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Comment by Kerrick | Hacker News Reader

> Nonetheless, a deal, whenever it happens, will be good for everyone. Development will have water to fuel its growth[...]

Maybe we shouldn't be expanding cities and developing new suburbs in such arid regions that don't have enough water?

> More recently, private investors have been buying up agricultural water rights around the state in the hope of reselling them to homebuilders.

So even under the current system, urban/suburban expansion _can_ proceed, but it's disincentivized due to the additional cost of securing water rights? That seems like a good deterrent to building in a marginal location, not a problem.

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It seems to be that much of this could be solved by pricing water at its actual price rather than through some politically set price. I could see an exemption for private household first 100 gallons per month or so to make sure everyone can stay hydrated.

That's exactly how you would fix it, the interests who control things don't want to pay market price. People in general hate paying what something costs when they have been paying the subsidized rate.

Well it’s easy to be glib but if your economic viability depends on remaining subsidized it’s different. I mean if you had to start cutting a cheque to Brazil for the oxygen that the Amazon produced you’d fight tooth & nail against it as it’d take your precarious startup and really endanger it.

Not saying change isn’t needed, I just understand why the people who will be ruined by it are fighting it. “Clean coal” is another example.

The market price, I suggested, would only work for the housing developments in the dry areas and not for farmers. Apparently farmers get their water from wells and water rights to creeks running through their land.

Water usage in the Southwest has wildly different impacts by area. Las Vegas, for instance, is hardcore about treating wastewater and returning it back to Lake Mead (delicious, right?)—which means that a lot of outdoor water use is still lost to evaporation but almost all household water use has a nearly net zero impact.

Arizona, to my knowledge, doesn't have any systems like that in place. Not for nothing that all those stories you hear about new developments trying to skirt water usage regulations and then being shocked when residents suddenly run out of water for their swimming pools seem to come out of Arizona.

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