Martian Water Debate Continues
Summit held over pollution rights

ARY, INDIANA (Associated Poets): U. S. Steel headquarters in Gary, Indiana, played host to a worldwide summit this week, welcoming representatives from a host of global corporations, including DuPont, 3M, General Electric, and ExxonMobil. The burning question: If recent speculations prove true concerning the existence of water in the southern

Achieving maximum environmental impact will be an easier job up there.

hemisphere of Mars, then what will be the most efficient and profitable method of polluting that water?

Assembled experts agreed that "engineering industrial modifications" to the ground water of the red planet would not be feasible without "some cost-effective benefits for the end consumer," like strip mining, electric power production, manufacturing, or plastics. Contingency plans would also need to be drawn up, in the event of the discovery of microscopic life forms on Mars, for the legalized seizure of those life forms' water supply and for the subsequent re-sale of water and water resources to said life forms at a sufficiently significant profit.

Corporate representatives from the European Union, pointing to the dawn of the Industrial Age, suggested that one very effective use of any natural water supply, terrestrial or Martian, was the incubation and spread of fatal diseases among a working populace. Scientists at several EU think-tanks and affiliated institutions are hard at work right now, their report stated, trying to isolate possible microscopic Martian life forms

Artist's conception of a mars pollution station

that most closely resemble terrestrial cholera, dysentary, malaria, and e. coli.

A keynote address by the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Water Modification Commission provided a note of optimism: "Considering the lack of abundance of water on Mars," their spokesperson pointed out, "achieving maximum environmental impact will be a much easier job up there."

The most far-reaching and speculative plan, however, came from a consortium of global petroleum companies headed up by ExxonMobil. "If there's water on Mars," stated ExxonMobil Chairmain Lee R. Raymond, "there might be life. If there's life, there might be fossils. If there's fossils, there might be fossil fuel deposits. With this in mind, ExxonMobil intends to engineer the first ever government-funded oil spill cleanup on the Red Planet, with sweet dividends for all of our shareholders."

Chairman Raymond's presentation was applauded resoundingly.