On a bright, cloudless April morning, the water began to flow. As the dam gates opened, the welcome flood sheeted down a concrete spillway and onto cracked, orange-brown ground for the first time in five years. Here, in the remote northwestern corner of New South Wales, Lake Menindee, the largest of nine lakes strung together like a beaded necklace, was finally becoming a lake once more. A few weeks later, when a satellite zipped overhead, it captured Lake Menindee and its kin, milky pearls on a red desert backdrop. The…
