Use It or Lose It: Exercising one's right to waste water (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Use It or Lose It: Exercising one's right to waste water (2015)

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Since we seem to just be stuck suffering this regime of "water rights" as imaginary property... If these are true legal property interests can they not just be sold/rented to other users? Even if the arrangement needed to remain contingent upon that amount water actually reaching a different user downstream to consider it being used, that would seem much better than the current approach of squandering it.

Then we could at least apply market economics to the situation as the flow of water decreases. Just consider it a strategic sunk cost that Saudi Arabia or whomever has obtained a financial entitlement to most of the Colorado River (Saint Coase would be proud), and then move forward from there. I'd hate to see the imaginary property regime get any more entrenched, but it would seem better than the current impasse.

Reminds me of TDRs in New York City. You can sell unused density in one zone to someone else in another zone. Of course, this system is just piling bullshit on top of bullshit to negate it, but it at least lets reform happen without people making pesky Takings Clause lawsuits.

There is an episode of South Park that covers this exact scenario, "The Streaming Wars"

These sorts of perverse incentives are sadly common in financial situations. You never want to spend less than your full budget lest your budget be reduced next year.

Exactly, at a previous job I suggested that if someone spent less than their budget the surplus should be added to their budget for the next fiscal year, then managers could plan for big changes, go lean for a couple of years and then have make the changes needed while staying "in budget." I saw an accountant literally roll their eyes at this idea. They explained that any surplus at the end of the year goes into executive bonuses so either use my full budget or give the boss some extra spending cash next year, my choice. Uh yeah, right.

I wonder what the right way to incentivize it is.

edit: I meant corporate budgets but thanks for shedding light on the original question.

You price the externality correctly ( here, it would be a higher price on water. )

Then, if you want, you can provide a subsidy in terms of cash payments. That subsidy must not depend on the actual consumption of water.

This way, the marginal cost of the resource is correctly priced.

See also LVT, CO2 pricing,…

To my pleasant surprise, GPT-4 offered decent suggestions:

1. Zero-Based Budgeting: Instead of basing this year's budget on last year's spending, start from 'zero' each year. Evaluate each department's needs freshly.

2. Rolling Budgets: Allow for unspent funds to roll over into the next fiscal year, removing the incentive to spend just for the sake of it.

3. Quarterly Review: Don't allocate for a whole year. Break it into quarters and reassess needs regularly based on changes in environment or strategy.

4. Performance-Based Allocation: Link part of the budget to department performance metrics. Better performance leads to more budget.

5. Flexible Allocation: Have some funds allocated for urgent or emerging needs that arise over the year.

Perhaps the right way to manage that is to price our services (as vendors) so as to fit this. Allow building large changes in carefully measured free-standing and justifiable phases.

"Tragedy of the anticommons" usually refers to the tragedy of enclosing something that isn't scarce (e.g. copyrighted creative work), but this is a slightly different tragedy that deserves the same name. One where we enclosed something that is scarce, and did so in a way that encourages the overuse of that scarce good.

We shouldn't be letting the Saudis and other non-nationals buy up large tracts of land to farm Alfalfa for export, while purposefully mismanaging these resources to everyone's detriment but theirs.

If the water runs off into streams and rivers and on into the ocean, then it can be said to be "wasted", but if it soaks back into the ground and rejoins the groundwater, it is still available in the aquifers. This is the premise of the vast majority of groundwater recharge projects. The trick is to know how quickly that water infiltrates given soil composition and local geology. Evaporation is not a concern if the water infiltrates quickly. It's barely a concern as it is unless your surface-area-to-volume ratio is relatively high (i.e. wide shallow pools), which is why on-surface reservoirs are as popular as they are. (And anyway, local humidity is slightly elevated surrounding bodies of water so the partial pressure of the atmospheric water is already pretty high and evaporation happens slower.)

The real cause of groundwater aquifer depletion is a law of conservation. That when the water goes into plants and animals and then those products are shipped away, there's nothing bringing the water back into the parched lands except for the rather slow and increasingly unpredictable patterns of the water cycle. California's Central Valley is facing this issue. The snowpack from last year made it abundantly clear how important it is to recharge groundwater using what's pouring off the mountains, rather than letting it flow to the ocean. Use it or lose it, indeed.

If government on the US takes away water rights, and thereby decreases the value of land, the 5th Amendment requires compensation to the land owners.

I don’t know what the Supreme Court thinks, but I’m not convinced.

If the government takes away your land or your building or your gold, that’s eminent domain. But these water rights are permission to take water in the future that may or may not ever show up (and increasingly does not show up), and they may de facto not be usable regardless of any government action.

Alternatively, don’t take them away — just tax them. Set a price for water such that there is no scarcity (keeping in mind that the money collected can be used to reclaim, desalinate or otherwise acquire more water), and let anyone else buy water at the same price, and poof they’re still there but no longer worth much.

In the coming decades when clean drinking water runs out they won't have to take it away.

Could this be abused to reinterpret the Takings Clause as a right to water access? If only to give the finger to Nestle.

It’s not so straightforward. If the government zones your land to forbid something, the Supreme Court long ago concluded they don’t owe you anything.

If the value of my house falls because there is no longer bus service, can I claim compensation? Why do you think my ‘bus rights’ are any less real than these fictitious ‘water rights’

When there is air pollution affecting price of my property, or someone built something to spoil the view, should I claim compensation too?

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