VISION

Jorges Luis Borges, the Argentine short-story writer, gives the best vision albeit fictional of where the consortium wants to head. He describes an enigmatic spot in the house of one Carlos Argentino Dameri. Borges refers to the spot as the Aleph, Aas one of the points in space containing all points "and Athe place where . . . all the places in the world are found, seen from every angle."

The Aleph was physically located in Dameri's dining-room cellar. To view the Aleph, Dameri descended a flight of stairs and lay down on the tile floor, a pillow under his head. The cellar door was shut, leaving him in darkness, in almost total sensory deprivation. He then fixed his eyes on the 19th step. Toward the right was a small iridescent sphere, of almost intolerable brilliance. The Aleph's diameter was 2 or 3 centimeters, but the world was within it.

In the above description, substitute "watershed" for "world" and "www.sevierriver.org" for "Aleph", and you have a good description of where the consortium is going. They want to create a complete visual representation of all places (or more specifically conditions) in the Sevier River watershed. But unlike Borge's Aleph, which could only enlighten, the Sevier River Aleph will have the ability to react: to make changes as weather and hydrological conditions dictate. The Sevier River Aleph is also freed from Dameri's basement.