We need visionaries in this world. Farouk el Bas, having been finely honed by time, is one of those individuals. His goal, his paths and his well sculptured preordained destiny are seemingly set in stone and the harvest and benefits from his efforts are immeasurable.
What Is The History Of This Man?
Farouk el-Bas is Egyptian-born out of Zagazig. His year of birth was 1938, just before WWII. He earned degrees from many institutes of higher learning, which began with Ain Shams University in Cairo, from there to Missouri at Rolla and later at M.I.T. in Cambridge, Mass. Worthy of mention is Mr. Bas's important part in the U.S. space program in the 1960's to land man on the moon. He was a great instrument in selecting the landing site for the LEM to "set its feet down". Of course, we could have just picked a spot by observing the appearance of the terrain and hope for the best. It seems we needed someone who would venture to go "deeper than that".
That stage in the life of man is now history and el-Bas has embarked on an even greater adventure to help in mankind's struggle in finding water by revealing the long ago hidden mysteries of our own planet. Mr. Bas had also worked as an oil geologist in his homeland for a period before coming to the United States in 1967 to work on the Lunar Science Planning and Operations at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Washington, D.C. Among his assignments: training NASA astronauts what to observe and photograph about lunar and earth geology. He left in 1973 to become research director of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the National Air and Space Museum. That's when he began his research on deserts, particularly looking at how space data can help explain the origin and evolution of deserts on Earth. After a brief stint at a high-tech firm, he joined BU in 1986.
How Great Is The Significance Of His Past Accomplishments?
It took him 15 years and unrelenting patience to persuade his homeland to dig the first well and another few years to convince them that the water was plentiful there. It is not an easy road to convince even one, let alone a nation's government and its people that "there's water readily available in the desert". One would probably be told,"take another walk in the desert" and see if you can find another of your mirages. Today Egypt has 500 wells yielding enough water to last an estimated 100 years and support 150,000 acres of agriculture in the area around an ancient lake. With this behind him, he is now embarked on another similar task, i.e., to help make available clear, fresh drinking water to the people of Dafur, Africa.
"Providing a source of clean water in this region would remove one of the main sources of conflict," Mr. Baz says, sitting in an office lined with bookshelves, awards, photos of him with various world leaders, and a giant image of the Arabian desert.
So important is the potential Massachusetts-size underground aquifer, the remains of a lake that dried up 5,000 to 11,000 years ago, that when the news broke, Baz got a call to speak to the head of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon.
"I briefed the secretary-general personally," Baz says. "He doesn't have 10 minutes for some heads of state, but I gave him a 10-minute presentation, and then he asked questions for 40 minutes. He loved it."
A United Nations Environmental Program report released this past June said "serious water shortages" in Darfur, combined with population growth and environmental degradation, "created the conditions for conflicts to be triggered and sustained" between Arab militias and farmers in the region. Some 3.5 million people in Darfur are living without reasonable access to water, says Craig Miller, president of Thirst No More, a humanitarian group based in Texas that is working on water projects in Darfur and Peru.
Visionary Outlook, Once Again!
Now the UN, Egypt, and even the Sudanese government - which has been accused of complicity in the attacks - have signed on to finance the Baz-initiated "1,000 wells for Darfur" project. First, the UN will dig 24 wells to test Baz's premise once safety conditions on the ground permit, most likely next year. If those wells are successful, they will supply water for the 26,000 UN troops headed for Sudan. Based on the time of the writing of this article's source, Farouk el-Baz heads to Sudan next month to site wells over what he believes is a vast reserve from an ancient lake.
Farouk el-Baz has been peering into the deserts of the world for 21 years - from hundreds of miles up and 10,000 miles away. The Egyptian-born geologist and his staff pore over satellite imagery at Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing, seeking clues to deserts' most precious resource: water. The water reserves he announced in April may increase an even more precious resource: peace in Darfur.
Baz has done this before; he found an ancient lake in Egypt in the early 1980s.
Could other areas of the earth have hidden "wells of plenty"? Is man just beginning to unravel the hidden mysteries of this great planet of ours? What is next for this "Houdini" from Egypt?
