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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Asian farmers sucking the continent dry

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  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Asian farmers sucking the continent dry
  • Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 10:43:44 EDT

It's not just the Asians. Profligate use of groundwater is alive and well in
our own country. Approaching problems with the Ogallala Aquifer are well
known, and many of you should be aware of the plan, narrowly averted (we
think) to
sell rights to tap Michigan's aquifer to foreign botled-water
manufacturers--a
plan that offers the state only a pittance to extract an irreplaceable
resource.

Canada's aquifers are suffering the same fate. It passes unnoticed by most
voters there as Canada is among the world's most blessed countries in terms
of
water resources per capita.

Here in North Carolina one would hardly think of us as being water-deprived.
Yet we allow a degree of development already that draws down aquifers in a
handful of our urban areas that will let them expand now at the price of
having
to abruptly fold up later. In the case of Kinston, I recall that the straw
will start making noisy sucking sounds at the bottom of the well in about
thirty
more years.

The most fecund parts of the world in terms of population increase lie in the
arc from Morocco to Central Asia (all Moslem countries and all arid). The
water situation is no better there than here, I assure you.

You do the math.

M. Elvin




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