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This is true but also hits the core of the problem: many of those agricultural users have old claims on water which were set in an unusually wet period. The sta

by acdha 2y ago

This is true but also hits the core of the problem: many of those agricultural users have old claims on water which were set in an unusually wet period. The state of California can tell a city to use less more easily than a farmer who has a legal right to use a particular water source.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Can the cities just buy water rights from farmers? That seems like the obvious solution - so obvious that, if it's not being done, there must be a reason why not. Does anybody know?
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  Non transferable. Water rights for that farm. Not for a place 250 miles away. We sometimes forget how big California is. It’s not a regular state geographically speaking. Even if it were legal, how do you move the water 250 miles? Oftentimes uphill?
  - codingdave 2y ago
    It is legal, for some types of water rights. Not all. And yes, water moves. Downhill. All by itself. Rights can be transferred to different owners along its path. It doesn't matter if the new owner is upstream or downstream, as long as you are talking about the same source. So while you are correct that a farmer wouldn't sell their rights to someone hundreds of miles away, they absolutely can sell to someone else in the same community.
- acdha 2y ago
  Where does the money come from? They can’t easily raise taxes to pay for it, and farmers are going to charge a lot even if they’re willing to sell because paying market rates for water places them at a significant disadvantage compared to other farmers who are not paying market rates. There are a lot of efficiency issues in agriculture – drive through the Central Valley in the summer and see how much runoff there is - but the solutions tend to increase labor costs. I’ve wondered whether the angle might be some kind of tax: don’t argue with the guy who has a 4 century-old claim, just charge a waste tax on usage over a certain amount per unit of food and apply it state wide so nobody can benefit by holding out.
  - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
    Uhh how about that 15% income tax being used for multi-million-dollar public toilets? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/22/san-francisco-noe-valley-toilet/73387351007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/22/san-fr... I swear, it better have free Wi-Fi and EMP shielding.
    - acdha 2y ago
      Do you think that they’re just sitting on a pile of unspent money? If not, it doesn’t matter what the existing tax rate is since we’re talking about new money which has to come from somewhere. And while $1.7M is indeed silly, it’s a drop in the bucket for something which would cost billions. A custom building plan is much easier to avoid than a tense negotiation with many parties.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    If there was actual political will, it would happen. Heck, the government could use Eminent Domain to simply take those water rights from agriculture, and/or pay a token amount for them. It would be a lot more justifiable than many other recent examples of Eminent Domain use.
  - cameldrv 2y ago
    The money comes from water bills. These bills are extremely high in California for non-ag customers and are more than enough to purchase water rights.
- codingdave 2y ago
  I did that when I lived out west. It was Utah, not CA, but I did sell my water rights to the city. There were a few catches to the process: I had to not want the water anymore, and the city had to have the funding available to make the purchase. While simple, those two things can certainly be large blockers to cities buying rights.
jltsiren 2y ago
The core problem is the treatment of water rights as property rights rather than government grants. Which is a relatively new problem, as the management of irrigation was one of the things governments were originally invented for.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Water rights are full of gray area though. Should I have the right to capture and use rain that falls on my land, or does the government own that somehow? If I drill a well on my land, is that my water or the government's? If a river naturally flows through my land, is it my right to use that water or does the government regulate that as well? The early government projects for irrigation weren't quite the same. Building aqueducts is about moving water to a place that it doesn't naturally exist. Water rights are about saying who can use water that is already there.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    Aqueducts are closer to present day than to early governments. Traditional agricultural societies were dense villages and towns. The entire community typically shared the same water source. In areas that relied on rivers and wells, distributing the water fairly while ensuring community welfare was one of the primary functions of the town/village government. Modern issues arise from two concepts you mention in your second sentence: "the right" and "my land".
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      I assumed the parent comment was referring to early water projects as in Roman aqueducts. The entire US system is based fundamentally on property rights. We absolutely could change that, but today we have property rights. That isn't really modern either, unless you are extending modernity back centuries to include feudal states with lords and kings owning all the land. Land rights come with very real problems, though I don't see how you get rid of them and still have anything resembling today's governments. If individuals didn't own land today the government would claim ownership over all of it, which they kind of do with property taxes and eminent domain but that's a whole different problem.

