4 ms·

There would be a lot of losers switching from the water rights system to a market. Essentially everyone who uses water now would have to pay for something they'

There would be a lot of losers switching from the water rights system to a market. Essentially everyone who uses water now would have to pay for something they're getting for free now. This would put many farms etc out of business, raise taxes for municipalities etc. The only winners would be folks that want more water and now can buy it. As such it's politically untenable. Of course there's the question of who gets the revenue. All the states on the colorado would have to agree (very hard!). Does it go into general revenue? Is it split across current water users to mitigate the raised prices (and if so, how long do they have the right to free money)? Does it go to municipalities so they get free water?

lazide 4y ago
Who exactly is getting anything free? Folks are divvying up allocations of a untreated, variable natural resource among themselves that they need to pipe somewhere, maintain storage for, treat, and then deliver. Which is expensive. I don't see anyone involved here with a meaningful City literally built ON the Colorado. Everyone is a significant distance away. That isn't free. As your last point notes as well - who would we even 'pay' for a natural resource anyway? Burn the cash in giant piles as an offering to the gods? Arguably they're the ones who should get it. Alternatively - Pay the feds? Pay themselves?
- advisedwang 4y ago
  GP suggests we use pricing to control water use. This means a new per-gallon cost. E.g. consider a farm drawing water from a well. Yes - they do pay to maintain that well, but they don't have a pricing mechanism incentivising them to draw less water based on watershed-wide supply. To implement a pricing system to allocate water usage instead of water rights, we'd need to go and add a meter to that farm's well and then charge them a price that fluctuates depending on the supply-demand point of the watershed as a whole. that is a whole new charge, and the farm would end up paying more. I'm not saying this is bad. Someone is going to lose out from the supply constraint. I'm just trying to work out the politics of it.
  - lazide 4y ago
    In many cases it also makes no sense. Wells tap aquifers. Aquifers are often highly local and not equivalent to a watershed (which is surface water and precipitation). Depending on local geology, the aquifer being tapped could even be completely isolated from the watershed!

lazide 4y ago

Who exactly is getting anything free? Folks are divvying up allocations of a untreated, variable natural resource among themselves that they need to pipe somewhere, maintain storage for, treat, and then deliver. Which is expensive. I don't see anyone involved here with a meaningful City literally built ON the Colorado. Everyone is a significant distance away. That isn't free. As your last point notes as well - who would we even 'pay' for a natural resource anyway? Burn the cash in giant piles as an offering to the gods? Arguably they're the ones who should get it. Alternatively - Pay the feds? Pay themselves?

advisedwang 4y ago
GP suggests we use pricing to control water use. This means a new per-gallon cost. E.g. consider a farm drawing water from a well. Yes - they do pay to maintain that well, but they don't have a pricing mechanism incentivising them to draw less water based on watershed-wide supply. To implement a pricing system to allocate water usage instead of water rights, we'd need to go and add a meter to that farm's well and then charge them a price that fluctuates depending on the supply-demand point of the watershed as a whole. that is a whole new charge, and the farm would end up paying more. I'm not saying this is bad. Someone is going to lose out from the supply constraint. I'm just trying to work out the politics of it.
- lazide 4y ago
  In many cases it also makes no sense. Wells tap aquifers. Aquifers are often highly local and not equivalent to a watershed (which is surface water and precipitation). Depending on local geology, the aquifer being tapped could even be completely isolated from the watershed!