Water futures

Excerpt

WATER is the lifeblood of civilization and, indeed, of life itself. This concept of water being essential to life, essendal to civilization, goes back at least 2,500 years. Goethe, in Faust, quoted Thales of 600 B.C. to say that life arose out of water. About 300 years later, Plato expressed deep concern about deforestation and erosion.

A development ethos

Water develoment also has been crucial to the development of the United States. In 1787, the draining of the Dismal Swamp on the border between Virginia and North Carolina was one of the first efforts to make wetlands available for agriculture and habitable for human beings. Late in the 1800s, the draining of wetlands in Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa made them into what is now known as the Corn Belt, the breadbasket of the nation.

The movement west met water problems at every turn. Sometimes there were excesses; at other times there were shortages.

This period in American history reflected a developmental ethos to conquer the land, to harness the water. This developmental ethos became a fundamental tenet of American culture.

In the West, lack of capital often stymied irrigation development in those days, leaving large planned projects undone …