Sean Akmaker beat me to it for a first mention, so I'll second Elia
Kazan's WILD RIVER (1960) as a fine water oriented movie.  Montgomery
Clift (looking a bit worse for wear) plays a TVA agent who must make a
fiesty old woman (Jo Van Fleet) accept that she has no choice but to leave
her farm because it is going to be flooded by the just completed dam
upriver.  The movie does a good job of showing both sides of an argument.
Something that benefits the many can be harmful to the few.  Both Clift and
Van Fleet are sympathetic characters.  Sadly, I don't think WILD RIVER is
on video and I have never seen it on TV since many of the color prints of
the movie have faded to a purplish tone.  WILD RIVER flopped in the U.S.
largely because 20th Century-Fox did little to publicize it.  I've read it
was a hit in France, though.
 
Mary Kalfatovic, Washington, D.C.