Clearly there is something else at play stopping the market price from emerging, otherwise one of the in-towners could just resell the water to the excluded per

Clearly there is something else at play stopping the market price from emerging, otherwise one of the in-towners could just resell the water to the excluded persons from their supply at a profit. I'm guessing they've made this illegal, though, since it's such an obvious solution of a win-win to a quick buck to a local that wasn't used. At the very least there is always a crackhead who needs $20 for a hit, I don't see how you can get the whole town to collude out of spite, it's just completely infeasible unless the people buying are like notorious child snatchers or something.