THIS FALL, IN AN UNMARKED OFFICE IN THE SUBBASEMENT of the Minnesota state capitol, a team of resource-management planners is fine-tuning the biggest water-diversion project in the history of mankind and the largest transfer of wealth since Cortes acquired the Aztec empire.
Its code name is Excelsior, and the preliminary plan alone fills a portfolio the size of a breadbox. If all goes according to plan, on Nov. 4, 1999, the Governor of Minnesota will stand on a platform in Duluth and pull a golden lanyard, opening the gates of the Superior Diversion Canal, a concrete waterway the size of the Suez. Water from Lake Superior will flood into the canal at a rate of 50 billion gal. per hour and go south.
It will flow into the St. Croix River, to the Mississippi, south to an aqueduct at Keokuk, Iowa, and from there west to the Colorado River and into the Grand Canyon and many other southwestern canyons, filling them up to the rims--enough water to supply the parched Southwest from Los Angeles to Santa Fe for more than 50 years.
In the past, Lake Superior, which represents one-tenth of the world's supply of freshwater, was considered "inviolable," but with environmental groups in retreat and a Republican Congress favoring "wise use" of natural resources, the Excelsior project is moving full tilt toward opening day.
What will Excelsior mean? It means that America's Sunbelt retirees will be able to shower, flush toilets and have lush, green lawns for decades to come.
And it means that Minnesota will earn pots of money. Typically, residents of the Southwest today pay up to $45 per 1,000 cu. ft. of water. That price may rise as the aquifers of the Western plains recede and more rivers are diverted to irrigation. But assuming the price remains at $45 per 1,000 cu. ft., the value of Lake Superior would be an astounding $20 trillion. In addition, Minnesota would receive current market prices for the fish.
After deducting the cost of canal and aqueduct construction, the net profit for Minnesota will be $17.5 trillion, or $3.8 million per person. Placed in a trust fund earning 6% interest, divided fifty-fifty between individual citizen and state treasury, the sale of Lake Superior would provide an annual sum of more than $100,000 to every Minnesota resident.
To many Americans, whose only knowledge of the North Star State is that it gets cold in the winter and produces cheese, it will come as a surprise to wake up one morning in 2004 and read in the newspaper, HALF OF U.S. ECONOMY NOW IN HANDS OF MINNESOTA. But there is something inevitable about economics, and $17.5 trillion talks in a loud, clear voice.
Overnight Minnesota will be transformed from corn belt to money belt. Gigantic glass skyscrapers will rise in downtown St. Paul, home of the nation's wealthiest state legislature, and as the money floods in, Minnesotans will look for acquisitions: IBM, UPS, USX, GTE, Time Warner, Minnecorp, J.P. Olson, Chase Minnesota. Presidential candidates will hold their big, $100,000-a-plate fund raisers in Minneapolis, will pledge their support for water diversification and mention that, conservative though they be, they've always had a soft spot in their hearts for Hubert Humphrey.