Word: waterous
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...ever had before and severely damaged the dam. This winter, with the likelihood of just as much rain, there will be some 35,000 residents in danger. If authorities try to make do with the crippled dam and it fails, "you're talking about a biblical wall of water swimming down the valley," says Kurt Triplett, interim executive of King County, home to the Green River Valley. So a controlled release may be the only way to regulate a catastrophe, even if it leads to flooding...
...repair work could just ensure that the gravel collapses in one chunk, as opposed to failing in pockets - should the anticipated rains arrive, the only relatively safe option will be to deliberately release the dam. "What is crystal clear is that there will be a devastating impact if the water is released," Triplett says. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates that if the dam needs to be released, the resulting damage could cost $3 billion. County officials estimate that the ensuing shutdown of business could cost the area another $46 million per day. The odds of needing to release...
...Back in the day - that day being some 425 years ago - Udaipur's system of lake development was considered a role model of water management. As early as 1582, the Maharanas of the erstwhile state of Mewar started dredging out Lake Pichola to make it suitable as an irrigation and drinking source for the general population. In 1890, Maharana Fateh Singh inaugurated a project that geography professor Narpat Singh Rathore of Udaipur's Mohanlal Sukhadia University calls the "the world's first man-made microsystem of river diversion, linkage and watershed management," the result of which constitutes the current system...
...Getting lake-conservation measures on the books has been slow to nonexistent. In the absence of effective public management, some 14 local environmental groups have been working in different ways to preserve the waters; a few have even filed lawsuits against local and state governing boards seeking urgent judicial intervention to clean up Udaipur's lakes and check the flow of pollutants into these water bodies. Following up on suits that began in 1982, the state's high court directed the government in 2007 to consider establishing a Lakes Development Authority, implement a "no-construction zone," undertake continuous de-silting...
...area's huge tourist potential could also be part of a solution. In July, Udaipur earned the "world's best city" rating in a Travel & Leisure poll. Last year 1.2 million tourists visited the city; Rajasthan officials estimate tourism here jumped 10% last year. But when water levels drop so low that you can drive a jeep to the two hotels that are built in the middle of the lake - as they did as recently as July - so does the appeal of the destination. Deforestation around the lakes disrupts the flow of water, and waste dumping has caused "hot spots...