©2025 League of Conservation Voters
1978 Scorecard Vote
108
284
42
Issues
Public Works Appropriations bill H.R. 12928. The vote is on the Jacobs amendment to remove $90.8 million earmarked for three especially bad water projects: (1) the O’Neill dam and 28 mile diversion canal on the Niobrara river in Nebraska. 40% of the land to be irrigated by this project is already productive. This is the best canoe stream in the state, yet recreational benefits were also used to justify the dam. (2) The Central Utah Project to transfer water from one river basin to another, to supply water to parts of Utah that have made no effort to conserve the water they already have. The project involves 10 dams and 140 miles of aqueducts. It would destroy about 200 miles of trout streams, increase the salinity of the Colorado River and steal water from the Ute Indian tribe. (3) The Russell Dam on the Savannah River that flows between Georgia and South Carolina. 17% of the project’s alleged benefits are for flatwater recreation, yet it is nudged right in between two other dams, destroying the last free-flowing stretch of the river, and thus depleting oxygen levels and increasing pollution. The ultimate price tag for all three of these boondoggles would exceed $3 billion. The first two are brought to you by the Bureau of Reclamation, and the third by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Carter Administration was sympathetic to the Jacobs amendment but did not lobby. Rejected 108-284. June 15, 1979. YES is the correct vote.
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