THE PLANK APRIL 1, 2008
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The Los Angeles Times takes a look today at a conflict over whether to build a new dam and reservoir on the Cache la Poudre River in northern Colorado, where fast-growing suburbs are hunting around for every spare drop. Part of the difficulty in deciding whether projects like this should go forward is that, in the absence of a market for water rights, it's hard to adjudicate between competing demands on the water in question. Writing in Democracy, Michael Greenstone makes the case for the federal government to step in and establish such a market:
The current distribution system in the West
means that water doesn’t end up in the hands of those who value it
most. Agriculture uses about four-fifths of the water in the West,
leaving just 20 percent for the region’s fast-growing cities. And yet
water is far more valuable to towns and cities. One 1992 Texas study
reports that the value of water in agricultural uses ranges from $300
to $2,300 per acre-foot, compared to $6,500 to $21,000 per acre-foot in
urban uses. Clearly, water must be treated like other scarce resources.
In practice, this requires a system that redirects water from
individuals who don’t value it highly to those who do. In other words,
we need a market for water rights.Consider the case where an extra acre-foot of water would increase a
farmer’s profits by $500, but it is worth $8,000 to a growing city.
Without a market, the farmer would use all of the water on agriculture.
However, a market would allow the farmer to trade water to the city for
money. At any price between $500 and $8,000, both would benefit. Yet
under the current system, many beneficial trades do not occur, because
there are only limited regional markets (such as the Colorado-Big
Thompson Project and the emergency California Water Bank). In most of
the West, working markets do not even exist. That’s why the federal
government should establish a comprehensive water market.
As the West gets warmer and drier, a transfer of water from agricultural to urban use is going to happen somehow--and this is the most efficient way to do it.
--Josh Patashnik
8 comments
A nice pro-market argument, but you should have at least acknowledged that those water "rights" that the farmers could trade to urban areas for money are more often than not rights created by federal water projects, and it is the government who should be selling the water to cities for a higher dollar, rather than to farmers for a lower dollar.
- sdemuth
April 1, 2008 at 9:15pm
Well Josh,
A water market might seem like a good idea if you extract from property owners their historical water rights.
And the Federal government already has a hand in Western water. Most of the reservoir and dams were funded by the Bureau of Reclamation and it's twisted sister Army Corps of Engineers. Neither of which have a good history of developing water to the benefit of people everywhere. Water is already heavily subsidized to point of being free to farmers. That was the only way you could get folks to move West and farm. The west was built on Federally subsidized water and irrigation. The electricity of the Hoover Dam is just a by-product of it's true goal of provide water to southern California.
A water market also won't take into account the health of the riparian areas along rivers and creeks in which the health of the ecosystem are already stretched to the point that Federal water cases in Arizona, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, California and Colorado where water districts are sued to keep water IN the streams and rivers for the benefit of species. Southern California has been paying Imperial Valley farmers to fallow fields and then pays them well above $8,000 a year for 1 acre/foot of water for LA and San Diego. 1 acre/foot of water keeps a family of 4 in water for the year (as another measurement means).
A water market already exists on the private market with farmers selling their land and water rights. And those numbers you quote for an acre foot are out of date. An acre foot of water can sell to a private developer upwards of $40,000. Many municipalities are now requiring developers to guarantee water source rights before approving permits. A Federal program for tradable water rights at the local or intrastate level isn't going to solve water shortages, neither will building more dams and reservoirs in the west. The West has been considered to be in a 'drought' for the last 20 years but historically it's always been that dry if not drier. The problem is over development of the west and profligate water use that goes with that.
Many of the water projects put forward by the Bureau of Reclamation or the Corps are based on bad science to justify the water projects as improvements for water services, irrigation, transport, etc. but never take into account the water as a stand alone complex ecosystem. Water in the West is far more complex than a simple trading rights proposition can solve. Most States "own" the water within their borders. In Colorado It's illegal to collect rainwater for human consumption but you can irrigate if you like. Wyoming sued an Indian Tribe for wanting to exercise their senior water rights by keeping water IN the rivers for riparian benefits. California has tried to steal water from the Pac-Norwest and Canada with completely illogical schemes. Las Vegas is actively seeking ways to drain aquifer sources in norther Nevada to feed growth in a city that in all realities shouldn't be there and left to wither on the vine.
