Cadillac Desert_ The American West and Its Disappearing Water - Marc Reisner [252]
The Teton project could be justified only by using an interest, or discount, rate of 3¼ percent. Even with that rate, which was unrealistic in the hyperinflationary 1970s, the best it could manage was a benefit-cost ration of 1.2 to 1. After getting rid of the phony flood-control figures, the phony “new” irrigated land, and the more implausible fish and wildlife and recreation benefits, the Idaho Environmental Council came up with a benefit-cost ratio of .73 to 1.00. Using a 6 percent discount rate, which was more realistic, the ratio dropped to .41 to 1. Taking, for the sake of compromise, the midway point between the Environmental Council’s more flattering figure and the Bureau’s, the Teton project was exactly worthless as an investment of tax dollars: it would destroy a beautiful river for the sake of nothing in return.
Such arguments, persuasive though they might have been in an objective sense, seemed only to solidify the local support for Teton Dam. Since Willis Walker had won authorization for the project, the man who emerged as its chief propagandist was Ben Plastino, the political editor of the local newspaper, the Idaho Falls Post-Register. Plastino was the sort of small-town editor Twain or Mencken would have loved. It wasn’t just his appearance, though that certainly helped. He was short, middle-aged, and pudgy, and his sartorial tastes ran to combat clashes of checks and plaids—vivid figurine shirts, loud polyester ties, acetate houndstooth-checked pants, multicolor Dacron-polyester jackets. Plastino felt a newspaper had two important roles. One was to bring as much federal money as possible into its region, especially in the form of a dam. The other was to rail against big government and creeping socialism. One senator’s immortal words during the Watergate hearings—“Don’t confuse me with the facts”—were words Ben Plastino had gratefully taken to heart. As recently as 1979, he insisted that Teton was primarily a flood-control project (it wasn’t, or it would have been built by the Corps of Engineers), maintained that none of the farmers put anywhere near ten feet of water on their crops (some used up to thirteen), and insisted that every water project pays for itself, regardless of cost.
The Post-Register was magnanimous enough to publish an occasional letter opposing the dam, but in its news stories the opposition was usually referred to as “extreme environmentalists.” Covering one meeting of dam supporters, Plastino wrote obsequiously about their efforts in behalf of Teton, describing the “warm thanks” and “warm applause” that greeted each self-congratulatory testimonial. The paper, however, was a lot more objective than some of its readers. “Those who would cramp and belittle America’s dream and who labor to stalemate needed natural development,” stated one letter to the newspaper, “have plans for a singularly small and feeble nation, a blueprint for weakening our nation in a time when enemy nations are straining to develop their resources and strengths.” Another asked, “I for one would like to know who is the power behind these so-called environmentalists? Why are they so radical about condemning anything that would improve Idaho’s irrigation?”
Jerry Jayne, who was then president of the Idaho Environmental Council, hardly looks like the communist many of his neighbors seemed to think he was. Crew-cut, strong-jawed, erect as a cabinet, he bears a strong resemblance to Mike Nomad, in the Steve Roper comic strip, and one might expect to find him at the controls of a nuclear power plant—which is exactly where one would find him, since he works for the Department of Energy’s nuclear testing facility at Idaho Falls. “I don’t know what it is about these Mormon irrigation farmers,” Jayne said. “I can talk to the loggers, I can talk to the ranchers. I can talk to the mining companies. I can say nothing to the irrigation farmers. They’re not reasonable. They don’t listen.