The Big Thirst: The Great American Water Crisis
by Leonard Doyle
The US drought is now so acute that, in some southern communities, the water supply is cut off for 21 hours a day. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a once-lush region where the American dream has been reduced to a single four-letter word: rain.
On Dancing Fern Mountain, in the hills above Chattanooga, Tennessee, two brothers worry about a beaver dam which is blocking access to the only fresh water supply for miles. “The dam is ruining the water and every time we tear it down, the beaver builds it again,” says Larry Fulfer. “People don’t think we should, but we’re gonna have to get that critter and kill him.”
With a slap of his tail, the beaver disappears. His dam is at the mouth of a vast underground cave system, where enough pure spring water emerges to supply the half-a-dozen families who live on Dancing Fern Mountain. “This drought has turned us into hillbillies,” says Larry’s brother, Brian, with evident disgust. “All we want is water in our taps.”
Ten miles away, darkness is falling over the mountain village of Orme as Tony Reames, the volunteer mayor, drives up a dusty track for an important nightly ritual. He is turning on the water supply for a couple of hours.
These days, the plight of the village of Orme makes the national television news. And as the mayor drives up the hill for half a mile he is followed by a crocodile of gleaming 4×4s and rental cars, carrying among them a crew from the Weather Channel, Fox News, ABC News and The Independent. Under the glare of the television arc lamps, Mayor Reames solemnly opens the spigot.
It is a daily task that has turned him into a symbol of global warming. The sight of a small village trying to cope without water for 21 hours a day has touched something in the national psyche.
more...
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/15/5255/