Despite public outcry and negative vote by WY Water Development Commission, cattle assn, county commissions continue to push dam-
Few people seem to like the proposal to build a dam on the upper Green River above Warren Bridge. The state Water Development Commission voted 7-1 against it, but powerful interest groups are trying sidestep public opinion and push the unpopular prop0sal in the Wyoming state legislature.
Legislators to have next say on Green River dam. So far, project is not in bill to be considered by committee Dec. 15. By Cory Hatch. Jackson Hole News and Guide.
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Here is our earlier story on this proposed dam. Wyoming Water Development Commission against proposed Green River dam. November 11, 2010. Commission calls it “too expensive, unnecessary and bad for recreation and the environment”-
Western Fly Fishing Journal doesn’t like this dam. A Dam On The Green River?
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
How do you compromise with individuals who refuse to acknowledge any interest other than their own to such a great extent?
How much public money would be spent by the taxpayers on this dam for these great and independent men, these pillars of the mountain west?
Are these individuals who want this dam going to claim that a WYOMING water development commission is comprised of a bunch of environmental whackos? The commissioner made it clear that the Fontonelle resevoir could already handle increased capacity if the need for it arose in the future. Who are these parasites that want this project? Apparently a lot of ranchers are against it as well!
I have vivid memories of rafting past the failed Teton Dam construction site in the mid-1970s, and wondering at length at the time about the sanctity of that once-wild river. Some folks just do not want to learn from history.
Once difference between the days of the Teton Dam and today is funding.
From the 1930s until the the 1980s, the Bureau of Reclamation was on a dam building orgy mostly because almost all of the costs were paid by the U.S. taxpayer. It worked this way. Taxpayers all over America would pay a little bit to build a big project in a local area that benefited the few a whole lot.
Political situations like that — dispersed costs and concentrated benefits — are extremely hard to organize against because the project doesn’t hurt anyone’s pocketbook enough to generate political activity, but the benefits are great enough to spur full time lobbying by the beneficiaries.
Since then, and this is one of the highlights of the Clinton Administration IMO, is that the Bureau of Wreck (as it was informally called) is no longer building dams. The entire costs has to be borne by Wyoming. This changes the political logic.
There is a recent update on this in the local Jackson Hole
Daily which said in the headlines ….
‘No Gren river Dam in 2011 Wyo. Water Bill’. Woohoo!
Sorry …. for ‘Gren’ meant “Green’