Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

The makeup of the interagency committee suggested a predisposition toward completing stalled projects, especially in the case of a dam. At best, Tellico’s opponents were hoping for a four-to-three split in favor of construction, which might seem like enough of a hung jury to let them try another tack. They were wondering what such a tack might be when the committee’s decision was announced. No one was prepared for the outcome: a unanimous decision that held for the snail darter and against the dam. In so doing, the committee skipped over metaphysics, transcendentalism, and evolutionary philosophy and ruled solely on the basis of economics. Tellico was a terrible investment—even worse, if the committee was to be believed, than the environmentalists had said. “Here is a project that is 95 percent complete,” said Charles Schultz, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, “and if one takes just the cost of finishing it against the benefits . . . it doesn’t pay.” Cecil Andrus added, “Frankly, I hate to see the snail darter get the credit for delaying a project that was so ill-conceived and uneconomic in the first place.” God, in his new bureaucratic incarnation, had spoken. Tellico was a loser—it didn’t deserve to be finished.