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Even beyond that, lot of those farmers bought the right to access a certain amount of water when they bought their land. Taking it away from them is like takin
by sbov 10y ago
Even beyond that, lot of those farmers bought the right to access a certain amount of water when they bought their land. Taking it away from them is like taking property away from someone in SF because they didn't pay enough for it back in the 80s.
- dpark 10y agoEminent domain is a thing. When public good demands it (or when cronyism pushes it through), we do in fact take property from private citizens. The idea that farmers' water rights are inalienable seems absurd to me. A state can be in a drought but farmers needn't curb their usage at all? If each suburban plot of land in California hypothetically came with a guarantee of 100k gallons of water a month, there would be no doubt that this would be cut immediately when a drought hit. It's only farmers' lobbying power that stops their water rights from being restructured wholesale. With that said, I do think agriculture rightfully gets a lot of water allocated. Much of it seems wasted, though.
- sbov 10y agoCertainly eminent domain is sometimes necessary, and I agree some form of it will probably be necessary to solve California's problem, but I wouldn't exactly associate it with "letting prices rise" (the statement by the poster who started this line of thought). The free market had its say when these water rights were sold, taking it back from them with eminent domain so we can charge more is not the free market.
- dpark 10y agoWeren't these water rights sold a hundred years ago when the aggressive agriculture and population didn't exist?