INTENSIVE DAM REVIEW

We continue to look at a time in the early 1970’s when the community of La Farge was grappling with the emerging realities of whether a dam to be built north of town on the Kickapoo River was going to create Lake La Farge.  This isn’t the point in the story about the end of that federal project, but it just might be the beginning of the end.

            I was recently taking a hike around the Visitor Center of the Kickapoo Valley Reserve with a group of students from Malcolm Shabazz City High School in Madison.  We were sitting in the pine trees above the Kickapoo and looking out across the valley at the water intake tower of that still unfinished dam.  One of the students asked why the dam wasn’t completed and I gave my standard “short-story” answer that it was stopped because of political, financial and environmental reasons.

            In this entry, we look back at a time when those three dynamics – politics, finances and environmental concerns – were first introduced and delineated to the people of the Kickapoo Valley.

Governor Patrick Lucey’s  “Intensive Review” of the La Farge Dam & Lake Project was held on Tuesday, April 27, 1971 in a packed conference room at the state capital building in Madison.  The Governor did not attend the conference, citing previous commitments.  Colonel Charles McGinnis, district engineer from the Corps of Engineers St. Paul office, was named chairman of the meeting by Governor Lucey and moderated the review session.

            Another engineer from the Corps’ St Paul office, Richard Colton, explained at the outset of the review session that the Corps had looked at fourteen different alternative proposals to the “big dam” option chosen for the Kickapoo River at La Farge.  The Corps had studied some of the alternatives in the initial planning phase of the Kickapoo River project, while other proposals that had more recently been brought forward had also been analyzed in the previous few months.  Colton stated that for maximum flood protection at the most efficient cost, the present planned construction of a dam at La Farge remained the best option.  It was evident from his comments on the alternative proposals that Colton was addressing the opposition to the project.

            Colonel McGinnis also took time to explain the method used by the Corps to estimate the cost of the La Farge project.  He said that the interest rate used to calculate the feasibility of the project was frozen under Congressional rules at a 3.125% rate that had been adopted in 1968.  If the Chief of Army Engineers had to put the La Farge project on his deferred list, which could happen if the project was delayed any further, the interest rate would be unfrozen and the project would have to be refigured.  With a higher interest rate that was in place in 1971, the project would not be feasible due to not meeting the benefit/cost ratio used on such federal projects.

            McGinnis went on to say that with the 3.125% interest rate used by the federal government to borrow money for the dam project, the benefit/cost ratio was 1.3 ($1.30 in value returned after the project was completed for every dollar spent to build it).  However, if 1971 interest rates were used for the project due to any kind of a delay, then the benefit/cost ratio would be cut to 0.8, which would make the federal project economically unjustified.  This explanation by Colonel McGinnis clearly showed that any delay could possibly stop the dam project at La Farge.

            McGinnis asked all of the speakers at the review session to “separate fact from opinion” when presenting testimony to better enable the Governor and his staff to decide if the state still wanted the federal project.  Professor Robert Lord presented the most compelling information against the proposed dam project that day at the review session.

            Robert Lord was a highly respected member of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin.  He was a Professor of Agricultural Economics and Forestry at UW and was the Director of the Resource Policy Studies and Programs at the university.  From 1965 to 1967, Lord had worked as an economic advisor for the Corps of Engineers on various water resource programs.  The UW professor would base most of his testimony in opposition to the La Farge dam project on a study done by four UW water resource management graduate students.  The graduate study project, completed in August 1970, looked at the Kickapoo River project in the areas of flood control, economics, recreation and landscape.

            The Lord Report (as the graduate student’s study came to be known) attacked the La Farge dam project on all fronts.  The study contested the cost/benefit ratio analysis of the project used by the Corps.  The report also disputed the flood control aspects of the dam project as well as the recreational benefits of the lake to be created behind the dam.  Lastly, the study raised serious concerns about the environmental impact of the project, both relating to the effect of the lake on the natural environment of the Kickapoo Valley and the perceived future water quality problems in the lake itself.

            In his concluding remarks, Professor Lord called on the Governor and the Corps of Engineers to take a pause in the construction of the dam to reexamine the potential problems with the project.  He asked the Governor to set up a task force group composed of state and federal agencies to look at the perceived problems with the project.  Lord thought that the task force group should pay particular attention to the creation of a Kickapoo River State Forest, using the lands purchased for the La Farge dam project reservoir and neighboring Wildcat Mountain State Park land for the creation of a Kickapoo River Parkway and Bikeway with trails, interpretive facilities and scientific reserves.

