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.

More Dam History

When Senator William Proxmire announced his withdrawal of support for the La Farge Dam Project in October 1975, the actual work on the project did not stop. Previously appropriated federal funds were still in the pipeline and would be spent by the Corps of Engineers, the federal agency working on the project. Negotiations on the final purchases of land and easements needed for the project, mostly in the Ontario area, continued. Indeed, Joe Davis of Ontario, became known as “The Last Man Standing” because of his refusal to sell to the Corps during this time. Eventually, Davis would win out and retained some parcels that the Corps never did buy.

The leadership of the Corps’ regional headquarters, believing in the old maxim of “Never Say Never!” had sought solutions that might be politically digestible to conclude the La Farge project. Drawing on a commissioned study done by the URS Corporation, the Corps announced an alternative compromise on a “Wet-Dam” solution in November of 1976. The compromise called for the completion of the dam structure located north of La Farge to impound a smaller lake of 840 acres. This would be down from the previous plans for a lake of over 1,800 acres. The new smaller lake would have an elevation at 822 feet above sea level compared to 840 feet with the bigger lake. What the URS proposal had done was shrunk the water impoundment back to the same sized lake as when the project first had been authorized in 1962. The new smaller lake would fill up much of the Star Valley lowlands and cover the river’s lowlands up to Rockton as well as the lower portions of Weister and Jug Creeks. This new proposal of reverting to the earlier lake size and depth was a “Blast From The Past!” in many regards, but it did have one new feature. The Corps asked for a variance on water quality in the smaller lake from the Wisconsin DNR. Other alternatives listed by the URS study included protective dikes downstream on the Kickapoo River for the villages of La Farge, Viola, and Gays Mills.

The Corps’ new smaller lake wet-dam proposal tried to address some of the reasons for opposition to their previous plan, particularly in the area of environmental concerns. By asking for a variance on the water quality issue, the Corps was trying to buy time to deal with that issue. The earlier study, which had been done on water quality of the La Farge Lake by the UW-Madison, was already under attack by local soil & water conservation groups and agencies. By buying time with a variance on water quality in the smaller impoundment, the Corps could wait for solutions to come forward to rectify the problem. Another environmental concern addressed by the alternate proposal was the loss of rare plant species. By lowering the level of the lake by nearly twenty feet, much of the habitat for the rare plant species would not be submerged as in the previous lake level. Or so the Corps thought.

Reaction from environmental groups to the Corps new proposal was immediate and all negative. The governing council of the DNR rejected the variance request on water quality by a 6-1 vote. In December 1976, the Scientific Areas Preservation Council, based in Madison, issued a statement, which said that 75% of the Kickapoo Valley habitat for the endangered species Arctic Monkshood and Lapland Rosebay would be “inundated” by the La Farge Reservoir under the alternate proposal.

The reaction on the local scene also took a negative turn regarding the Corps latest proposal. After the rejection of the Corps water quality variance by the state’s DNR board, Lonnie Muller, editor of the La Farge Epitaph published a scathing editorial titled, “DNR, Kiss Our Butt”. In the editorial, Muller promoted the idea that the reason for the rejection of the variance by the DNR was because that state agency already had other ideas for the dam project property. In other words, the DNR wanted that nearly 9,000 acres in the Kickapoo Valley taken for the dam project for its own uses. I’m not sure if the local editor originated that idea, but he certainly gave it greater exposure. It was an idea that would remain pervasive on a local level right up through the present. (Ironically, when the land did become available to state agencies during the creation of what would become the Kickapoo Valley Reserve in the 1990’s, the DNR would have to pass on the property.)

At the same time that the Corps alternate wet-dam proposal was being introduced, local protest turned to a more hard-lined stance. Bridge #16, now on the “government land” was set fire late in November. The Schroeder Bridge, as it was known locally, ironically had caught fire once before, back in the 1930’s. (Could Immaculate Ignition have been at work here?) Most thought the bridge being set on fire was a local protest to the dam controversy, another way to vent frustration. When another suspicious fire was ignited in nearby Bard Lawrence Hollow the following month, also of unknown and mysterious origin, the message seemed clear that at least a certain part of the local population was not taking the defeat of the dam project graciously.

