I remember a story from my Operations Research class ( most likely apocryphal ) that Stalin, riding a coal train to the front, watched as another coal train pas

I remember a story from my Operations Research class ( most likely apocryphal ) that Stalin, riding a coal train to the front, watched as another coal train passed them and said "have whoever schedules the trains shot." The oil industry isn't even a close second to agriculture in terms of risk to freshwater resources in the American West ( where the story takes place ). After a while as you read about our West, you realize that people may actually not be all that much supposed to live there at all, at least in parts of it. Trying to elevate freshwater to "irreplaceable" ignores almost all the behavior that actually surrounds it. No, really - there's a book - "Cadillac Desert" which provides much context for this. The fact that regulation seems always end in capture tells me something. For one, it's very hard to do. Think about how hard it is to assemble 100 people who truly understand something that is very complicated deeply. Something that takes dedicating your life to. Now think about how you'd assemble say, 200 of them. It's be some exponent or power harder, wouldn't it? Criminal penalties may sound like a good idea ( to some; not to me ) but I don't really have a way to take such statements at face value. I'm not prepared to take what is generally considered legitimate activity and round up certain classes of mistakes to "go to jail." Investing groundwater with "rights" and the ability to suffer "criminal torts" ( regardless of the horrors that may be inflicted on it ) seems a bridge too far. Even if we sum the rights of all the people who depend on it, it's difficult. After all, people have had to leave places before. There could ( and perhaps should ) be some authority that must approve such activity in certain places. In the example, there should be no messing with formations that are that shallow. But that approval process sounds easier than perhaps it is.