Word: marshland
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Government forces in Iraq have accelerated their campaign to clear opposition Shi'ite Muslims from a vast marshland in the southern part of the country. Engineers have diverted water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to drain large areas of the swamps, home to an estimated 200,000 people, and Iraqi soldiers have burned villages and carried out summary executions. Some witnesses have described attacks using chemical weapons...
...tall forests of papyrus and rushes. But once the swamps are dry, the rebels fear not only enemy tanks but also fires, which would push them into the arms of troops surrounding the perimeter. In February three blazes set by Iraqi barrages scorched several hundred square miles of marshland and destroyed dozens of villages...
Once it was a forbidding wilderness of marshland and saw grass that had to be drained and tamed before southern Florida could realize its rich potential. Today the Everglades -- what is left of it -- is surrounded by an urban sprawl of 4.5 million people. Thriving sugarcane farms carved out of its northern reaches drain pollutants into its water; Air Force jets boom over its skies. The 1.4 million-acre Everglades National Park, created in 1947, has become an endangered relic in the nation's fourth most populous state. "Make no mistake," says outgoing park superintendent Michael Finley, "the Everglades...
...Federal Government contends that Florida, despite overwhelming demands on its limited natural resources, can re-create the ecological balance necessary to keep the Everglades alive. The water that replenishes the marshland once spilled out of Lake Okeechobee in a shallow sheet 50 miles wide, moving slowly south for 180 miles before emptying into Florida Bay. But since the mid-1960s, the lake overflow has been channeled through a massive flood-control project -- 1,400 miles of canals and hydraulic pumps that can drain a field or rush water to urban centers on command. Using computers, engineers now try to mimic...
...river of grass turns into a sea of cattails, the water supply for coastal cities from West Palm Beach to Miami could dry up, and a sunny subtropical paradise could become a barren wasteland. Floridians are coming to realize how much they too depend on the vast marshland that once seemed so useless...