Cadillac Desert_ The American West and Its Disappearing Water - Marc Reisner [134]
The person assigned to take a last, long look at the Yellowstone River, in the light of the conservationists’ effort, was dour, impassive Gil Stamm, a future commissioner, who had just been promoted to assistant commissioner by the man he admired and had served so well. In a long blue-envelope letter to Dominy, dated February 3, 1965, Stamm delivered his report. In general, Stamm wrote, “No storage regulation in the Yellowstone River is required ... as Yellowtail Dam, now under construction, will provide regulation of the Bighorn River and this will insure dependable supplies [of water] below the mouth of the Bighorn,” where most of the irrigation was. The only residual interest the Bureau could rightfully claim was “to provide electric power and flood control to the city of Livingston.”
The problem was compounded by the fact that the Mission site, where the dam was originally planned, was now occupied by several miles of Interstate 90, which went right along the river below Livingston. Relocating the highway would cost more than it was worth. That left three other sites to select from. The best of them, in beautiful Yankee Jim Canyon above Gardiner, Montana, would back water into Yellowstone Park; Stamm decided to rule it out. The Wanigan site was more expensive to develop and, therefore, “can barely show a [benefit-cost] ratio of one to one.” That left the Allenspur site, which was practically in the town of Livingston.
“There is intense local opposition to storage on the upper Yellowstone and particularly the Allenspur site,” Stamm cautioned. “The dam would be very close to Livingston, in effect inundating valuable farm and ranch properties and a reach of outstanding stream fishing with national reputation.... [Both] ranchers and conservationists have expressed strong opposition to any storage development above the town of Big Timber, which is about 35 miles downstream from Livingston.... Findings of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and the National Park Service show that a dam and reservoir in this area would be detrimental to both fishery and outdoor recreation.” The reservoir, Stamm said, would inundate thirty miles of Class I trout fishery—8 percent of the outstanding trout habitat left in Montana. On top of that, it would create an ideal habitat for goldeneye, a rough fish highly competitive with trout; there was “a definite threat of eventual invasion of the streams of Yellowstone National Park by this generally unwanted fish.”
As if that were not enough, Stamm said that “a single-purpose flood-control reservoir at Allenspur”—which is essentially what the Bureau was left with—“would cost more than presently estimated benefits.” Designing it as a power project wouldn’t help; “if the power were to be evaluated realistically in the light of present-day power values ... Allenspur power would not be very attractive.” But adding a hydroelectric plant might be necessary to win authorization, because “the only support for the potential project is from a few public power supporters.”
In short, a miserable project: without irrigation benefits, without worthwhile power benefits, without demonstrable flood-control benefits, certain to ruin a long reach of the most productive trout river in the West (if not the entire country), and opposed by virtually everyone who stood to benefit from it—for once, by ranchers and conservationists alike. On top of this, an expensive project, projected to cost at least $128 million—say half a billion dollars today. Stamm’s letter reads like an argument for giving