Barker: Could the Teton Dam be rebuilt?
February 07, 2011
Published in Idaho Statesman
The support for the Teton Dam in eastern Idaho dropped dramatically in June of 1976, when the dam collapsed.
The Bureau of Reclamation had just filled it for the first time when the earthen dam dissolved, sending a wall of water through the towns of Teton, Newdale, Sugar City and Rexburg.
At least 11 people died and the dam, built ironically for flood control, ended up causing more than a billion dollars in damages. But Idaho’s irrigation lobby, the “water buffaloes,” have pushed for rebuilding it ever since.
Now a new poll paid for by American Rivers, a national conservation group, shows that with the deaths and the flooding out of the memories of most eastern Idahoans, the simple question of whether the Teton Dam should be rebuilt gets a split response — with a slight advantage for rebuilding.
But at a time when the federal deficit has hit alarming levels and the state is talking about laying off hundreds of teachers and eliminating dozens of traditional services, the views change quickly when the talk turns to paying for it.
The poll shows residents of Southeast Idaho prefer making improvements in water efficiency to rebuilding Teton Dam by a margin of 63 to 26 percent.
And this poll was not done by some left-leaning Washington, D.C.-based pollster. It was done by Bob Moore, of Portland, who does most of the Republican Party’s polling in Idaho.
“In this economic climate, people are going to make choices based on cost first and foremost, and building new dams is extraordinarily expensive,” Moore said.
The poll, conducted in December by Moore Information, interviewed 300 residents of Southeast Idaho. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percent.
The Bureau of Reclamation and state are in the midst of a two-year study to evaluate options for replacing the storage water that was lost when the dam failed.
To rebuild the Teton Dam would cost from half a billion to a billion dollars. Bureau officials have always said they are confident they could do it this time without a failure.
But the Teton River has recovered remarkably into a world-class trout fishery. Tourism is a much larger part of the economy of eastern Idaho today than it was in 1971 when the dam was authorized.
Few people are talking about building more big dams in the West despite the water shortages. Still, the Teton Dam is authorized by Congress — a huge leg up when it comes to dam-building.
All a future congressional delegation has to do is get the $1 billion added to an appropriations bill. Imagine a future stimulus bill, where a future bureau presents a “shovel-ready” project.
I know this is unlikely. There will clearly have to be a new environmental impact statement — and unlike before, the bureau will have to show a new project’s benefits really do outweigh its cost.
Any new dam project, including the dams the bureau and the state are looking at in the Boise Basin, will have to find someone to pay for them.
“Cost aside, the poll also found broad and deep support among Southeast Idahoans for protecting the region’s rivers for their natural and recreational values,” Moore said.
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