978, a new chapter in the dam story seemed to unfold.  Introduced as “The Great Kickapoo Loggerhead” by news-anchor Roger Mudd, the video story as told by CBS newsman Bob Faw was compelling and emotional.  Seeing Ward Rose, Lonnie Muller and Bernice Schroeder relate details of the heartbreaking process of the dam project for many Kickapoogians affected most people who watched it.

            One of those affected was another CBS newsman, Charles Osgood.  Osgood, who hosted a radio show on CBS called “The Osgood File” wrote a poem about the dam project on the Kickapoo and read it over the air on his radio show later in October.  It is a long piece, as Osgood’s poems tend to be, but I want to include his ending here.  He wrote:

It’s been 43 years since the U.S.A.

Began to help Kickapoo out that way.

They spent nineteen million dollars and they built their road

And a great new bridge, as we already showed.

And they let all that farmland go to seed,

Where today there’s that acreage and sundry weed.

Still, the folks there in Kickapoo have the gall

To complain, showing little gratitude at all.

Congress got impatient and cut off the dough.

Building was stopped about three years ago.

The valley is frustrated, the people mad.

They’d settle now for what they one time had.

Uncle Sam’s embarrassed and his face is red.

And this week somebody in the White House said,

“Tell you what we’ll do in this Administration:

We’ll assign a task force in the situation.”

Nice of those folks in the capital city

To come right out like that and appoint a committee.

And who knows what that committee will find?

Whether to quit while they’re still behind,

Or to finish the dam for several million more

That they started out planning in the days of yore.

Well, we should tell you that which everyone in Kickapoo knows:

They still have the floods.  Oh, they have lots of those.

Plenty of flood damage – my, oh, my!

Fifty million dollars just this past July.

“I’m angry,” says a citizen, “indeed, I am!”

Now you know why they invented the expression: DAMN!

Soon after the CBS News coverage of the dam project by Bob Faw and Charles Osgood, President Jimmy Carter made the official announcement of the first public meeting of the joint federal-state task force to study options for flood control and economic development for the Kickapoo Valley.  Perhaps the features in the nationally broadcast CBS pieces had hurried the process along, perhaps not.

Bob Faw finished his video report on the La Farge dam project by saying, “a flood control project that controls absolutely nothing”.  Would the latest task-force study provide some answers for the dam at La Farge to control something?

Actually, many people in the community of La Farge were sick and tired of all the studies done on the Kickapoo Valley.  President Carter’s call for a new study elicited groans from many in the community, regardless of their position on the dam project.  Kickapoogians were weary of studies.  The problem of flooding in the Kickapoo Valley had been studied to death over a period that stretched back to the 1930’s.

President Carter’s Task Force on Kickapoo River Flood Damage Reduction held its first public meeting On November 16, 1978.  The meeting was held at the high school gymnasium in Gays Mills with nearly 200 people in attendance.  Colonel Ted Bishop of the Corps of Engineers acted as moderator for the meeting which featured representatives from various federal and state agencies.  In addition, Senator Gaylord Nelson also attended the meeting.

            In his prepared remarks, Senator Nelson told the gathering that the dam project at La Farge was dead.  “A dam is out of the question,” Nelson said.  “The project that is currently authorized fails to meet the administration’s economic and ecological tests.  The task force must develop a comprehensive, valley-wide plan that provides a higher degree of flood protection for many more residents.”  Senator Nelson added, “The task force’s review is the valley’s best chance.  The battle over the dam is finished.  We must move forward if anything is to be accomplished.”

            Colonel Bishop told the gathering that the Task Force was formed to find ways to relieve flood damage in the Kickapoo Valley without using structures such as dams or levees.  During the proceedings, Bishop continually asked people who were speaking to not discuss the dam project at La Farge as a possible option.  However, Col. Bishop’s admonitions had little affect on those who testified.

