There are two things I would say. First of all, it's become quite clear only recently how serious the water crisis in the United States actually is. There's a new Environmental Protection Agency report that says that 36 states are in crisis. The issue of water as a national security issue has moved up to the top of the political agenda in the United States. This same CSIS, the same group, the American research institute that is the American component of this Future 2025, was also tasked the same year to put something called the Global Water Futures together, which is a whole blueprint for the United States government on water, both water around the world where there are going to be conflicts, and also where the United States is going to get water.
So suddenly the United States is looking at water like it's looking at energy, and realizing you can't be a superpower if you don't have both. So they are beginning to take this very, very seriously, and they're looking north to us, and they're looking south to the Guaraní Aquifer in South America. Those are the two places.
The concern we have is that we don't have water to spare. It is a myth that we have 20% of the world's water. You'd have to drain every lake and river. We have about 7%. More importantly, that water is in huge rivers that run north, in the north, so to shift to move massive amounts of water, we would have to introduce huge engineering feats that would have to reverse the flow of that water, and it would have to be taken by pipeline. There's no other way that would be cost-effective, and it would be very expensive. But so is running out of water if you're a state like California.
I think the openness with which the head of this team, this CSIS group in the United States, spoke to the media last week and said, “Yes, of course we're interested in your water, Does the sun come up in the morning?”...that kind of thing. He didn't even understand why there would be a concern about it.
In October, the Global Water & Energy Strategy Team, which is a Washington-based group, was at a business meeting in Calgary, and they said there would be water flowing from northern Canada within five years. They're working with some think tank groups and energy organizations in Manitoba, and they were talking about the first exports from northern Manitoba.
So I think the political resistance will hold it off for a while, but I think it's only a matter of time before we're really going to have a full-blown discussion on this.