Water is a way of bringing life and vitality to our city, Dallas. Try to imagine its power.
Imagine a natural river with bends and curves. The water hits one curve, moves up the wall, and falls back down on itself, turning itself over and over as it cascades. This constant swirling creates eddies and whirlpools. It also gives the river its life. Even a polluted stream can clean itself fairly quickly with this movement and motion.
[COMMENT: This is true. When I was in Peace Corps training at UCLA, we were taught that if we ever got lost out in the middle of nowhere, we should find the nearest river and follow its banks for one mile. A natural river will cleanse any pollution (such as bacterial contamination from human sewage) if it flows only one mile. If after following the river for one mile, you see no source of contamination, then you can safely drink the water from that river. But, err, that might work out in the middle of Africa somewhere, but that might not necessarily be the case with industrial chemical pollution. This is something that the Sierra Club might want to investigate. I'm sure that the Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington has all sorts of information in this regard. R.]
We now know that the very worst thing we can do to a river is to straighten it. A straightened river has no way to clean itself or to eliminate debris or toxins. A straightened river dies.
[COMMENT: Well, just look what happened to the Sulphur River when they straightened part of it northwest of Mount Vernon, which in turn caused the massive logjam, which in turn is now causing the massive headaches from Washington to Wake Villainy. R.]
In Dallas, we straightened our river in the late 1930s. We began treating our river as a dump. Encased in its straight jacket, it could not clean itself; it began to stink; fish and aquatic plant life died.
It is time for Dallas to put the bend back into the river.
Many people in the city have been trying to bring the Trinity River back. On December 8 [2003], the Dallas City Council approved an urban design for the Trinity River. We have the opportunity to see how urban design can bring life to our city, how good urban design can heal our city. We now have a design for a meandering river, two lakes, vast acres of wetlands, islands with parks and trails throughout, canoe ramps, bike trails, and even white water courses for kayaking.
Are we capable of imagining water in Dallas?
[COMMENT: Those are noble and uplifting thoughts by Ms. Thomas, but she is ignoring the fact that they want to cavort and play along their precious river when they want to flood our river basin, in order to continue to waste their Dallas water supply. The hypocrisy makes me sick. Oh, I momentarily forget, their damn Trinity River water is too polluted to drink. But don't blame me, and don't blame Max, and don't blame Shirley, and don't blame Don, and don't blame Billie, and don't blame Jim, and don't blame Libby, and don't blame Jane (am I leaving anybody out?! -- oh, and don't blame Oran, and don't blame John, and don't blame David & Sharon or Joe & Patricia or the Westons -- you get the picture!). We didn't contribute to pollution in the Trinity River! Dallas is reaping what Dallas has sown, and they should leave us alone! Our own river water is just as valuable to us, and we may need it ourselves someday. R.]