Water Transfers, Irrigation Districts, and the Compensation Problem

Smith, Rodney T.

doi:10.2307/3324934

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…About 70% of IDs in the Valley have initial agricultural water right holdings equal or greater than 6,000 AF (municipal equivalent). The findings reinforce the literature in water economics where population growth has been described as one of the influential factors in agriculture to municipal water transfers in the American west (Smith, ; Watson and Davies, ; Libecap, ). Higher population and consequent industrialization and urbanization create pressure for water demand and opportunities for win‐win water transfers.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Variable Irrigation District Action in Water Trading

Ghimire

Griffin

2014

J American Water Resour Assoc

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Irrigation districts (IDs) in the American west are highly diverse in their economic attributes and local water scarcity circumstances. This diversity may affect reallocative action via water transactions as scarcity rises. The institutional background defining and constraining IDs is described here. For a Texas study region the progress of permanent water right transfers involving IDs is documented and examined. An econometric analysis of multiple decades of ID water transfer activities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley finds that IDs with larger initial water right holdings and higher populations in nearby cities are more likely to participate in agricultural‐to‐municipal water transfer activities. The findings suggest that consolidation of smaller water right holding IDs may be an avenue for quickening the pace of reallocation, especially in more populated areas.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Variable Irrigation District Action in Water Trading

Ghimire

Griffin

2014

J American Water Resour Assoc

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“…Typically, the districts are nonprofit organizations with limited governmental powers, including limited taxation powers [Leshy, 1982]. Because irrigation districts have no profit motive and, further, are generally unregulated, they have little incentive to improve the technical and allocative efficiency of water consumption [Smith, 1989]. In particular, their rate structures commonly price water at average cost, and they rarely make even temporary water transfers outside their geographic service areas.…”

Section: The Individual Water User Typically Does Not Own the Reclamamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The irrigation district could serve as the facilitator of water conservation and transfer activities. Smith [1989], however, has written on the inherent problems of distributing the benefits of districtqevel water marketing activity among the final water users. He finds that coordination problems within irrigation districts explain to some degree the relatively small number of transfers negotiated at the irrigation district level.…”

Section: Water Conservation Subsidies a Program Subsidizingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Bureau of Reclamation's new mandate for irrigation water conservation: Purposes and policy alternatives

Moore¹

1991

Water Resources Research

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Although the Bureau of Reclamation adopted a new mission as a water management agency, social purposes of the mission and methods of accomplishing the purposes remain undefined. A broad consensus agrees that a central feature of the agency's management program should be irrigation water conservation. This paper describes three purposes of irrigation water conservation: achieving economic efficiency of water allocation, improving environmental quality of western river systems, and satisfying outstanding Native American water claims. Five policy instruments are described as alternative methods of inducing conservation: quantity‐based regulation, price‐based regulation, transferable water use permits, conservation subsidies, and decentralization of ownership of Reclamation facilities. Two findings are: (1) price‐based regulation may not produce water conservation and (2) conservation policy instruments should be chosen with reference to their ability to achieve the purposes of federal water conservation policy. An example illustrates quantitative effects on farm income of the alternative instruments.

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“…1989: 509, italics in original).& A point of clarification is in order about farmers selling their "rights." California irrigation district enabling law bestows on farmers "implicit rights in the district's water supply" (Smith 1989). These are rights to equitable and beneficial use of the district's water.…”

Section: Water Transfers and Economic Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Transfers and the Imperfect Water Industry in California

Stroshane¹

2012

Planning Journal

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Market ideology often obscures public choices about rea sonable and beneficial uses of water. Current debates in California water policy reflect the tug of war between the potential efficiency and flex ibility of water transfers (often called •water marketing") and the desire for a stable and re liable California water system. The water industry's para mount concern remains the protection of the reliability and stability of operations of its complex socio-technical sys tems for delivering water, particularly at a time when envi ronmental concerns over instream uses of water are increas ing. Loosening restrictions on water transfers while protecting appropriative rights is a fl exible approach to meeting long-term water demand. But given such market imperfections as oligopoly and redistributive land rents, state regulation of transfers of California's most political natural resource-for example, through a drought water bank-remains likely in the future. Since California voters defeated the Peripheral Canal in 1982, many water policy observers have believed the era of capital-intensive, large scale water projects is over. With a liberal admixture of market eco nomics and good old-fashioned Western boosterism, many of these observers, some of them market-oriented resource econom ists, some of them dyed-in-the-wool environmentalists argue that creating a free market for water would help achieve greater efficiency by reallocating water to the highest bidder and, therefore, its most economically bene ficial use. This would postpone the day, perhaps indefin itely, when new capital facilities would be needed to meet the water demands of California's growing economy. This scenario may be too good to be clearly understood. Market ideology often obscures public choices about reasonable and benefi cial uses of water. Market-induced uncertainties make the California water industry nervous because they put the water system's rel iabil ity at risk (Curie 1983, Gottlieb and FitzSimmons 1992). Current debates in California water policy reflect the tug of war between the potential efficiency and flexibility of water transfers (often called •water market ing") and the California water system's stability and reliabil ity. This es say reviews claims justifying a free market in water and focuses on oli gopoly and land rent as significant market imperfections that make state intervention necessary, rendering these claims moot.

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Water Transfers, Irrigation Districts, and the Compensation Problem

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Variable Irrigation District Action in Water Trading

Variable Irrigation District Action in Water Trading

The Bureau of Reclamation's new mandate for irrigation water conservation: Purposes and policy alternatives

Water Transfers and the Imperfect Water Industry in California

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