Posted on 12/10/2002 9:05:14 AM PST by farmfriend
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:46:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
EL CENTRO -- In a stunning move that could lead to a statewide water crisis, Imperial Valley officials Monday rejected a controversial proposal to reduce their water use and sell the excess to San Diego.
Capping weeks of anguished debate, the board of the Imperial Irrigation District voted 3-2 against the proposed water sale, declaring it wouldn't sacrifice Imperial's economy to keep coastal California afloat.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
That's a small part of the problem. Resource management or should I say mismanagement is the big problem. Here in water rich Western Washington you have four different state agencies claiming water rights authority. They are constantly butting heads and strutting around bullying counties that also claim authority over water. Then through in the Fed's and various Indian Tribes, nothing gets accommplished.
Eastern Washington farmers depend on irrigation and plans have been drawn for years to utilize massive underground naturally occurring caverns for water storage. Can't get it done, to much agency intervention.
It's like everything else, when the government gets involved, it gets FUBAR.
How would you propose rights to resources be allocated?
At the very least, government involvement is necessary to resolve conflicting claims.
In areas where water is less abundant, those claims are more hotly contested.
I'm simply advocating technology that would increase supply for those regions where availability is becoming constrained.
If I had that answer I wouldn't be sitting here watching it rain. I do think the Fed's should butt out and let the state's duke it out.
Technology will be part of the solution. Given the mix who should have control since you've added nuclear into the equasion?
How about the old-fashioned way...by ownership and mutually agreeable trade by private parties?
At the very least, government involvement is necessary to resolve conflicting claims.
That's what we have a court system for.
In areas where water is less abundant, those claims are more hotly contested.
Well, DUH!
BTW, nuclear desalination is a nice, sensible solution to a difficult problem. HoweverComma there is a group of people who will oppose any and all sensible efforts as somehow "despoiling the environment."
I fail to see how someone can applaud a beaver's dam, built for a beaver's purposes, as "natural," while claiming that a dam built by man for man's purposes is "unnatural." We are a tool-using species, as a casual perusal of "Home Improvement" will show.
You're dealing with a certain mindset, namely the liberal idiot mindset - exemplefied by the efforts to get a handicapped woman up a rugged, steep trail to the top of the White Mountains in New Hampshire ... to use a wheelchair ramp built into an AMC hut (accessible only by that trail). If that ain't stupid, I don't know what is...
That was suitable when our nation was first being settled and was much less densely populated.
The growth and development of our modern towns and cities render that ideal much less practical.
Seems to me that's your proposal, not mine.
IMHO, provision of water supply (and wastewater treatment) systems is a legitimate role of government in supplying basic infrastructure for our society.
And in those areas where water resources are limited, I'd prefer to see solutions to expand supply rather than restrict use.
Let free enterprise do that. Where the demand exists, supply will appear--if you don't interfere with the marketplace.
What? Let Free Enterprise dump raw sewage into our rivers and streams so we'd have to pay out the whazoo for bottled water from Sparklettes?
No thanks.
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