            Professor Lord’s presentation and the information brought forward in the study done by the UW graduate students was the foundation for all of the other anti-dam advocates who spoke at the intensive review session that day.  Robert Smith, speaking on behalf of the Madison-based John Muir Chapter of the Sierra Club and Ronald Rich both relied on information gathered by Professor Lord and his students.  Both Smith and Rich described the Kickapoo River as a natural wild treasure that would be destroyed and lost by the creation of the La Farge dam’s reservoir.

            Ronald Rich added a personal note in the conclusion to his presentation as to the difficulty in opposing the La Farge project for those who lived in the Kickapoo Valley.  He said, ”I would like to add that opposing this project has been made most difficult by a radical element of the proponents who have constantly, through the past year, intimidated, harassed, and threatened anyone who dared speak against this project.  As recently as Monday, April 19, 1971, I was told personally by a project proponent that if the dam is not built he would hate to have his name on the list of people who opposed the dam.  If our voices have appeared to be few in number, this is the reason for it.”

            Next time we will look at those dam project proponents and what they had to say that day at Governor Lucey’s intensive review session.

History's Hit Parade

            1970 – the beginning of a new decade and the end of an old one. 

1970 – a time of transition for the little Kickapoo River town of La Farge, Wisconsin. 

1970 – Change was in the air for La Farge, forces from afar were about to pull and tug at the essence of the community. 

1970 – Some people were leaving; people who had to sell their homes and farms to the federal government for the dam project.  Other people were coming to the Valley; people with new personal values and life styles. 

Crank up the jukebox of life as the times for La Farge, “They were achangin”.

The #1 hit song for the year 1970 was B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”.  With the soggy, wet months of May and June that we have here in the Kickapoo Valley, could we have a more appropriate song title?  But it was also a somewhat appropriate tune for La Farge in 1970 as the federal Kickapoo Valley flood control project with its projected dam to be constructed just north of the village prepared to get going.  With the dam built and holding back the flood waters of the Kickapoo River, folks in La Farge, Viola and downriver wouldn’t have to be so concerned about raindrops falling on their heads.

“Let It Be” by the Beatles was #2 on that 1970 hit parade list and that classic by the Fab Four fits right in to what was happening to the dam project at La Farge.  When Governor Patrick Lucey ordered an “Intensive Review” of the Kickapoo Valley flood control project with intentions of stopping the dam construction at La Farge, pro-dam Kickapoogians howled for the governor to let it be.  Eventually Lucey provided measured support of the La Farge dam and commended the citizens of the Valley for their support of the project.  The Village of La Farge, led by the local dam-backers organization, threw a big celebration party on a Saturday night.  Some say that night and those festivities was La Farge’s finest hour.  So it appeared that the dam project was “Signed, Sealed & Delivered” – the #9 hit of that year sung by Stevie Wonder.

But soon after the governor’s endorsement of the project came forth, the John Muir Chapter of the Sierra Club filed an injunction in federal court to stop the construction of the dam.  It appeared that we had a “Ball of Confusion”; the Temptations #8 hit song in 1970.  (I must confess here that I could not remember anything about this song.  I know that I was busy in 1970 as I graduated from college, was married to the lovely Carolyn Kinsey and started on my first teaching job that year.  But I was not totally out of the loop for that year, so how could I not have any memories of a song from one of my favorite groups.  I even went on the Internet to look up the lyrics to the song and listen to the Temptations sing it on a YouTube spot.  Nothing!  Nada recognition!  Every other song in the top twenty from that year was recognized, but I drew a blank on that one.  I did find an interesting line from the song though – “Hippies moving to the hills” – but that’s another Kickapoo Valley story from the 70’s to get into at another time.) 

The Madison-based chapter of the Sierra Club claimed that the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to adequately answer environmental concerns in the Impact Statement that had earlier been submitted.  (Looking back, one has to agree with the Sierra Club on the Corps’ first EIP on the dam project at La Farge.  The report was very brief and basically said that the Corps was going to build a dam and lots of acres were soon going to be under water, lots of water.  At the same time that the Corps’ Environmental Impact Statement was submitted, all nine pages of it, the Corps released a three hundred plus page report on the recreational and economic benefits of the dam project.  Kind of shows where the Corps’ interest was at the time.)  Eventually in due process, Judge James Doyle rejected the Sierra Club’s request and let the dam project proceed.

