Dear President Obama:

With so many top-notch advisors to routinely advise you, how audacious of me to think I might offer some nugget that might get your attention, yet I believe citizen perspectives can be instructive.

To do something big and to do it now, at a time of national economic peril is the thing great presidencies are made of. You are correct. The state of the economy does call for action, “swift and bold,” and you say on your Web site that you will act, “Not only to create jobs, but to lay a foundation for growth.”

You have the vision, now you must summon the courage to stand down the Republicans to get a bill passed if not now, then 2012, to find sources of funding and let the people decide who has their best interests at heart. This is the same courage FDR demonstrated in 1930, that Truman demonstrated in 1948 when desegregating the military, and Lyndon B. Johnson showed when launching the War on Poverty, only weeks after taking office creating Head Start, food stamps, work study, Medicare and Medicaid. All of these presidents faced stiff opposition. Another great American who showed great vision for America, but is rarely a part of the conversation is Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. He believed in the power of clean water and consistently loaned his support to numerous projects and expressed some creative ideas about how to move it and how to make it more usable.

On March 18 of this year, Doyle Rice, a journalist for USA today, reported that almost half the country was at risk for spring flooding. And at a press briefing, Jack Hayes, director of the weather service, said, “For the third consecutive year, the stage is set for potential widespread, record flooding in the north-central United States.” His prediction was frighteningly accurate. This was the year that widespread river flooding and severe droughts in the South and the farm belt devastated communities across the country. We watched areas along the Mississippi River experiencing flooding which included Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, and witnessed the tragic results of homes and futures lost. You were there to lend your support. This national disaster was accompanied by news of severe and deepening droughts across the South and North, in Texas, and the Southwest into the mid-Atlantic, where the likelihood of wildfires increased this past spring when humidity was low and winds were high.

Why can’t flood waters be diverted toward drought areas? In 1937 a law was passed to bring fresh water from the mainland to the Florida Keys, and the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority (FKAA) was created. Funding came from the federal government to provide water for the newly-created submarine base in Key West to support World War II efforts in 1942, and an 18-inch-diameter, 130-mile-long pipeline stretching from Dade County to Key West went into service powered by diesel engines. The goal of the project was to create a reliable system to deliver fresh drinking water, fashioned after the California State Water Project that began in 1956 after a devastating 1955-1956 flood year. The California project is the finest example of water resourcing and delivery in the nation and could be used as the basis of a technological model to deliver a national water system that would tap into other infrastructure projects such as road and bridge construction.

Relevant aspects of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) model which pulled the nation out of the Great Depression could be used to inform the logistical vehicle to build such a system, powered not by diesel, but a combination of solar power, hydroelectric and nuclear, funded through your open investment policy, a combination of federal, private investors, and your proposed inbound, foreign, direct investment initiative to promote foreign-based companies investing in the United States: A federally-controlled system in partnership with the states.

Think of all the small and large construction companies and all the people who could be put to work immediately planning, material sourcing, digging, framing, wiring the infrastructure and installing such a complex system over the long term in cities and rural areas. Think of the opportunities for real engineering training programs and green infrastructure programs, educational programs that would lead to more and more certified jobs from semi-skilled to professional who would be involved. Think of lowered flood insurance rates and the confidence it would generate in locating real estate in riparian and coastal areas, now under siege due to global warming. Think! What better way to lay a foundation for growth.

Bettye Baker lives in Oak Bluffs and Gettysburg, Pa.