It is bizarre how the long awaited demise of a failed and costly institution - Bedfordshire County Council - should threaten the founding of a valuable and beneficial project - Nirah.
Talk of "large sums of precious taxpayers' money being given to Nirah" by a Mid Bedfordshire District councillor is misplaced. The payback, just to Mid Beds alone from increased rateable income and other revenue streams, is immense.
The money is not being given; it's being invested.
In astronomy there is the Hubble Telescope. More recently biology saw the completion of the human genome project - with no little thanks to the Wellcome Foundation. At CERN it's now the turn of physics - at the cost of a cool £4.4 billion.
As the Large Hadron Collider powers up, ready to smash together beams of protons travelling close to the speed of light, Bedford stands on the brink of a more modest, but no less exciting project with Nirah.
Bedford's place may seem more prosaic, but it could yield enormous benefits of immediate importance to mankind for a mere £375m - and very little of it coming from the taxpayer.
Freshwater is the most important natural resource on the planet, and the one most stressed by human activity. As it makes clear on its website Nirah aims to promote understanding of the connection between freshwater and life.
Amongst all the water on planet earth, only 3% is fresh. And over 99% of that is locked up in icecaps and glaciers. The tiny amount left over is now under increasing pressure due to an expanding population, industrial development, and climate change.
If you harbour any doubts, remember that the human body itself is mainly water - ranging from 80% in a newborn baby to about 55% to 60% in adults.
With all this at stake Cllr Baines from Mid Beds District Council asks, "Why should taxpayers be required to further underwrite Nirah?"
Duh!
If you are alarmed about oil running out, think about the threat imposed by the increasing scarcity of fresh water.
