page_title: Kickapoo River
section_title: Demise of La Farge Dam
hierarchical_section_title: Kickapoo River / Demise of La Farge Dam
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial view of the never-completed lake and dam to prevent flooding on the Kickapoo River at La Farge, Wisconsin, USA. Construction on the dam was halted in 1975 after heavy opposition from environmental activists. The partially completed spillway and intake tower can be seen at center.
context_page_description: The Kickapoo River is a 126-mile-long tributary of the Wisconsin River in the state of Wisconsin, United States. It is named for the Kickapoo Indians who occupied Wisconsin before the influx of white settlers in the early 19th century.
context_section_description: The river has a relatively low capacity for water, leading it to quickly and frequently flood after heavy rain. In the late 1960s, the frequent floods prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin a dam project on the Kickapoo River near La Farge, Wisconsin. The proposed dam would have created a 1,780 acre (7.2 km²), 12-mile (19 km) long reservoir to control downstream flooding. In preparation for the construction, the government used eminent domain to buy 149 farms comprising 8,569 acres (35 km²) of land from mostly unwilling sellers. This land would have either been flooded by the dam or used as for the recreational park planned for the area around the lake.
  Construction of the dam began in 1971. Questions about the Corps of Engineers' benefit-cost calculations, its environmental analysis and the prospect of ecological problems like the eutrophication of the dam's impoundment led to opposition from environmental organizations, some residents of the Kickapoo Valley and Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson. After many lawsuits and numerous environmental and economic studies by outside activists highlighting the negative impact of the dam, the government elected to halt construction in 1975, after spending more than $19 million and building nearly half of the dam and leaving local residents vulnerable to future flooding. The halting of the project also doomed the 1983 attempt by local residents to get government support for a smaller flood control dry dam. Lawsuits by local residents in the valley to force completion of the project were rejected.
  The 8,569 acres (35 km²) of land bought by the government remained in the possession of the Corps of Engineers until 1996, when it was split and parts were given to the state of Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Native American Tribe. The Kickapoo today is a popular canoeing river.
caption: The uncompleted dam with spillway and intake tower near La Farge, Wisconsin
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