            Many people from La Farge spoke at the meeting.  Bernice Schroeder, speaking as a representative of KLOUT, spoke in favor of completing the authorized project and completing the dam at La Farge.  Schroeder said it was “a broken promise” to the former landowners if the dam was not completed.  She thought that if the dam was not completed then the lands should be returned to the former owners.

            Also speaking from La Farge for completion of the dam project were Roger Andrew, Bernard and Jeanne Smith, Palmer Munson, Olive Nelson and Esther Ziebell.  Palmer Munson, speaking as town chairman of the Town of Stark, spoke of the tax hardships for the people living in the township due to the government buying so much land for the dam project.  Munson also advocated for the completion of the dam, as did people from other places in the Kickapoo Valley.

Jim Coxe from Wauzeka called for the completion of a dry dam at La Farge, saying that such a structure would benefit everyone in the Kickapoo Valley during floods.  Carl Oppreicht of the Gays Mills Flood Avoidance Committee spoke in favor of construction of small retention dams along tributaries running into the Kickapoo River as well as completion of a dry dam at La Farge.

Vernon County Board member George Nettum admonished the members of the Task Force for the failure to complete the dam at La Farge.  He called the dam project the “biggest fiasco ever” and encouraged the Task Force members to include the completion of the dam at La Farge in future plans.

The Task Force recommendations did call for an expanded flood insurance program for villages in the Kickapoo Valley, crop insurance for farmers along the river, a valley-wide warning and preparedness plan, evacuation/relocation plans for Soldiers Grove, flood proofing and a levee system for Gays Mills and a federal/local effort to clear the river and tributaries of snags and debris.

However, the preliminary recommendations released by the Presidential Task Force in December included nothing about the completion of the dam at La Farge.  As Senator Nelson had said repeatedly throughout 1978, the dam project at La Farge was dead.    

And so it went.  For the next decade a variety of efforts were made to do something with the partially completed dam at La Farge.  Many politicians at the state and federal level tried to move the dam project in some way towards some sort of conclusion.  But it never happened.  “A flood control project that controls absolutely nothing.”

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            To finish, let me write that a completed Corps of Engineers’ flood control dam north of La Farge that should have been completed in the mid-1970’s would have greatly lessoned the devastation of the flood of 1978, then the massive destruction from the flood of 2008, and now the misery of the flood of 2017.  That is what the dam was designed to do. 

The finished dam would not have curtailed any flood waters on Otter or Bear Creeks nor saved anybody’s washed-out driveway along those streams. The completed dam would not have saved Ontario from the ravages of the recent flood in July of 2017.  But we should also remember that five retention dams for the Ontario area were to be built as part of the project at La Farge.  If built, those retention dams would have lessoned the impact of the recent floodwaters on Ontario.

In the end, by not completing the dam or any of the ancillary parts of the federal project like the retention dams, the Kickapoo Valley was left to its own devises to cope with devastating floods.

The Great Kickapoo River Flood - Pt. III

The political fallout after the Great Kickapoo River Flood of 1978 was almost as prolific as the floodwaters.  State and federal elected officials were tripping over their wagging tongues as they tried to justify and even rationalize the failure of the unfinished dam at La Farge to have an impact on the flood.  Since the dam was supposed to have been completed several years before that great flood of the summer of 1978, and since the original purpose of the dam was for flood control, politicians who had delayed the dam’s completion had some explaining to do.  Looking back at those months that followed the Kickapoo Valley flood, it is interesting to note the variety of responses from the politicians.

As soon as the waters of the Kickapoo had settled back into its banks, politicians flocked to the valley to assess the damages.  Senator William Proxmire was the first to appear and met with municipal leaders in most of the Kickapoo Valley villages.  Vernon County Sheriff Geoff Banta escorted the Senator around the Kickapoo Valley under directions from the Federal Marshall’s office in Madison.  In La Farge, Proxmire talked with Village President Ted Erickson, La Farge Fire Chief Phil Stittleburg, KLOUT leader Roger Gabrielson and LaVerne Campbell, chairman of the Citizens For The Kickapoo. 

