The West needs water markets
Despite California’s immediate deluge, the ongoing water problem in much of the West is drought — reduced rainfall, increasing use of water, dry rivers, mandated cuts. In all the stories I keep reading and hearing about the water crisis in the Colorado River basin and elsewhere, two words are absent: markets and prices. Instead the stories are all about conservation planning and allocations by a central authority — central planning for a vital resource. These Arizona farmers have already lost 60% of their “access” to water and will soon lose “every last drop.”