RALEIGH - Some of the smartest folks in the world spent two days last week talking about energy at the 23rd annual Emerging Issue Forum. It was a smash hit. The place was filled to nearly overflowing. Hundreds more would have attended if there had been room. It was visionary stuff, exactly the thing that folks ought to be thinking about.

Outside, the news was full of ominous predictions. A prolonged drought could mean a fire season extending all year long. Raleigh's water supply might run out by June or July. The capital city was about to impose Stage 2 water restrictions that would prevent using city water to fill swimming pools, water golf course greens or even fill the kids' wading pools. Every county in the state is in severe, extreme or exceptional drought.

Water supplies -- quantity as well as quality -- would have been a jim-dandy topic for the Emerging Issues Institute, too. It would have helped focus public attention on the fact that policymakers have ignored the prospect of inadequate water supplies for way too long.

They had warnings.

Three decades ago, then-House Speaker Carl Stewart, a Gaston Democrat, saw what was coming. With continued rapid state growth that just then was showing signs of boosting the state's population dramatically, he saw that water supplies would be stressed in many areas of the state. He knew from his legislative experience that there wasn't a good system in North Carolina for handling water disputes, accurately forecasting needs and developing a consensus about how to plan for adequate water.

So he proposed a statewide water supply authority with sufficient power to order protections for water supplies as well as make sure there were adequate water supplies for all communities. His suggestions included a pipeline through the Piedmont connecting major water basins, a system that would allow for distribution to areas that needed it.

It was both visionary and radioactive. Critics condemned the proposal and a legislative commission spiked the idea.

Too bad. That's just the sort of thing that would have given state officials more ability -- and perhaps the will -- to deal substantively with water shortages. Perhaps a legislative Water Allocation Study now under way will get at some of these issues.

Stewart's wasn't the only foresighted idea. In 1993, David Moreau, director of the Water Resources Research Institute at N.C. State University, issued a report examining trends in water supplies since the turn of the 20th century. He noted that most of the state's reservoirs were built between 1915 and 1965 as part of hydroelectric projects. Since then, flood-control projects at Falls Lake north of Raleigh and Jordan Lake south of Chapel Hill were constructed. The new Randleman Dam reservoir southeast of Greensboro will provide water in the Triad.

But water consumption increased significantly at a time when reservoir construction tailed off. Water use doubled from 1970 to 1990 partly because of population growth, new industrial uses for water and new residential ways to consume it.

Moreau said the state must take better care of existing water supplies and identify new sites suitable for reservoirs and make sure they are preserved for potential water supply use.

He noted something else that rings pretty wise these days. The state does not value water conservation the way water-poor Western states do. North Carolina could do much more to conserve water and make sure it's used for the most pressing needs.

That was nearly 15 years ago.

Stewart's call for a systematic way to help ensure water supplies and Moreau's suggestions for significant conservation make them look like the kinds of visionaries that wowed attendees at the Emerging Issues Forum last week.

It's a reminder that North Carolinians have adequate vision to identify troubling issues and develop responses.

We just have a lack of will to get the job done -- until the pipes start running dry.