As 1977 began, State Senator Paul Offner tried to inject some reason into the whole process by appealing to the various factions to sit down and develop a policy as to how to proceed. La Farge businessman Ward Rose offered a reward of $1,000 for anyone who would tell the truth about the La Farge dam project. Local activist and dam supporter Bernice Schroeder wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter asking for his help in resolving the matter.

To further fuel the controversy, Wisconsin Governor Patrick Lucey rejected the Corps alternate wet-dam proposal entirely and further rejected Senator Offner’s idea of a policy session. Editor Muller reacted to the Governor’s rejections by calling him a “Liar” in an Epitaph editorial.

In February 1977, the Corps of Engineers threw up its hands and asked for a halt to the La Farge project. The agency had run out of alternatives and political support for the project. The local reaction to the Corps’ announcement was to organize a new group called KLOUT, Kickapoo Landowners United Together. The group’s first president was Roger Gabrielson (Gabby, as he was known, was also the La Farge School District president at the time), the treasurer was La Farge teacher Al Szepi, and Bernice Schroeder was secretary. In its first public meeting held at the La Farge gymnasium, KLOUT attracted a crowd of nearly 200, who vowed to sign and circulate petitions to support what the new organization stood for. KLOUT’s platform was simple; either finish the La Farge dam and lake as originally proposed or give the land back to the people. A new phase in the dam controversy was beginning.

That Dam History

I have recently been doing some research on the La Farge Dam Project. That story is an important one for the history of La Farge, that I am currently working on. In fact if you trace the dam history from its origins after the great Kickapoo River flood of 1935 up through the present use of the dam project land as the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, one could argue that it is the most important or salient aspect of the village's history. Much has been written and many studies have been done on the early years of the project; from its inception by Congress in 1962 through the halting of the project in 1975. I have been focusing my recent research on the years after that time, from 1975 through the 1990's, when Governor Tommy Thompson sent in Al Anderson from UW-Extension to look for some answers to the dam project controversy. The creation of the Reserve, of course, is what happened in the end, but it has been very interesting looking at the other options that were looked at in the 1970's and '80's.

The main function of the La Farge Dam Project, which included levees at Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills, was for flood control. Yet after the dam project was stopped, although the discussion seemed to always be focused on flood control, nothing was ever done in all those years to give the valley any effective system to deal with the great river floods. Soldiers Grove headed to the hills after the great flood of 1978 and relocated their business district and Main Street in Solar Town. Gays Mills is starting the same process now after being ravaged by great river floods of the Kickapoo in August, 2007 and June of 2008. Through all of this, the unfinished dam sat north of La Farge, a possible aid in dealing with floods, yet never utilized for its original purpose.

Not that there weren't plenty of ideas brought forward in various forms to finish and use the dam. There was the smaller lake proposal (800 acres instead of 1,800) floated by the Corps of Engineers within a couple of years of having the original plan stopped. That COE concept was loudly rejected by state and federal officials and environmentalists due to the same water quality problems that had plagued the original lake proposal. Then there was the dry dam proposal, which said complete the dam so it could be used solely for flood control. That idea in various forms was bounced around for more than a decade and was supported by various governors, senators, congressmen, and county boards to no avail. One idea that I learned about in my latest research was a plan championed by Congressman Steve Gunderson to have a dry dam built, which would later be turned into a wet dam, when water quality issues could be resolved. Various hydro-electric options were forwarded over the years to make the finances for the dam more feasible, all to no avail.

For years, the majority of La Farge citizens held out for the original big lake proposal, which probably did not help some of the alternatives presented during those turbulent times. A local group of these proponents, Kickapoo Land Owners United Together (KLOUT) was formed with two basic goals: get the dam project finished in its original form or return the land to the former land owners. Court injunctions were filed by KLOUT members for return of the land to the former owners, again to no avail.

This history of the dam project after the original project was stopped had long lasting consequences for La Farge and the rest of the Kickapoo Valley.