Chapter Eight
On the outskirts of the town lay a sprawling complex with low, single-storey buildings. In better years, it would have been located at the banks of the creek, but it was a long time since the creek had held any water, and the present dry cycle would last another thirty years at least.
These days the building lay next to a sandy patch that, with its many pipes, basins with vivid green water, and tanks, looked like a mining site.
Mining was indeed what happened here. For water.
For all that this was a desert, the ground water in the area was not deep, but it contained an unhealthy concentration of salts, which was the reason for the presence of the evaporation plant that occupied the bank of the creek.
The sprawling complex with low buildings predated the desalination plan