Another celebration was called for and La Farge obliged with gusto.  A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the dam site north of La Farge in August.  Over five hundred people were in attendance with a legion of politicos fawning over the new project to bring flood control to the Valley and economic salvation to La Farge.  The golden shovel sprang forth and scoops of dirt were hoisted into the air signaling the official start of the construction of the dam.  (Work on the dam had actually begun several weeks earlier after the injunction case in federal court had been settled.)

Supporters of the dam project were happy once again and perhaps felt like singing a line or two from Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (#7 on the 1970 hit parade).  Perhaps, with the dam construction actually moving forward and the opposition to the project defeated in court, the musical lines, “Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind” fit the mood of the dam-backer crowd.        

            Yet, let’s not suppose that the folks against the project didn’t have a theme song as well in the summer of 1970.  Maybe they could use the #16 hit of the year for their anthem; sung by The Carpenters, “We’ve Only Just Begun” to describe the determination to stop the dam at La Farge.  For another year would bring other injunction attempts from the Sierra Club to stop the project.  Water quality studies would begin on the proposed waters of beautiful Lake La Farge that would prove devastating to the completion of the project.  Senator Gaylord Nelson began to voice political concern over the project’s perceived environmental problems.

            In the end, Edwin Starr’s one-hit wonder from that year of 1970 probably foreshadowed what lay ahead for the two sides of the dam project at La Farge.  Yes, Starr’s #10 hit for that year, “WAR”, might have set the tone for what lay ahead.  As the conflict between the two sides over the dam project escalated; as tensions between the two sides ended friendships that had lasted a lifetime; as the fabric of the community of La Farge was ripped apart, some lines from Starr’s anthem seem almost prophetic.

War, huh, yeah

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing

Say it again.

            

Lost & Found - The La Farge Dam Project - Part 1

For the next two installments of my history blog, I am presenting an edited version of a presentation that I made at the Wisconsin Book Festival held in Madison during November 2012.  My book, THAT DAM HISTORY – The Story of The La Farge Dam Project, was chosen for the book festival as part of a program titled “Loss & Discovery on Wisconsin’s Waterways”.  Surprisingly to me, nearly 150 people attended the session when I made this presentation.  The theme of the book festival was “Lost & Found” and this talk will focus on a couple of aspects of the dam project that I thought fit into those categories.  This entry is from the first part of the talk, where I give some background and a brief history of sorts of the dam project at La Farge.  In the next entry, I will get into the lost and found part of the dam project. - BDS

The story of the dam project at La Farge in western Wisconsin’s Kickapoo Valley is one that stretches out over nearly three-quarters of a century.  It all began after the great Kickapoo River flood of 1935, when the communities of the valley, led by La Farge, sought help from the federal government for the nearly constant flooding problems of the Kickapoo River.  At that time, Congress was formulating a new federal water policy, which included plans on a national scale for providing help from the federal government to areas prone to flooding.  When the new water bill was passed in 1936, it included a call for a study of the Kickapoo Valley and its’ flooding to be done by the Army’s Corps of Engineers and the Department of Agriculture.  By 1940, preliminary plans were presented from that initial study for the construction of a flood-control dam north of La Farge and levees at the downriver villages of Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills. 

In October 1962, Congress passed a bill authorizing the construction of the dam at La Farge and the two downstream levees.  After five years of further study by the Corps of Engineers, a larger dam at La Farge with a 1,800-acre lake and thirteen recreation sites around it had become part of the plan and money was authorized to begin purchasing the over 9,000 acres needed to complete the project.  In 1968, final plans were released for the Corps’ Kickapoo Valley flood-control project, which still included the downstream levees for Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills and the process to purchase the land needed for the project began a year later.

Opposition to the La Farge Dam Project began soon after the larger-lake plan was introduced in 1967 and intensified when Patrick Lucey was elected Wisconsin governor in 1970.  Governor Lucey called for an “Intensive Review” of the project in the spring of 1971.  The stated purpose of the review was to look for alternatives to the dam and lake at La Farge and an all day session at the State Capital was held in which both those against and for the dam & lake project spoke.  The Governor eventually agreed to support the dam project and ordered the Corps of Engineers to proceed. Despite the Governor’s decision to support the project at La Farge, the opposition to the dam project did not stop.

