Pave the fields, dam the rivers. (Poland)

During the Communist era, several highly-damaging, large-scale industrial projects were built in Poland. The Communist legacy includes the Lenin Steel Works (renamed the Tadeusz Sendzimir Steel Works) near Krakow, which is not only a notorious polluter, but was also built on top of some of the best farmland in Poland.

History looks set to repeat itself in the form of two new large-scale infrastructure projects: a 2,600 kilometre superhighway network and a series of cascade dams on the Vistula River, Poland's main river artery. Both projects have long been on the drawing board, but were never realized because of their high costs and other priorities. Today, with Western …