“The hearings have been about our waste of water. There’s a shortage. It is real, it is serious, and it is upon us. Solutions were proposed. They include conservation and redistribution of our present supplies and the creation of new sources through seawater distillation, reverse osmosis, reversing the flow of Arctic rivers, seeding the clouds with iodine crystals, and so on. All involve enormous expenditures and frightening environmental risks. We cannot afford to experiment with these new monsters, for experience proves they are more likely to destroy than to serve us.
“One solution remains. It is untried, but it is wholly feasible. It will provide the purest water in the world in unlimited quantities. It will be costly, but the cost is but
a fraction of that of such environmental calamities as the North American Water and Power Alliance scheme and negligible compared with the alternative: chronic thirst, economic disaster, defenselessness against foreign aggression, and massive suffering.
“That solution is icebergs.”
A murmur of surprise and disappointment rose from the assembled press. The iceberg idea had been kicking around since the 1970s, when Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed Feisal had launched a company to bring Antarctic icebergs to his waterless kingdom. But the scheme had foundered on the rocks of primitive technology, poor administration, and inadequate financing.
“That was exactly my reaction,” said Castle grimly as the murmur subsided, “when I first heard of iceberg transport. But the facts, ladies and gentlemen–the facts are too compelling to ignore. Allow me to share some of them with you.
“The Antarctic is the world’s fifth largest continent, at 5.5 million square miles almost double the size of the United States. It’s a vast plateau averaging 7,500 feet above sea level. The uppermost 6,500 feet, containing seven million cubic miles, is almost solid ice. If melted, the water would equal the flow of the Mississippi for 46,000 years. If melted, it could provide the United States with water everlasting.
“But how do we get it here to melt? The answer is, we tow it, one iceberg at a time, as we tow a river barge. But before we hitch it to our tugboat, let’s go back to the Antarctic uplands where those icebergs are born for a closer look.
“There, little snow falls. It amounts to only two inches a year, barely a third the precipitation that falls on, for example, Phoenix, Arizona. Compacted by its own weight over the years, the slow accumulation of snow turns to ice in temperatures that go down to more than -120 degrees Fahrenheit. Almost imperceptibly, sometimes at a rate of only inches per year, the huge mass flows downhill toward the sea as a river of ice. The glacier’s journey to the sea may take up to 20,000 years. Along the way, high-velocity winds smooth its irregularities and plane it
flat. It moves out inexorably across the face of the sea, until at last the wave motion of the turbulent sea boiling beneath it breaks off chunks of ice, and the new-born icebergs float away.
“They can be huge. In the late 1970s a 768-square-mile iceberg was sighted off the tip of South America. On November 12, 1956, the U.S.S. Glacier spotted a berg west of Scott Island in the Pacific; its area was an estimated 12,000 square miles, twice the size of Massachusetts. Ten thousand icebergs a year calve from five main ice shelves. Caught in the cold Circumpolar Current, they may survive for up to seven years, until warmer water melts them away, their superlatively pure water lost to the salty sea.
“Science can save these icebergs for us, bring them to our shores, and revitalize America. A single iceberg of optimum transportable size, that is, two kilometers long by one kilometer wide and one-fifth of a kilometer thick, contains a billion tons of water. That amount would supply every inhabitant of Manhattan, for instance, with water for his domestic needs for six years. Icebergs brought to our shores on a continuous basis would revive American agriculture and industry and lead us into a new era of national prosperity.”
Castle paused and looked around the room at a sea of disbelieving faces. Somewhere a snicker was heard, then a cynical chuckle. Laughter rippled through the room.
Castle colored but managed to maintain his aplomb. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.
“I, too, was a skeptic,” he said when the laughter subsided. “But once it was made clear to me that there was no other alternative, I consulted leading authorities around the world: glaciologists, computer experts, ocean engineers, mathematicians, mechanical engineers, ship masters, hydrologists, and experts from dozens of other disciplines. They have provided evidence–incontrovertible evidence–that iceberg transport from the Antarctic to America is not only possible but practical. Furthermore, it will be economically feasible once the iceberg pipeline is filled, compared with the present costs of irrigation and industrial water–water which, I need not remind you, is scarcer, more polluted, and more costly every day.”
He paused and looked out beyond the glaring lights into the phalanx of unconvinced reporters in the crowded chamber.
“This conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, is the verdict of science, based on some seven weeks of hearings by this committee. I know you will have some questions. I shall do my best to answer them.”
A babel of shouting rose from the floor.
For the next hour and a half, as the klieg lights blazed hot and a steady barrage of questions rained down upon him, Castle, with cool logic, defended the accuracy of the report.
He was still going strong when, just before eleven, a flying wedge of Secret Service men plowed through the pack of reporters at the rear of the committee room. Behind them, grinning broadly, came the President of the United States.
Only momentarily at a loss, Castle descended from the podium and warmly grasped President Turnbull’s outstretched hand. Concealing his ire beneath a deferential welcoming smile, he escorted the chief executive up the three steps to the bank of microphones.
It was obvious to the assembled media that President Turnbull had come to defuse Castle’s rocket before it got off the ground. He would trot out some old nostrum, perhaps water desalinization with solar power or even plain conservation, to divert attention from Castle’s scheme.
Such thoughts paraded through the cynical minds of those present as David D. Castle cleared his throat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we are flattered and honored by the unscheduled appearance of the chief executive of the United States. It is obvious that he shares with all of us here a concern for our nation’s plight, and like us invokes the intervention of the Lord so eloquently expressed in the Psalm,
‘Oh God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee;
my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is…”‘
–let the old coot try to top that!–“to favor us with a solution to this problem. I confidently expect he will now present it to us, as I now present to you–the President of the United States.”
The chamber reverberated with applause. Castle nodded graciously, content to believe that it was for his adroit volley of the water crisis into Turnbull’s court.
The President, doubting not that the applause was for him, raised his hands in the politician’s victory salute and stepped up to the microphones.
“I thank Congressman Castle for his kind words,” said the President, “and I thank him doubly for invoking the name of the Lord. His reference is a reminder that, as the Germans say, ‘God does not give to all alike; to one He gives the goose, and to another the egg.’ In the matter of water, in these first years of this century, as we all know, He, in His infinite wisdom, has given us a little of both: the goose egg.
“This evening, Congressman Castle has given us something else: an example–and hope. While the rest of us were blithely oblivious of the gathering black clouds of national disaster, the honorable gentleman from California was measuring its awesome dimensions and implications and sounding the alarm in this committee room.
“From the evidence he has presented this evening, it appears that miracles have not yet ceased, that he has indeed discovered the thread which will lead us out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth onto the vast plains of national prosperity. So far, however, we have only the hope of victory. Hard work, imagination, money, dedication, and luck will be required to achieve our goal. Above all, leadership of the highest order will be needed to guide this vast national enterprise to success.
“To this end, tomorrow I will submit to the Congress draft legislation for the immediate establishment of a Department of Water Resources.”
Castle suddenly felt faint and put his hand on the edge of the lectern to steady himself. He had neglected to consider the possibility that Turabull might go along with his proposal, steal the whole idea and make it his own, and freeze him right out of the picture. The hundreds of hours in the public eye, the millions spent for Grayle’s services, the long sleepless nights rehearsing his lines, the dream of becoming President–all in vain.