The support for the Teton Dam in eastern Idaho dropped dramatically in June of 1976 when it failed after the Bureau of Reclamation filled it for the first time, sending a wall of water through the towns of Teton, Newdale, Sugar City and Rexburg.

At least 11 people died and the dam, built ironically for flood control, ended up causing more than a billion dollars in flood damages. But Idaho’s irrigation lobby, the water buffaloes, have pushed for rebuilding it ever since.

Now a new poll paid for by American Rivers, a national conservation group, shows that with the deaths and the flooding out of the memories of most eastern Idahoans, the simple question should the Teton Dam be rebuilt gets a split response with a slight advantage for rebuilding.

But at a time when the federal deficit has hit alarming levels and the state is talking about laying off hundreds of teachers and eliminating dozens of traditional services the views change quick when the talk turns to paying for it.

The poll shows residents of southeast Idaho prefer making improvements in water efficiency to rebuilding Teton Dam by a margin of 63% to 26%.

The poll comes as the Bureau of Reclamation and state are in the midst of a two-year study to evaluate options for replacing the storage water that was lost when the dam failed. This poll was not done by some left-leaning Washington D.C.-based pollster.

It was done by Bob Moore, of Portland, Ore, who does most of the Republican Party’s polling in Idaho.

“In this economic climate, people are going to make choices based on cost first and foremost, and building new dams is extraordinarily expensive,” Moore said.

The poll, conducted in December by Moore Information, interviewed 300 residents of southeast Idaho. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percent.

To rebuild the Teton Dam would cost from half a billion to a billion dollars. The Bureau has always said they are confident they could do it this time without a failure.

But the Teton River has recovered remarkably into a world class trout fishery again. Tourism is a much larger part of the economy of eastern Idaho today than it was in 1971 when the dam was authorized.

Few people are talking about building more big dams in the West despite the water shortages. Still, the Teton Dam is authorized by Congress.

All a future congressional delegation has to do is get the one billion dollars added to an appropriations bill. Imagine a future stimulus bill where a future bureau presents a “shovel-ready” project.

I know this is unlikely. There will clearly have to be a new environmental impact statement and unlike before, the bureau will have to show a new project’s benefits really do outweigh its cost.

Any new dam project, including the dams the bureau and the state are looking at in the Boise Basin, will have to find someone to pay for them. The poll suggests that even in southeastern Idaho residents want their governments to look at all of the alternatives before spending money on costly new dams.