Shirley MacLaine (who will soon be moving in) and the Dalai Lama, and a plan to make a storehouse for seeds of the world’s endangered plants in a cupboard in their basement – have made the Strong’s a curiosity since they arrived in the valley a dozen years ago.
   So has their own peculiar brand of philanthropy. They have given or plan to give parcels of their land to Tibetan holy men, Carmelite monks, Buddhists, American Indians and a host of other representatives of ancient religions. The Strong’s believe that by bringing this eclectic mix to La Baca, it may be possible to overcome the factionalism and dogma that Mrs. Strong says characterizes the world’s mainline religions.
   But what people in the San Luis Valley are most curious about these days is what the powerful and strange Canadians have in mind for their water.
   Below the bone-dry surface sits the largest underground reservoir in the world. The best estimate is that two billion acre-feet of water are under the yellow sand, enough to cover two billion acres of land one foot deep.
   It also happens to be in one of the driest parts of the United States, a region where people have  been known  to shoot each other over a resource that can sell for as much as $7,000 an acre-foot to thirsty cities.
   Take $7,000, multiply it by two billion and you get $14-trillion, the amount the San Luis Valley’s water might be worth if only it were not thousands of meters under the surface of the Earth.
   But American Water Development Inc., which owns a 58,000-hectare ranch in the valley, has plans to get some of that precious water to market.
   It wants to dig a field of wells on its ranch and build a 73-kilometre pipeline that can pump from 25,000 to 200,000 acre-feet of water into a river that flows to Denver. Assuming a price of $7,000 an acre-foot, which would result  in revenue ranging from $175-million to $1.4-billion a year for the company.
   “They’re going to dry up this valley,” says Mr. Gosar, who fears that the plan will lower the water table so much that farmers will not be able to get water cheaply enough to stay in business.
   “Maurice Strong’s got to shoulder a lot of the blame for this. He brought the company here.”
   Mr. Strong acknowledges that he is troubled by his tarnished reputation. A videotape has circulated in the valley that accuses him of being part of an international conspiracy to take over the world economy and of having a warehouse in Canada full of newly minted money all ready for a new world order.
   Despite the hysteria and ill-will, Mr. Strong says he has the interests of the valley at heart, and formed the water company only to help develop the economy of the desperately poor region.
   It was necessary to develop the water, Mr. Strong says, because people from outside the valley were likely to make a grab for the water if American Water Development did not act first.
   “Of course, we’re in the centre of controversy over the water,” he said in a telephone interview from Geneva, Switzerland. “But we love this valley. We live there. It’s our home.”
   In recent months, Mr. Strong has made efforts to divorce himself from American Water Development. He no longer is a shareholder, he has given up his position as chairman of the board and he is no longer one of its directors.
   He does retain a royalty interest that would allow him an unspecified share of the company’s future profits, but he says he wants to sell it back to the company, although there are no takers so far since the firm has yet to make money.
   Mr. Strong donated his 22 percent share in the company to a charitable foundation, but the company has since bought back those shares. He says the firm thwarted his attempt to have the foundation sell the shares to outside interests.
   He is cryptic about exactly why he left American Water Development, saying only that he lost control and that he no longer had a reason to stay. (Attempts to interview Mr. Belzberg on the subject were fruitless.)
   But Mr. Strong did acknowledge that the greatest source of controversy was the New Age community that he and his wife were setting up at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
   “They were not keen on the ecological and spiritual development, says Mr. Strong, who left the company with the 810 hectares of land that he and his wife need for their dream.
   People associated with the company say some of the firm’s principal backers were uncomfortable with Mrs. Strong, whose ideas they view as “hippy-dippy”.