by acdha 2y ago

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

Can the cities just buy water rights from farmers? That seems like the obvious solution - so obvious that, if it's not being done, there must be a reason why not. Does anybody know?

bilbo0s 2y ago
Non transferable. Water rights for that farm. Not for a place 250 miles away. We sometimes forget how big California is. It’s not a regular state geographically speaking. Even if it were legal, how do you move the water 250 miles? Oftentimes uphill?
- codingdave 2y ago
  It is legal, for some types of water rights. Not all. And yes, water moves. Downhill. All by itself. Rights can be transferred to different owners along its path. It doesn't matter if the new owner is upstream or downstream, as long as you are talking about the same source. So while you are correct that a farmer wouldn't sell their rights to someone hundreds of miles away, they absolutely can sell to someone else in the same community.
acdha 2y ago
Where does the money come from? They can’t easily raise taxes to pay for it, and farmers are going to charge a lot even if they’re willing to sell because paying market rates for water places them at a significant disadvantage compared to other farmers who are not paying market rates. There are a lot of efficiency issues in agriculture – drive through the Central Valley in the summer and see how much runoff there is - but the solutions tend to increase labor costs. I’ve wondered whether the angle might be some kind of tax: don’t argue with the guy who has a 4 century-old claim, just charge a waste tax on usage over a certain amount per unit of food and apply it state wide so nobody can benefit by holding out.
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  Uhh how about that 15% income tax being used for multi-million-dollar public toilets? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/22/san-francisco-noe-valley-toilet/73387351007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/22/san-fr... I swear, it better have free Wi-Fi and EMP shielding.
  - acdha 2y ago
    Do you think that they’re just sitting on a pile of unspent money? If not, it doesn’t matter what the existing tax rate is since we’re talking about new money which has to come from somewhere. And while $1.7M is indeed silly, it’s a drop in the bucket for something which would cost billions. A custom building plan is much easier to avoid than a tense negotiation with many parties.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  If there was actual political will, it would happen. Heck, the government could use Eminent Domain to simply take those water rights from agriculture, and/or pay a token amount for them. It would be a lot more justifiable than many other recent examples of Eminent Domain use.
- cameldrv 2y ago
  The money comes from water bills. These bills are extremely high in California for non-ag customers and are more than enough to purchase water rights.
codingdave 2y ago
I did that when I lived out west. It was Utah, not CA, but I did sell my water rights to the city. There were a few catches to the process: I had to not want the water anymore, and the city had to have the funding available to make the purchase. While simple, those two things can certainly be large blockers to cities buying rights.

jltsiren 2y ago

The core problem is the treatment of water rights as property rights rather than government grants. Which is a relatively new problem, as the management of irrigation was one of the things governments were originally invented for.

_heimdall 2y ago
Water rights are full of gray area though. Should I have the right to capture and use rain that falls on my land, or does the government own that somehow? If I drill a well on my land, is that my water or the government's? If a river naturally flows through my land, is it my right to use that water or does the government regulate that as well? The early government projects for irrigation weren't quite the same. Building aqueducts is about moving water to a place that it doesn't naturally exist. Water rights are about saying who can use water that is already there.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  Aqueducts are closer to present day than to early governments. Traditional agricultural societies were dense villages and towns. The entire community typically shared the same water source. In areas that relied on rivers and wells, distributing the water fairly while ensuring community welfare was one of the primary functions of the town/village government. Modern issues arise from two concepts you mention in your second sentence: "the right" and "my land".
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    I assumed the parent comment was referring to early water projects as in Roman aqueducts. The entire US system is based fundamentally on property rights. We absolutely could change that, but today we have property rights. That isn't really modern either, unless you are extending modernity back centuries to include feudal states with lords and kings owning all the land. Land rights come with very real problems, though I don't see how you get rid of them and still have anything resembling today's governments. If individuals didn't own land today the government would claim ownership over all of it, which they kind of do with property taxes and eminent domain but that's a whole different problem.