Despite the damages caused by the flood, Proxmire still refused to back the dam project because of high costs.  “Proxie” remained steadfast in his opposition to the completion of the project.  The Senior Senator from Wisconsin, whose withdrawal of his support for the dam project in September 1975 was the beginning of the end for the completion of the project, proved to be the first politician to visit the Kickapoo Valley after the flood.  But he was not the last.

Wisconsin Governor Martin Schreiber also toured the Kickapoo Valley soon after Senator Proxmire.  Schreiber had declared the entire area of southwestern Wisconsin, including the Kickapoo Valley, a disaster area even before the floodwaters had finished receding.  As Schreiber toured the valley, he paid particular attention to the damages in Soldiers Grove.  The Governor, who previously had been non-committal on finishing the dam at La Farge for even flood control, said soon after his visit to the Kickapoo Valley that he would support such a move if there were “a clear and concise showing that the dam is the option for flood control, for protection of property and people”.

1978 was an election year and Schreiber was a candidate for governor.  Two years earlier, Schreiber had been elected as Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor, under then Governor Patrick Lucey.  When Lucey was appointed to be U.S. Ambassador to Mexico by President Jimmy Carter in April 1977, Schreiber became governor.  Although Schreiber was viewed as more of a friend to the dam project than Governor Lucey had been, Schreiber still would not endorse the completion of the dam.

  Governor Schreiber faced a challenge in his own party for the gubernatorial post.  David Carley, a Democrat running against Governor Schreiber, also toured the Kickapoo Valley in late July and criticized Schreiber for his lack of action on the dam project prior to the flooding.

  3^rd District Congressman Al Baldus also came to the Kickapoo Valley after the flood.  Long a proponent of the “Dry Dam” option, which called for completing the dam at La Farge (without a lake) for flood protection, Baldus continued to call for the completion of the La Farge dam as a part of any future flood control solution for the Kickapoo Valley.

Senator Gaylord Nelson, long an opponent of the dam project, did not visit the Kickapoo Valley after the flood, but his office did release a statement saying that a completed dam at La Farge would only have made a 5% difference in the severity of the flood.  Where the Senator’s office found that miniscule number remained a mystery, although it was later attributed to the Corps of Engineers.  Nelson’s 5% damage figure and the downplaying of the value of a completed dam at La Farge for flood control brought much consternation in the La Farge area.  Local journalist Pete Beckstrand perhaps voiced the sentiment best when addressing some statements made by Senator Nelson’s aide, Jeff Nedelman.

Writing for the La Farge Epitaph newspaper, Pete Beckstrand found the statements from Nelson’s office amusing.  In his “Dam Lies” column in the July 12, 1978 issue, Beckstrand wrote, “It is a different world out there in the District of Columbia and nothing has made that more clear than Gaylord Nelson’s latest one-act play ‘Aide Jeff Nedelman Fires Wildly In The Dark With Both Guns Blazing’.  Nedelman’s latest poke is that the flooding at Soldiers Grove was so severe because of Otter Creek and Bear Creek below La Farge.  The Milwaukee Journal dutifully took that down and thousands of its readers no doubt believe it even though anyone who went through the flood just laughs at such statements.  It’s as if the 12,900 cubic feet of water coming through La Farge every second had nothing to do with the situation.” 

Beckstrand went on to add, “The Grove dikes held back what the creeks had to offer, including the West Fork, for two days.  But when the wall of water came down the valley from Norwalk, Ontario, La Farge, Viola, Readstown; that is what went over their dikes.  That water could be accurately timed as it went downriver from town to town.  That is the water that would have been held by the La Farge Dam.” 

