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Who owns water? Experts debate pricing, infrastructure investment

We have ample water here in the Southeast, but a 1000-year dry cycle left the reservoirs low. We did the right thing and conserved (ceased lawn watering and car washing) and the reservoirs refilled in a year or so.

But the tree-huggers insisted on raising water rates. People limited their discretionary uses and water revenues dropped so far that water and sewer plants were no longer self-supporting. This necessitated further increases and seriously impacted low-income families. These further increases led to even less use. We've moved from a stable point to a cycle of increases and a reduced quality of life.

The right solution is to discourage migration to water-short areas, not to discourage water usage in areas where the supply is ample.

instead of arguing over trivia, as they did, they could have better spent their time solving that age-old question' how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?'
with water so essential to life, it is absolutely necessary or we die. there is really no real cause for private ownership now.

The private-public debate stands at the center of the water crisis, particularly in the US. What arbiter is going to be charge with telling farmers what number of acres are "reasonable" based upon his water use? Are we truly going to outlaw crop production that doesn't make sense for this country because it can be more effeciently grown in another region of the world? Then erect barriers to product movement a la ethanol a la Brazil? We are going further down the path of "our" government telling us what is right for us?

...and yet I advocate raising rates. Because guess what? As you
found out, if you "conserve" voluntarily, your rates are going to to
go up anyway! What we pay for water isn't for the water, but for the
infrastructure that brings it to us, and those costs are almost entirely
fixed whether I use 10,000 acre-feet or a single drop. The
"voluntary" approach that government usually use to deal with these
crisis situations only rewards inefficient use, and punishes the
efficient.

Oxygen next?

We transport petroleum and natural gas via pipelines all throughout the US (unfortunately with an aging infrastructure). Could we not use this technology and method to move surface water from flood plains and area of too much water to the regions that require more?

...but that it's simply not captured. In Atlanta, which almost ran
out of water 3 years ago, it rained almost 40 inches in a drought
year. The problem was the lack of adequate storage capacity.
(and the gross mismanagement of existing capacity, but that's
another story)

The region, which has seen drastic population growth over the
last 20 years has done little to add to its storage capacity, mostly
being reliant upon the water that just comes down the
Chattahoochee river, and is controlled by the Federal
government. And when you don't control your water, you are at
the mercy of someone else for your very survival.

The Seattle region has the same problem; massive population
growth, but they rely almost entirely upon what is melting up in the
Cascades. Most of that water simply flows into the sea. Until
relatively recently, they've done little to address this problem.

California, on the other hand, has spent over 100 years investing
in transport and storage infrastructure, which is why the southern
half of the state gets to exist at all. They literally have years of
capacity on hand should it not rain or snow for a season or two.
They own or control most of their water supply, so they don't have
the political crisis that many other regions do during droughts.

Making something a "public" resource makes it subject to political control by the powerful. Not sometimes, always, and regardless of who is in charge.

That would be a disaster with something so vital as water. Prices are a key mechanism in the decision to conserve, and profits as a result of good service (and not due to being government- protected monopolies) to others are a key mechanism in driving innovation and efficiencies.

During the last drought, instead of doing the logical thing and
using simple market forces like raising rates to solve the problem,
they imposed various use restrictions. Of course, what
happened? Use went down, and now rates have had to be raised
to make up the shortfall! Duh!!! Effectively, the those who were
efficient during the drought have been punished anyway!

Most of the water is controlled by the Federal government, and
the Federal government decided that the water was better used
for other interests, like maintaining a shellfish population
hundreds of miles away near the gulf. (which somehow had
managed to survive for eons before the construction of Buford
Dam, and certainly would have been high & dry had the Army
Corps of Incompetent Engineers not been there in the first place)

So the logical answer is to develop storage capacity controlled by
state and local communities. Only time will tell if they will follow
through, or become complacent until the next drought hits.

.When it comes to applying the California Constitution's beneficial use standards to farming, Peter Gleick's one-size fits all approach is all wet. Saying that a farmer who uses four acres to grow what could be grown on three is wasting water ignores the variability of farmland throughout the state. If a farmer produces 4,000 lbs. of pistachios per acre and his neighbor produces 5,000 lbs on the same age trees, is the first farmer wasting water? Gleick would say "yes" but he's wrong. One farm's potential cannot be judged efficient or not efficient based on the same standard applied to all farms anymore than one factory producing fewer widgets than its competitor would be judged as wasting resources.

The Constitution says farming is a beneficial use of water. People like Peter Gleick want to redefine it for their own purposes and that kind of misuse is a bad deal for all California water users.

Mike Wade
California Farm Water Coalition
www.farmwater.org

This article ignores the long history of water rights law based on seniority (first come, first served) that has been upheld by the courts for over 100 years. While it's true that parts of it have been usurped by the government because of environmental issues, in many parts of the west it's still the law. It still governs how water is allocated between farms and cities, for example.

The idea that "There is not a water supply crisis" and that all our problems are simply "distributional issues" is pure nonsense. In the western US there is simply not enough water to go around, period. The Colorado River is vastly oversubscribed, even in periods of normal rain and snowfall. California cannot supply adequate water to its farms and cities while also meeting environmental regulations dictated by the courts (e.g., preventing saltwater intrusion into the delta area). Other parts of the world have similar problems.

The idea that water is being wasted by farms is ridiculous. In the western US water is so scarce that farms long ago became very efficient in its use. In the last 40 years or so we have gone from sprinklers spraying water in all directions with a great deal lost to evaporation to very efficient drip irrigation mechanisms for crops that can utilize it (drip irrigation won't work with wheat fields, for example).

In the US water rights are some of the oldest property rights around. It's possible that this is no longer an adequate model for allocation a scarce resource (and it must be scarce if as the article claims environmental demands can't be met without special protection). Certainly issues such as aquifer depletion are not being adequately addressed. But any realistic attempt of reforming water use must take into account the long history of law that supports many business models. Sweeping those laws aside with the stroke of a pen would seriously jeopardize farms and other businesses. Just as there are hidden costs to the environment in our current situation, there are also hidden costs to radically changing it.

We transport petroleum and natural gas via pipelines all throughout the US (unfortunately with an aging infrastructure). Could we not use this technology and method to move surface water from flood plains and area of too much water to the regions that require more?