~ | he Americans By EDWARD TEACH World aff 4 tion to t faycanada all guy airs, and in rela- he Unitcd States, Must look like the Co mM oan j i sey fn: international Af hen th® Second World War, Heaton © United States was of a e With the possibility Sovieg Clear attack from the into mo on We were conned ns aca our grandchil- ar lin ure to pay for the eee = that span the north- Utneg ;, Cf Our country and an's Into a sort of No- and guarded by Amer- i PS where even Cana- ® suspect. 0 a Our partners had an-° the ae for us. It involved Of the gras of the Arrow, one fley,, pecsest aircraft that ever the Boi Our taking in its place he Sees Missile. When we omarc it was an obso- Which could still serve Purpose of causing : Mbers to lay their nu- 5 On Canada, rather hited States, We paid good Canadian s the Bomarc that was. to defend the U.S. nd, wi A ~ thout becoming ted- lhe Pinte, Ree On this page is re- H Publ. ged, from the week- | Busine UBlicat Usi at The Independent Mlans he The qs this one high and dry, we very thirsty Or Our water... Monee ious, a recent case was the one in which we sold ourselves down our own river — the Col- umbia — in order to give Pre- mier Bennett enough petty cash to try to start his own bank. Most recently, without de- bate in Parliament, we’ve signed an agreement with our partner to subsidize the U.S. automobile industry while we await the re- moval of ‘automobile tariffs by the American government — and perhaps they’ll never be re-_ moved. Now, our partner’s got an- other plan. It’s a plan for the “continental sharing” of power and water resources. And, dear reader, guess who has all the water and the power. You guessed it. We share our water with Uncle Sam. And the scheme wasn’t devised in Otta- wa, it originated in Los Angeles. It is the brainchild of the Ralph M. Parsons Company, engineers. The United States Congress has a committee studying it now. This latest scheme would cre- ate a lake the length of British Columbia that would make the desert blossom like a rose — ~ the Arizona -desert, of course. The plan, called North Amer- ican Water and Power Alliance, or NAWAPA, guarantees that “no area will have water taken from it except that which is now, and in the “foreseeale fu- ture” going to waste. SRS St year's low levels on the Great Lakes, leaving docks emphasized the water problem. dam ping at the top of the page shows the Arrow Lake of the «; © constructed at Castlegar in British Columbia—part “Giveaway scheme of the Columbia River. It’s those words, “foreseeable future,’ that worry thinking Canadians. Foreseeable future to me means this country with as many people in it as there are in the United States, but what does it mean to the men who pass our laws — judging from performance? ; Canada has more fresh water than any other country on earth. And when the rest of the world is parched for water, this is undoubtedly our greatest na- tural asset. United States hydraulic engi- neers want our water, but we have some eminent scientists in Canada who disagree with the NAWAPA scheme. The fore- most of these is Dr. George Langford, head of the Univer- sity of Toronto’s Great Lakes Institute. Dr. Langford agrees that NAWAPA is an epic engineer- ing project, “It would make the Aswan High Dam look like a mud puddle,” he said. “But who are we.to give our children’s heritage away?” he asks, “for how can we deter- mine our country’s water needs. of a century from now?” “What would we have done if our ancestors had made simi- lar plans for diverting, obstruc- ting or in some other way alter- ing the course of ‘the Great Lakes?” he asked. “In a hundred years we could consider NAWAPA,” he said, “but not now.” Dr. Langford agrees that our water situation is serious. But what should we do instead of NAWAPA? Use and conserve the water we've got! “The Great Lakes are the largest reserve of fresh water in the world,” he said. “We, just need to use it, not waste ibs He points out that 250,000 cubic feet of water rushes down the St. Lawrence River every second. “That’s enough in 24 hours to supply all of Ontario’s fresh water needs for a year.” He says the St. Lawrence Sea- way has created a water short- age that had never been exper- ienced before. He says that the lakeports are dependent on the level of the standing water in the lakes, whereas, Montreal requires a steady flow of water from the lakes flowing down to the sea. He pointed out that it is impos- sible to have a steady flow down the river while, at. the same time, keeping the level constant in the lakes. Dr. Langford draws attention to the fact that since 1909 we have dredged the St. Clair River to give deeper draught for navigation. “But just about that time na- ture decided to turn the water off and the level of the lakes has been steadily falling since,” he said. He says the drain of the St. Clair — and other channels since — is tantamount to pull- _ing the plug out of the bathtub and NAWAPA will merely be turning on more water*with the plug still out. There is another Canadian plan for increasing the flow of water in the lakes and the Sea- way system. It is a plan sug- gested by Dr. T. W. Kierans, of Sudbury. Dr. Kierans suggests that the waters of the Hurricanaw River, which flows north — largely from Quebec — into James Bay, be dammed and diverted into the Great Lakes system, thus in- creasing the flow of water by almost 50 percent. But isn’t this the turning on of more water with the plug still out? What happens if na- ture decides to turn on her tap again once we have doubled the natural flow down the St. Law- rence? “We haven’t finished this Sea- way job,” Dr. Langford told us, “we've too much invested in the Seaway to leave the flow of the water up to nature. We should build further remedial structures down the system that would maintain the level in the lakes and ensure a con- stant navigable draught at Mon- treal.” Why hasn’t this been done already? Many reasons. Money. and the number of fingers in the lakes. For instance, in Canada, as natural resources, the lakes come under the jurisdiction of the Province of Ontario in mat- ters of fisheries, water and power resources. As they are navigable, they also come un- der the Seaway Authority and the Harbors’ Commission. The lakes are also governed by State Legislatures — for the same reasons the province has jurisdiction — and under the U.S. federal authority. And be- cause they are international waters, they come- under the International Joint Commission. Wouldn’t it be better to use and conserve the waters we have rather than turning on more water, reversing the na- tural flow of rivers and perhaps destroying the heritage of our grandchildren? Who knows what the con- tinental waters needs will be in a century? _ “This man wants to go to ‘a country where they don't stone U.S. embassies. That’s impossible, isn’t it!” Politiken (Denmark)- April 23, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5