The Madison-based John Muir Chapter of the Sierra Club then tried to stop the La Farge dam and lake project by filing injunctions in federal court.  In the legal filing, the Sierra Club cited suspected water quality problems in the proposed Lake La Farge and the Corps’ failure to adequately provide for the environmental impact of the project to meet new federal laws as reasons to stop the project.  The Sierra Club and other individuals opposed to the project took the dam project to court on three different occasions between 1971 and 1973 and lost all three of the attempts to stop it.

In 1972, construction on the dam, located a mile north of La Farge, was begun.  By 1974, the nearly 9,000 acres for the entire lake and recreation areas had been purchased, the dam was nearing completion and plans were being made to start the process to fill the lake.  By this time, Senator Gaylord Nelson had become a vocal opponent of the lake behind the dam because of water quality issues raised by a University of Wisconsin study completed in 1974. Nelson had supported the La Farge project when he was governor of Wisconsin and again as senator before the larger lake had been proposed.  Senator Nelson called for a stop to the project and Governor Lucey, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups soon joined him.

By 1975, due to delays, the numerous studies that were conducted, and add-ons to the original project, the cost for the dam project had escalated from an original $18+ million in 1968, when the Corps had first unveiled the larger-lake project, to an estimate of over $50 million to have it completed.  This sharp escalation in costs, which was largely caused by the inflation and high interest rates of the Vietnam War era, caused Senator William Proxmire, the last supporter of the dam in Congress, to withdraw his support in October of 1975.  With Senator Proxmire’s refusal to further support the appropriation of funds for the project, the dam and lake project at La Farge was stopped.  The dam, three-quarters completed, sat by the Kickapoo River north of La Farge.  The dam’s water-control tower, rising over 100-feet above the Valley floor, became a silent sentinel to the failed project.  The nearly 9000 acres of land purchased for the project sat dormant and started to be reclaimed by Mother Nature. Those in the Valley knew it as “the government land” or “the dam land”.

For the next twenty years, politicians presented a number of different options and alternative plans for what to do with the dam and the project’s lands, but all of those plans floundered and failed.  A group of former landowners, Vernon County and others sued the federal government to either get the lands back or to finish the dam construction, but none of those efforts were successful either.  The dam never held back any flood waters and the levees never were built downriver to protect Soldiers Grove or Gays Mills.

Finally a new effort, led by Governor Tommy Thompson and State Senator Brian Rude, was brought forward.  A bipartisan political effort in Madison and Washington DC transferred “the government land” back to the State of Wisconsin in 1998 and the Kickapoo Valley Reserve became a reality on “the dam land”.  In that transfer process, 1,200 acres of the government land was placed in trust for the Ho-Chunk Nation.  The Kickapoo Reserve Management Board and Ho-Chunk Nation would co-manage the land taken for the dam project.  Today the Kickapoo Valley Reserve draws tens of thousands of visitors annually to use the land and waters for a variety of public recreation and education purposes. 

Dam Trouble

Recently I have been focusing my research of the history of La Farge on the tumultuous story of the La Farge dam project. That story is a long one. It spans a time from the Kickapoo River flood of 1935 right up through the present. I thought we might be able to put a coda to this dam story earlier in the decade, but the great Kickapoo River floods of 2007 and 2008 brought it back to life. After those flood waters receded, lying there with all of the other flood trash was that stinking dam story to stir up emotions in the Valley again.

As the muddy churning waters of the Kickapoo knifed diagonally through the village of La Farge in June of 2008, how many weary residents cast a glance towards that unfinished dam north of town? Some knew the details of the dam story and could only shake their heads at what might have been. Others knew little of the dam story, but still wondered about why something had not been done to help the Valley cope with those floods of destruction and devastation. What might have been? What could have been done?

Residents of La Farge were not the only ones in the Valley asking those questions. Down river in Gays Mills, those who lived there also gazed at the river’s path of destruction after that June 2008 flood. But the futility of resistance was more evident for those who lived in Gays Mills, as they had suffered an equally calamitous flood only ten months earlier. Hadn’t a levee for the protection of Gays Mills been part of that La Farge dam project years ago? Had the citizens of Gays Mills really rejected that levee by a mere handful of votes in a referendum at one time?