Later, the Corps of Engineers came up with very different numbers for the impact of a completed dam at La Farge on the 1978 flood.  Corps estimates on the total damages from the flood in Vernon, Richland and Crawford Counties was $20 million.  An additional $7 million in damages occurred in Monroe County, but a dam at La Farge would not have affected those damages.  However, the Corps estimated that with a completed dam at La Farge and the accompanying levee systems at Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills, 80% of the flood damages to Kickapoo towns would have been avoided.  With only the dam in place and with no downstream levees, the Corps still predicted a decrease of 63% in flood damages.  The Corps also contended that the dike failure at Soldiers Grove, which devastated that town’s business district, would not have happened with a completed and functioning dam at La Farge in place.

In August, President Carter called for a joint federal-state task force to study the problems of flood control and economic development for the Kickapoo Valley.  The announcement came after a meeting with Senators Nelson and Proxmire and Congressman Baldus.  Governor Schreiber immediately offered state support for the task force.  Senator Nelson said, “The task force may provide our last chance for a comprehensive valley-wide solution to the problems along the Kickapoo”. 

Nelson continued to resist any attempts at finishing the dam at La Farge since President Carter also had vigorously opposed the project.  Nelson said, “Moreover, the dam would have violated federal and state water quality standards and its construction would have been halted by lawsuits.  Beyond all that, it would have provided no more than 5% flood abatement to Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills.  The dam was clearly not the answer to the real problems facing the Kickapoo Valley.”  Despite statistics to the contrary, Senator Nelson stuck to his 5% CYA number regarding the dam’s potential reduction of flood damages.

On Friday, October 13, 1978 a story on the La Farge dam project was shown on the national broadcast of the CBS Evening News.  CBS anchorman Roger Mudd introduced the video piece as “The Great Kickapoo Loggerhead” and newsman Bob Faw concluded the piece by describing the dam project as “a flood control project that controls absolutely nothing”. 

Follow The Money

On October 13, 1978, the CBS Evening News aired a segment on their national news broadcast about the La Farge Dam Project. The segment was researched and narrated by Bob Faw, a reporter who worked for the CBS affiliate station in Chicago. Faw had been canoeing on the Kickapoo River earlier in the fall with his family when they paddled past the dam tower north of La Farge. The concrete monolith piqued the veteran newsman’s interest, so when he landed in La Farge, he asked about the tower and talked to some people in town. They told Faw about the long history of the dam project, including the great Kickapoo River flood of the previous July.

Faw thought that he might have a good human-interest piece for his station, so he ran it by his boss when he returned to Chicago. Soon Faw returned to La Farge with a cameraman and started conducting interviews and shooting footage of the Valley. A one-day stay turned into two and more footage was shot for the piece. The CBS national desk heard about the story of the Kickapoo dam at La Farge and it was scheduled for the big show to be broadcast nationwide. Local residents Bernice Schroeder, Lonnie Muller and Ward Rose were featured in the broadcast segment, telling of the turmoil that the project caused to people living in the Kickapoo Valley.

There was another interview that Faw included on that CBS piece that drew my attention when viewing it recently. Colonel Forrest Gay, the head of the Corps of
Engineer’s district office in St. Paul at that time was interviewed for the television story and he answered a question pertaining to the escalating costs of the La Farge project. The costs for the project had been one of the reasons why the dam project had been stopped. In 1975, Senator Bill Proxmire had cited those escalating costs as to why he had withdrawn his support for the dam at La Farge. Without Proxmire’s support in the U.S. Senate, the project was essentially stopped.

When talking to Colonel Gay, Faw wanted to know why the costs for the La Farge Dam Project had gone up so much. Interestingly, the Corps’ Colonel laid the blame on the State of Wisconsin. He cited the insistence of the Wisconsin DOT on “high quality highways and bridges” for the project area as driving up the costs, and the DNR’s demands for enhanced recreational facilities for the La Farge Lake as another contributing factor. Gay said that those kinds of add-ons, mandated by the state, had helped drive up the cost of the project to more than $55-million. The Colonel’s contribution to the CBS piece is another interesting part of the story about the financial costs for the dam project.

