Word: dammed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...sits in semidarkness in his cavernous Cairo office, the only light a small desk lamp and neon bulbs overhead. "This is a very hard year for our country's power system," he explains. "I have told the Egyptian people clearly -- we do not have enough." At the Aswan High Dam, Supervisor Hamdi el Shaffei observes, "Water is our fuel. Not a drop is wasted." Under his feet, huge turbines hum as thousands of gallons of precious Nile River water gush past each second, heading north on the last leg of a 4,150-mile journey through Africa...
...desert, Egyptians depend on the world's longest river for irrigation, electric power, drinking water and transportation. Now, after a decade of drought that has left parts of central Africa on the brink of starvation, the Nile is running perilously low. For the first time since the Aswan High Dam was finished in 1970, serious shortages of water and hydroelectric power threaten Egypt...
...impending crisis was not officially acknowledged until last December, after a government-commissioned study by British consultants warning of dire water and power shortages was leaked to the press. The sense of urgency increased last month when officials decided to save water by adding an extra week to the dam's annual 21-day maintenance period, when water flow is sharply reduced. The results downstream were dramatic: parts of the Nile's muddy bottom in Cairo were exposed for the first time, and tourist boats cruising between Aswan and Luxor suddenly confronted midstream sandbars, making passage impossible...
...recent months the Egyptian government has quietly begun instituting measures to save water. Since October, outflow from the Aswan dam has been reduced by more than 10%; irrigation water that once flooded more than 250,000 acres of rice fields, or 25% of Egypt's total production, has been cut off. To cope with the anticipated decrease in hydroelectricity, the government plans to add four new gas- and oil-fired electric generating plants to Egypt's overtaxed power system in the next year. Cost: $300 million...
...knows how long the drought will last. But with the population growing by a million every nine months, the country cannot afford to wait for rain. Egypt already imports more than half its food, and future demand will be even greater. Declares High Dam Engineer el Shaffei: "If we have less water, we have to change our ways. We will have to get all the benefit from every drop." After all, he notes, "water is life...