Comments on: Fact-checking water price subsidies

By: Clay

Clay — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 18:26:43 +0000

“Moreover, farmers and cities both would have to pay for water they might not receive in an all-in auction.”
How so? In the AiA, only winning bids pay. Further, if you already own a right and that is what you want to keep, then you can bid high on the quantity you already own, and face no high-payment risk. This is because any payment you make will go back to yourself.

“All-in agricultural water auctions would squeeze out lower-valued uses of water, as for growing feedstocks such as alfalfa, low-value crops such as melons and tomatoes, and wildlife refuges. How could dairies produce milk products, cattle ranches produce protein, or biomass power plants produce electricity if there was no water for feedstock, cattle or corn ethanol production?”
You say it like it’s a bad thing, but this is the point. Given limited surface water in a year, it should be used for high value uses before it’s used for low value uses.
If, as you envision, there is a shortage of alfalfa for livestock because alfalfa farmers don’t find water sufficiently valuable to place winning bids, then the price for alfalfa will increase in short order, and alfalfa farmers will be willing and able to pay more for the water needed to grow the demanded alfalfa in the next growing season. This is something we are familiar with from markets generally (prices tend to balance supply and demand). As mentioned above, if they already possessed water rights, their situation can only improve.

By: ktg Oakland

ktg Oakland — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 16:42:03 +0000

The premise that there is no subsidy for water in California is totally absurd. Taxpayers, state and federal paid for a substantial portion of the costs of the State Water Project, the California Aqueduct and the Colorado River Project. These investments “taught” farmers that water was a fixed-price commodity.
Beyond that factual subsidy, there is the inherent assumption that human kind has a “prior right’ ahead of all other life forms. As a result we still have set no price on the commodity “water” itself. We really only pay delivery costs through oour taxes, or in urban areas through capacity charges and service rates. We should at least pay a cost of water charge to fund efforts to restore or approximate the natural water world to the extent reasonably possible.
California residents and farmers, particularly in southern part of the state, should plan to reduce consumption consistent with the limitations of a warming planet. It is quite possible that more U.S. food crops should be grown east of Rocky moountains. It is clear that California water should not be wasted to grow cotton or feed for cattle.

By: Wolfman

Wolfman — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 19:37:57 +0000

The overpaid corrupt LA DWP has wasted millions of gallons of Los Angeles water due to no maintenance policy of their water mains.

By: Robert Price

Robert Price — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 18:37:58 +0000

I am an orange grower and most of the cost of domestic water is born by the water company that has very high costs. If all they had to do was put it in a canal and send a 12 inch pipe to each ranch with a maximum density of 1 ranch every 40 acres they could offer water at $20 per acre feet also. With this drought, us ranchers are likely going to pay around $1000 per acre feet this year. So do not go pointing fingers yet. BTW, do you eat and do you think your food appears magically in super markets?