Last time, we began to look at the financial reasons that included those escalating costs, for the stopping of the La Farge Dam Project. Financial, environmental and political are the three general categories of reasons to look at when explaining the stoppage of the project. Previously it had been mentioned that the dam project at La Farge had started as a $14.5-million project when first authorized by Congress in 1962, but had grown to a cost of over $51-million in 1975 when Senator Proxmire withdrew his support. Despite what the Colonel said, some better roads and bridges along with nice bathrooms and picnic areas at some lakeside campsites doesn’t quite explain the difference between $15-million and $50+-million. So, what does?

That man in the movie, you remember him hiding in the shadows of the parking garage, said, “Follow the money”. “Deep Throat” might have had good advice for those Washington Post reporters in the Watergate Scandal, but it is not so easy when following the money in this winding tale about the dam on the Kickapoo. Following the money when looking at the escalating costs of the La Farge Dam Project still might not lead one to a final answer. One problem with the trail of following the money is that the books might have been cooked from the get-go.

When the Corps of Engineers plans for a project like the dam project at La Farge, they have to be careful that the costs of the project do not outweigh the benefits. A benefit/cost (b/c) ratio was used when figuring the financial viability of projects such as the one on the Kickapoo River. In the end, for the project to be justified and more importantly to be authorized by Congress, the benefits for the project have to be financially greater than the costs. The Corps knew about how much the dam project would cost, that is a fixed cost that can be readily arrived at using standard projections. It is important to remember that by keeping actual costs low, the Corps can fit projects within a positive benefit/cost ratio more easily.

The price tag on the benefits for a project like the dam at La Farge is somewhat more elusive to figure. The Corps has to figure in the savings from Kickapoo River flood losses, which would be prevented with the dam being in place. Historic flood cost averages on the Kickapoo have to be used to establish these dollar amounts. Figures have to be developed for flood losses in agriculture as well as damages to houses and businesses in the villages along the Kickapoo. Local government costs for bridge and road damage also have to be included. Obviously, the more flood damages and costs that you can list, which then can become benefits of the dam’s flood control, the better it will be for the b/c ratio of the project.

The same is true with recreational benefits. The more money spent by those folks coming to visit Lake La Farge, the greater the dollar amount for the benefits for the project. If the lake increases the economic base of the Valley, those numbers have to be included into the ratio. The problem with the recreation and tourism dollars is that they are not hard and fast numbers. To arrive at a figure for the dollar value of those benefits, some extrapolations have to be made. Extrapolations are like gazing into a crystal ball; what you see may depend on what you want to see. What you see doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s actually there. There’s a certain amount of hocus-pocus in this whole process of developing a favorable b/c ratio for a dam project like the one at La Farge.

In the late 1950’s, when the Corps was putting the numbers together on the La Farge project, they were having a hard time getting a favorable benefit/cost ratio. For every dollar spent on the project, the Corps had to show a benefit return greater than that dollar cost. If your cost is $1, your benefit must be greater than $1. A b/c ratio of $1.30 to $1 is an excellent one for the project to move ahead, but a ratio of $.80 to $1 will stop it in its tracks. Remember that the benefit return in dollars has to be higher than your cost of construction. In the early planning stages of the dam at La Farge, the Corps was having trouble with getting a favorable b/c ratio for the project.

Part of the problem was the economic reality of the Kickapoo Valley. The region has traditionally been a poor, economically undeveloped area of Wisconsin. We’re not talking Beverly Hills when we look at La Farge and Viola will never be mistaken for Bel Air. There had not been any mansions washed away with the Kickapoo floods, which is too bad. Mansions washed away in Kickapoo floodwaters would have meant higher figures when calculating damage costs. The more property that was lost or damaged in Kickapoo floods meant better numbers for that b/c ratio because those flood costs turn into benefits when the dam prevents the damage from happening. But the Kickapoo Valley was a relatively poor region, so the flood damage numbers didn’t add up as well as other flooded places might. It’s easier to build dams for richer areas and communities than the Kickapoo Valley.

