WHATEVER HAPPENED?
“LOGIC WILL GET YOU FROM A TO B.
IMAGINATION WILL TAKE YOU
EVERYWHERE.”
Albert Einstein
A friend of mine that is an avid follower of my writing sent me a letter a long time ago. I have not addressed his question until now because the research on it was not real easy.
Lester sent me a copy of a story that ran in the Farm Bureau magazine back in 1969. It concerned a plan by a Dr. Roy Tinney to bring water from Canada to the United States into the areas that would be looking at water shortages in the future.
Many are only now realizing that water is the number one issue that we are facing in North America. Recent droughts are bringing this more to the consciousness of the public. But those who are charged with feeding the world as well as the need for safe abundant fresh water for everyone have been addressing this problem since back in the 1950’s. This was back from a time when there was nothing that we could not figure out and do without mass media pushing an agenda for some other group.
This came from a time when you looked at a problem and devised a solution. In Lester’s letter he expressed the fact that “this idea makes entirely to much sense too ever be considered by a government as screwed up as what we have now.”
A line drawing map from Farm Journal was in the article and let me describe the plan quickly. A canal, or aqueduct, would start at Great Bear Lake in Canada. It would flow to Great Slave Lake, on to Lake Athabasca into the Churchill River, then channeled to Lake Winnipeg. At this point the channel would split and run east to Lake Nipigon, then into Lake Superior. The West branch would go to Lake Manitoba coming down to the Missouri River. Then the Channel would run Southwest in South Dakota, south through Nebraska crossing the Platt down the Kansas/Colorado border to the Texas Panhandle then southwest to the Rio Grande with a trunk running across to the Gila River.
The plan would have taken water from a perceived surplus area near the Artic through the major crop states into the thirsty Southwest. Areas that irrigation and drinking water supplies are under severe stress.
As quickly as I can to finish. This Central North American Water Plan (CeNAWP) was one of many proposals addressing future needs for a hungry and thirsty planet. It was not without controversy in Canada. A book called WATER AND FREE TRADE by Wendy Holme was published addressing the then Canadian Government of PM Mulroney criticizing the plan.
This idea has been addressed since the 1950’s into 2009. And to quickly answer Les, yes the climate of the environmental activists, the EPA, and those who cannot conceive of a grand plan being undertaken in this world today, the plan seems to me, dead.
