Re:Millions of Groundwater Wells Could Run Dry
by nradov on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @09:45PM
(#26964414)
Ultimately I think we'll need to have state governments seize those water rights through eminent domain (with fair market value payments), then institute an auction system to allocated only a sustainable level of water extraction. The problem today is that water prices are fixed below the market rate and fail to account for externalities so water users have little incentive to conserve.
Re:Millions of Groundwater Wells Could Run Dry
by Arrath on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @07:59PM
(#26963701)
Those water pacts are generally very out of date and haven't adapted to modern populations and usage volumes, though. Change must come.
Re:Millions of Groundwater Wells Could Run Dry
by bobthepanda on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @01:36AM
(#26965990)
Isn‘t there also an issue where water pacts were drawn up during what appears to have been a rainier period of time?
Re:Millions of Groundwater Wells Could Run Dry
by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @09:03PM
(#26964138)
Most the US southwest seems to be organized around the concept of water rights, typically measured in acre-feet.
Even though this assignment of rights is rather old and has a multitude of problems related to the way it doesn't describe current usage patterns, that's not the biggest problem:
it doesn't help to have the water rights to 300 acre-feet on your property if that water doesn't exist!
From a macro level, it has been. There have been water pacts in the west for nearly a century. But these will likely need to change in order to address the severity of the issue. I'm curious how these will be changed in the future, it seems like there might need to be new legislation sooner rather than later.