The Dam Builders

My cousin Carol was throwing out some old papers and came across a brochure entitled “Beltzville Dam and Reservoir:  A Multiple Purpose Project” from July 1966.  According to the brochure, the estimated cost of construction would be $18.4 million, while the cost-benefit ratio would be 2.1 to 1.0.  That meant that for every dollar spent, the Beltzville project would return $2.10 in benefits.

In case you are wondering how the Corps knew the cost-benefit ratio that precisely, the answer is:  They made it up.  The Corps included water supply, reduction of flood damage, and, of course, recreation.  That is where they got the “Multiple Purpose” label.

The Fifties and Sixties were the dam-building decades.  Every year the Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation would propose projects in various congressional districts.  This was pork barrel politics at its finest, and Congressman Dan Flood, our congressman at the time, was a master of pork.  We can credit him with Beltzville and Bear Creek dams.

Three developments put the brakes on dam building.  The first one was the fight over Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado.  Although the dam was eventually built, environmentalists learned that such projects were not inevitable and could be opposed with some effect.

The second was Tocks Island.  The proposed Tocks Island Dam would have inundated the much of the northern reaches of the Delaware River.  Land for the project had already been purchased, and plans were under way when opposition finally killed Tocks Island.  Today that land is the Delaware National Recreation Area.

Finally, bless his heart, was Jimmy Carter.  Carter, a white-water canoeist, opposed dams because they were usually environmental disasters and a waste of federal funds.  He killed 19 projects his first year in office.  Carter was followed by Ronald Reagan, who had opposed a number of projects while he was governor of California.  The Corps never again recovered its former glory.  

I will return to this subject again, but tomorrow I plan to talk about Scott Walker, after I get back from a phone bank to Wisconsin voters.  That’s right.  I’m one of those out-of-state union thugs.