The story of the dam project is a long one, which we can’t begin to cover with any depth here in the notebook (although it is a compelling part of the history of La Farge and will be told in detail for that story). What I would like to begin focusing on is the time after the federal government stopped the project. For this part of the story, let’s use 1975 as the date and specifically when Senator William Proxmire withdrew his political support for the project in the fall of that year. Some felt at the time,” That’s that!” and that the story was over. In some respects those feelings were true and the project as envisioned before that 1975 stoppage was over. Yet the turmoil over the project would continue on for more than two decades.

The political debate over the project, which continued on for nearly thirty years, would eventually lead to the creation of the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. Let’s begin to look at those years between the stopping of the project in 1975 and the creation of the Reserve in the 1990’s. It offers us an amazing view of a dazzling array of political maneuvers on the national, state and local level.

The players who performed in this drama on the Kickapoo were many. (I thought about using the term “tragedy” here, but there are so many preposterous and farcical turns in this story; that it, at times, resembles a “comedy”. Borrowing from Shakespeare, “A Comedy of Errors” might be our best title for this chapter.)

The Corps of Engineers is at front stage throughout our drama because the La Farge Dam Project is their baby. The Corps conceived the scope and scale of the project, sold it to the public and various government entities, and proceeded to try to complete it. The Corps has been painted by many as a villain in this story, but in reality, this government agency’s sole purpose is to build things – BIG things and the BIGGER, the better. After all, they are engineers. It is probably true that the Corps failed miserably in the theater of public opinion regarding this project. The government agency was also unable to react properly to the new federally imposed environmental laws of that time. Both of these shortcomings by the Corps of Engineers would eventually contribute to the stoppage of their La Farge project.

The environmental movement (enter stage right), emerging as a national power during this time, was also a significant actor in our dam project drama. Led on the national stage by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and on the state level by the Sierra Club through its Madison and University of Wisconsin John Muir Chapter, this movement fought the La Farge Dam Project in the courts of law (rather unsuccessfully) and public opinion. In the later, the environmentalists had great success in painting a picture of the La Farge Dam Project as an environmental nightmare. Although debatable to this day, this tarnished tint of the dam project that was created by the environmentalists carried the day.

As the saying goes,” Politics makes strange bedfellows”. In the drama of the La Farge Dam Project, the adage could not have been more succinct. Whether emanating from the halls of Congress in Washington D.C., the state capital in Madison, or the county board room in Viroqua, the politicos weighed in with their two cents worth on the project. Those two-penny sound bites and press releases must have added up to millions of dollars over the years, but the cumulative effect of such a hefty price was in the end constant confusion and turmoil.

The last participants in our play, entering from back stage, are the people of the Kickapoo Valley. These are the common men and women who perhaps should stand at center stage. Although in a prominent position, their voices are low and muted, hard to hear over the din from the other players in our drama. (Perhaps we should stage this story as a Greek tragedy and have the politicians, the environmentalists, and the Corps bureaucrats form a chorus. We could place the chorus high above the people who live in the valley, perhaps on Fort Wales. This chorus could shout their ideas down on the people below them. But I digress.) These people of the Valley at the center of this drama will also make remarkable twists and turns as alternatives are sought for the project. Over the years, working together has never been an admirable quality or practical ability for the communities on the Kickapoo. Again, that classic Kickapoogian fault (some may argue that it is a quality) will play out in our little drama, the story of the La Farge Dam Project.

So the time is set, the players are assembled. Next time we will look at how our story plays out. Stay tuned for exciting scenes and acts such as: Completion of the Dam & Lake, a Smaller Lake, Dirty Water Now & Clean Water Later, a Study of Alternatives, Dry Dam #1, What Endangered Species?, Dry Dam #2, another Study of Alternatives, a Dry Dam & Wet Dam, a National Park, a modified Wet Dam, a National Archeological District, yet another Study of Alternatives, a Hydro-Electric Dam, Levees for La Farge, Viola, Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills, Relocation of All the Villages, Protests & Counter-Protests, a Mock Funeral, Return the Land to the People, and (an oldie but a goodie) Dam Up the Whole Valley & Put It All Under Water.