Without Enough Water to Go Around, Farmers in California Are Exhausting Aquifers

Re:Without Enough Water to Go Around, Farmers in California ... by watersb on Saturday July 24, 2021 @03:04PM (#27943592)

We had a Problem out here in central New Mexico, a foreign investor (external to US, I think it was people in Italy) sought permits to drill very deep wells. At the time, the state of New Mexico technically stopped water rights at some crazy depth, like 3000 feet or more, but anything beyond that was unregulated.

This sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, tailor-made for the ranchers and farmers who control the water. I will try to dig up references...

But just like T. Boone Pickens buying up water rights in Texas, open markets for water don't solve the fact that the American West is out of water, and no amount of legal entitlement is going to create any.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Without Enough Water to Go Around, Farmers in California ... by bradleyjg on Saturday July 24, 2021 @03:44PM (#27943853)

There’s enough water for everything except agriculture. Local governments hide the ball on this, talking about toilets, pools, and even glasses of drinking water in restaurants but it’s almost entirely agricultural. To the great-grandparent poster’s point not even mostly high value agriculture like almonds but barely-profitable-even-with-free-water alfalfa agriculture.

The status quo is insane and is exactly the sort of thing that could be fixed by a price mechanism. People get scared because they think that they aren’t going to be able to flush their toilets, but water is priced in acre-feet. Any personal use will easily outbid agriculture without being at all noticeable to even poor individuals.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Without Enough Water to Go Around, Farmers in California ... by watersb on Sunday July 25, 2021 @04:33AM (#27947676)

> Any personal use will easily outbid agriculture without being at all noticeable to even poor individuals.

Like radio spectrum bandwidth, a limited resource. Unlike bandwidth, availability is not fixed or guaranteed, and no human agency can make it so.

I have written pages of stuff, trying sort this out. I don't see how a market can create water.

In the Dust Bowl, ranchers were given a fixed price for each head of livestock, slaughtered the cattle. It was a shock, a sudden phase change, and smallholders were bankrupt.

But even then, the state didn't sell water futures: they liquidated the cattle. They didn't claim the water would return.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Without Enough Water to Go Around, Farmers in California ... by bradleyjg on Sunday July 25, 2021 @11:24AM (#27949814)

Don’t need to sell futures, a spot market is good enough. And there’s plenty of water for personal use, even in the driest places. There’s no shortage of water if we put everyone on the same footing and have action. Low value agriculture in the deserts will stop which is exactly as it should be.

[ Parent | on HN ]