Word: dams
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Several months ago, thousands of Seneca Indians were forced to leave their lands in upper New York State. It was necessary, or so the Seneca and the public were told, to build a dam, the Kinzua Dam in Pennsylvania, in such a way as to flood the Indians' land; it was also necessary, incidentally, to break the oldest continuously existing treaty between the United States and a foreign power, in this case the Iroquois Confederacy, one of the oldest nations on Earth. The treaty had been signed by George Washington...
...fact, none of this was necessary. The dam could easily have been built at another location, leaving the Seneca reservation intact, and accomplishing the same results in terms of power and flood control at comparable cost. But somebody's property had to be taken, and Indians are notoriously easier to exploit than other groups in our society...
...Seneca themselves, they responded to the affront with the utmost dignity. They held a moving ceremony at the site of the dam, a kind of funeral service for their land...
Eradication of parasite-bearing snails is not one bit easier than attacking the worms in man. The snails have survived the assaults of modern chemistry, and they thrive on the benefits of modern engineering-each new irrigation system, each new dam provides more breeding places. Victims pick up the larva in snail-infested paddyfields and irrigated patches where they work, drink and wash clothes. During the occupation of Japan, the U.S. Army drastically reduced the incidence of the disease by killing snails with the chemical sodium pentachlorphenate, but like so many other chemical agents, the stuff also killed fish...
...five years the problem was attacked by the world's most imaginative engineers. Scheme after intricate scheme was devised on their drawing boards. Offer after expensive offer was made to save the great Egyptian temple at Abu Simbel from the waters that will soon rise behind the Aswan Dam. Which method would finally be chosen to preserve that magnificent relic of a lost civilization? While the world waited for an answer, each new suggestion drew new publicity while the money raisers raced against time to collect enough cash to pay what seemed sure to be an astronomical bill...