I'm guessing this is the source for that: https://youtu.be/jtxew5XUVbQ?t=512
Although I thought they assigned too many water rights because they measured in a period of flooding. John Oliver is the first time I heard that they knew it was a lie at the time.
In that sense, they work just fine, we know and have a framework for determining who owns the water, and who gets nothing when there isn't enough.
The issue is when people want water and don't like the answer of buy someone's rights.
Historically, non replenishable Groundwater has been treated like oil or mineral deposits, if you own it, you can use it up.
Nor is there anything stopping people in border areas from taking all the water in another state's aquifer.
Interstate groundwater conflicts come up less frequently but there is a framework for deciding them. You may be interested in this recent Supreme Court ruling on exactly that subject.
https://globalwaterforum.org/2021/12/21/u-s-supreme-court-is...
It’s far more complex then you seem to think it is
But there's never enough. It's oversold. Much like an airplane gets oversold. Only in this case 16% more water was assigned an owner than exists in an average year.
> don't like the answer of buy someone's rights.
That's not always something you can do because water rights are a state matter. Some water rights transfer with the real estate it is attached to. Some are locked into a specific owner and are non-transferable. Even if they can be transferred, because too many water rights were assigned, if you move to them to a different location the river might run dry before it gets to you.
Water rights come with priority. When there aren't enough units, they describe who gets what is available and who goes without.
It's not oversold, some rights just have very low priority and value. It is like paying to be 100th on your airplane wait list.
I have never heard of a water right tied to a person, and not a location and source. They aren't transferable like that. You may be thinking of water contracts, which are different. Essentially a contractual agreement between a private party and a water supply organization like the California state water project
Like I said, there is a system to determine who gets priority and who goes without.
Arizona, Nevada, Utah and others split up the Colorado river between them. That split does not use a priority system. So the person in Arizona in a bad year with a high priority is still behind people in other states with a lower priority, as long as that state doesn't use more than their water. And water rights cannot transfer between states.
If one state uses more than their water, they can be sued for damages by the harmed state.
Im still not sure how this relates to your original claim that there are too many water rights, or what you mean by "too many". too many for what? too many for water to be left for the environment? too many to count on your fingers and toes?