Warm Springs: A Classic Boondoggle? By Harold Gilliam If
President Carter wants to bolster his anti- inflation program by
saving the government at least $200 million, I have a suggestion
for him. The planned Warm Springs dam, on a tributary of the
Russian river in Sonoma County, is a classic boondoggle, a pork
barrel item that was somehow overlooked when the President
compiled his nationwide ''hit list" of water projects that he
boldly said he would veto—and did. Even in the Corps of
Engineers' optimistic estimate of the dam's benefits, Warm
Springs is a marginal project, with a benefit-cost ratio of 1.1.
That means for every dollar of cost, there will be benefits of
$1.10. If the benefits were a shade less, the dam could not be
financially justified as a federal project. Let's look at the
principal benefits- recreation and water supply. The federal
flood-control program was born 40 years ago in an effort to do a
job that no state could handle alone — prevent the kind of
disastrous floods that were occurring