Remember that the Corp’s Kickapoo Valley project, with a dam at La Farge and levees at Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills, was strictly a flood-control project at its inception. The levees for those two down-river villages were added to the project by the Corps to enhance the flood damage numbers. By adding the levees, the flood damage benefit numbers for the two villages could be added to the total to enhance the b/c ratio.

So if the dollar benefits for the flood prevention of the dam and levees did not exceed the costs for building those structures, the Corps had a problem on its hands. To get a better b/c ratio, the Corp’s planners had to bring in some more benefits to exceed the cost of the construction of the dam and levees. The benefits to be added to the ratio came in the form of recreation and tourism.

Recreation was an easy addition to such a project as the dam at La Farge. Besides providing flood protection, dams back up water that can be used by people for recreational purposes. Fishing and boating is a natural set of recreational activities in such a water reservoir. With a little work along the shores of the reservoir, swimming, picnicking and camping can be added as well. You need people to come to the water, so the Corps calculated usage from local people in the area of western Wisconsin. That number of people would be your base group because they would have little distance to travel. By expanding the distance traveled to places like Minneapolis, Dubuque, Rockford, Madison and Chicago, the Corps could add more dollars to the recreational benefits and make the La Farge project more feasible. The more people that could be projected to come to La Farge to recreate in the waters behind the dam and spend some money locally in the process, the better for the Corps’ plans. By adding these recreational benefits to the dam project at La Farge, the b/c ratio changed to a greater amount of benefits received than the money spent on construction of the dam. The ratio was tight, but by 1960, the Corps was ready to go to Congress for money to build.

The 1960 Census threw a monkey wrench in the dam work plans. When the census was released, it showed that most of western Wisconsin had decreased in population from the previous census. The village of La Farge as an example had lost seventy-two people from the 1950 census, while the Town of Stark, where the dam and reservoir would be located had lost 197 in the ten-year period. The numbers were the same for most of the rest of the Kickapoo Valley, Vernon and Crawford Counties and most of the surrounding area. Less people in that area meant less people to recreate on the waters above the La Farge dam. That base group for potential recreation dollars spent on the reservoir at La Farge had shrunk with the new population numbers. Due to the shrinking local population and its potential recreational dollars, the benefit/cost ratio of the dam project was off kilter again, with the costs greater than the benefits. (The decrease in the population in the Kickapoo Valley also affected the flood protection benefits. Less people in the Valley meant less potential loss from floods, which adversely affected the ratio.) The Corps had to come up with some new numbers to make the project go.

With new calculations for the lower populations numbers so greatly affecting the b/c ratio, the Corps’ planners looked to cut on the costs side. Previously, the development of the four recreation areas that were to be around the lake was a cost figured for the federal government to pay. Another part of the costs originally to be assumed by the federal government of the 1962 project was expenses incurred to relocate roads and utilities around the reservoir. The section of Highway 131, which ran along the Kickapoo River from La Farge to Rockton, would have to be relocated to the east of the reservoir. Vernon County Highway P and roads in the Town of Stark would also need to be moved with the expense picked up by the federal government. As the 1961 deadline for submitting the project for authorization by Congress approached, that all changed. A positive b/c ratio had to be found and that could be accomplished if the Corps dropped the federal costs of recreational development and road and utility relocation from the formula. When the project was announced in late 1961 and then authorized a year later, a positive b/c ratio of $1.2 to $1 had been achieved for the La Farge Dam Project. However, those costs did not go away. Somebody had to pay for those aspects of the project and that burden would fall upon the state and local governments. Which was a problem for the State of Wisconsin DOT, Vernon County, the Town of Stark and the Village of La Farge. Suddenly this long-awaited federal flood control project was not coming cheap.