Fresh water in the West, and most importantly fresh ground water is a limited resource that has to be managed for the benefit of everyone and everything (including those little fish called Salmon that we seem to think come from the frozen food section.) but doing so at the highest price possible without taking into consideration the costs of developing infrastructure is equally as bad. The Federal government can't even effectively manage it's own water systems, let alone negotiate equitable contracts for the Colorado River. Water recycling, dealing with irrigation salts and pollutions, irrigation efficiency measurements like drip irrigation instead of flood or pivot irrigation, mandatory duel flush toilets, xeriscaping and native vegetation instead of kentucky blue-grass, educating people about water usage - short showers, etc. all will go a long way to helping stretch existing water sources as well.
But one of the biggest unknown in all of this is the fact that Native Americans have just started to exercise their senior water rights across the West. Here's an interesting article about that issue of the inner-fighting going on about how to pursue Indian water rights. www.hcn.org/.../hcn.Article
Well before I start foaming at the mouth talking about water (one of my pet interests having spent long trips in the desert and growing up in Colorado) I just wanted to say that water is going to be the bigger issue in the coming years and will make energy shortages seem silly by comparison. It's nice to see someone out east paying attention to it. For a primer of how water affects the west...this High Country News article on Phoenix gives a good indicator.
www.hcn.org/.../hcn.Article
In fact...check out HCN's archive for indepth water coverage of the West and other stories that actually affect 2/3rds of America that all of those east of the Mississippi tend to forget about.
- singlespeed
April 2, 2008 at 11:11am
singlespeed,
Thanks for posting the above.
Out here in NorCal, our buddies in SoCal are floating (?) the Peripheral Canal idea again via their water boy (?), the Governator. We in NorCal don't like the idea of LA drinking "our" water one bit. We will like it even less when global warming kicks in and the Sierra snowpack starts melting off before the snow's even stopped falling.
I just moved to a place with a well, bless its heart. However, my front yard includes about a thousand square feet of unnecessary hardscape that doesn't know I'm gonna rent a jackhammer, tear it up, and grow stuff where it used to be. Paving surfaces just for the hell of it is an act whose time has passed.
- williamyard
April 2, 2008 at 1:31pm
yard,
Sounds like a case for Jake Gittes.
- WoodyBombay
April 2, 2008 at 2:35pm
Woody,
Y'know, funny thing is it ain't just California. And like singlespeed noted, fossil fuels are sometimes not the biggest problem.
A couple years ago coming into Chicago I took a cab in from O'Hare into the Loop. My cab driver was a Syrian immigrant. I don't remember how we got on the subject, but it turns out this guy knew more about the water situation in the Middle East than I know about California's water.
He tossed a couple atlases in the back seat and, as we crawled through rush hour, he pointed out various rivers and other waterways that traverse parts of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. In his opinion, water is the new oil in the Middle East, and folks downstream (e.g. Syria) are none too happy about increased upstream use (e.g., by Turkey and Iraq).
I can't begin to relate all the intrigue, tribal politics, industrial players, ethnic rivalries etc. that he described, all of which are locked into the water issue in his home country. But it made "Chinatown" about as devious a story as the last episode of "Sesame Street."
- williamyard
April 2, 2008 at 4:41pm
Yard...I hope the links prove insightful. I hear you on the SoCal water schemes.And with all the water schemes going on in the West, the old addage that water flows towards the money holds true.
In case you haven't read it, I suggest Marc Riesner's 'Cadillac Desert' for an indepth and comprehensive look at how the West and its water was dammed, irrigated, and flooded in the name of progress. I'd also recommend John Wesley Powell's 'Exploration of the Colorado River' and Wallace Stegner's 'Beyond the Hundredth Meridian'.
- singlespeed
April 2, 2008 at 4:47pm
singlespeed: thanks much for the book suggestions. As I noted on another thread I'm now luxuriating in long daily commuter-train rides with nothing to do but read, and some tasty nonfiction will likely work just fine.
- williamyard
April 2, 2008 at 5:04pm
I've blogged before about the need to create an integrated, functioning market for water rights in
- Anonymous
May 18, 2008 at 3:09pm