Failure to act on our water woes is not an option. Water, the new gold, cannot be ignored. It must be managed. It must be planned for. It must be manufactured or diverted. Time is not our friend. For a country to be great, fresh, potable water must be available to everyone.
Years ago, I remember hearing some salty old dude say the most interesting thing. "One day, a glass of good pure water will be more valuable than a gold coin." Ya, right - most people thought. Just the rambling of an older gent, who might have spent too much time in the sun. But hold on just for a minute. This was years before the worst drought in 1,200 years started to grip the desert southwest..
In the pictures above, are two very famous lakes in the United States. Maybe even the world. The first is Lake Mead. It is dying a slow death. Why? It was built to handle the runoff from the mountains, via the Colorado River. But this mega-drought has proven to be too much for this once fine lake. If this drought persists, and many scientists believe it will, Lake Mead will soon become just a fraction of what it once was. Certainly not enough to keep the deserts in Arizona and Nevada green.
The other picture is one of Lake Superior. The greatest of all the Great Lakes. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world, and it holds 10% of the world's surface fresh water. Lake Superior, unlike Lake Mead, is not dying. It is thriving. Sitting on the north shore of Lake Superior (like I am now) can be a surreal experience. Where it might be 85 degrees in the Twin Cities, it might only be in the low sixties up by the lake. It is cool, it is refreshing, it is majestic, it is gorgeous. And - with the amount of fresh water it contains - is is a goldmine.
Some people from drier climates both from inside this country and outside of our borders, have wondered how easy or hard it would be to take some of the fresh water contained in the Great Lakes. In a thirsty world, these five jewels would be a wonderful prize indeed. But this water is not for sharing. It has its own ecosystem. There are other ways to obtain water when the rains stop. But those methods require engineering process, vast financial reserves, and time. Most of all however, those methods require a national will.
I visited Lake Mead when I was a boy. It was big, blue and huge! It was a sight to behold. I also visited (many times), Lake Superior. It was also big, blue and huge. The difference is, that today Lake Superior still looks the same. Lake Mead does not. If the good folks in the desert southwest want to stay living in the desert southwest, they need to do something - and fast.
Failure to act on our water woes is not an option. Water, the new gold, cannot be ignored. It must be managed. It must be planned for. It must be manufactured or diverted. Time is not our friend. For a country to be great, fresh, potable water must be available to everyone.
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