On p. 359 of Cadillac Desert:
Another drawback was that the reservoir would drown an Indian Reservation and the town of Covelo — population two thousand — but that sort of thing had been done many times before. (The Corps had included the flooding of the reservation in its benefit-cost analysis, but had it down as a benefit because the Indians would get a nicer town somewhere else)
Beware the man behind the curtain wielding “economic-isty” tools.
After working in the business of conducting CBA, I can assure you that the economisty tools are nothing more than rudimentary SAS models and Excel, along with knowledge distributions that require everything to be normal all the time.