This apocalyptic op/ed* on California's water "shortage" goes from reasonable [Martin, a state official] to hysterical [Maude Barlow]:
"What we are starting to see, and the science is supporting it over time," adds Martin, "is that the weather patterns are shifting and the trajectory is upward on continued diminishment. What we do know is that, because of the depletion of the aquifers, it will take a gully-washer to just get us back to square one. But we still abuse the resource, and we can't afford to do that anymore. People need to understand the true value of water. What amazes me is that it doesn't take much effort to do the right thing."I wish the writer had stopped there and said "yeah, price." But nooooo....
And that doesn't just go for the people, but also the politicians they elect to represent their best interests. And right now, that means taking control of what's left of California's water. The state will have to sooner or later, unless it wants to leave life's necessities to the stock market.Bottom Line: Yeah, like the "public brokers" at DWR have done such a good job? Get ready to see them "manage" the Water Bank into uselessness.
"The situation is such that the state may have to take control eventually of its water resources as a public trust, and allocate on a priority basis," counsels Barlow. "Water for ecological health of the system first, for drinking water and restricted daily use for citizens, water for local food production, and water for commerce and export last. As for water trading, I warn people against allowing it to become controlled by private brokers."
* Even the subtitle is inaccurate: "L.A. has two options: Pray for rain, or suck off Northern California's supply. Guess which one it's going to try first?" How about raising prices?
3 comments:
Interesting. Regarding Barlow, how do you allocate among competing public trust uses? She seems to think that ecological needs are the "highest" of values - personally, on my better days I might actually agree with that - but that's inherently a value judgment. Some would say that serving people - whether that's limited in concept to just drinking water and hygiene water for daily needs, or extends so far as serving people's needs in terms of agriculture, commerce, etcetera - is the highest form of use.
And value judgments are ordinarily best left to the democratic process. The public trust doctrine is currently a judicial doctrine, but if it goes so far as to create a "hierarchy" of public trust uses then I think we're going to want it out of the hands of a judicial elite and into the hands of the citizenry...
Which puts us right back in the world of legislation and the Water Code, where we already are. So maybe re-write the priorities in the Water Code to guide the State Board in the appropriation of water?
In general, I agree with you. It's the Public's water to allocate. On particulars, however, I'd apply more market forces, i.e., on the allocation of water among cities, farmers and environment. It's the same as I always say: make sure that minimal needs are met (in-stream flows, drinking water) and then argue -- with money -- over the rest. Either a political or economic market would be better than a dictator/trix deciding what each of us should do...
Agree with you on basic human-rights water being set aside at the outset.
Not so sure about "minimal" instream flows. I don't know what that is. Arguably, in a natural system, ALL water belongs instream. At minimum, you would think "minimal" instream flows would be those that are enough to support, as a biological matter, a viable population of all native species dependent upon that water.
The problem is that, even under the latter scenario, the public trust doctrine would have to be expanded to the substantial detriment of existing uses, because we are already way over-appropriated.
The other interesting intersection is that if we're going to call instream flow uses to support viable fisheries across the board a demand that is protected by the public trust doctrine, it does away with the ESA as duplicative.
The nice thing about the ESA, however, is that it is democratically-enacted and therefore democratically-adjustable. The public trust doctrine is not. It is a product of elite judicial values.
Oh, I don't know where I was going with all this...anyway...
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