Dams will NOT fix water problems

Water crisis? The Western Farm Press publishes an editorial advocating more dams:

Let’s hope our state’s political leaders soon will come to their senses over this important issue and resolve it, whether it is by building new reservoirs, conservation and other forms of non-storage water management, replenishing underground aquifers, or a combination thereof. Our survival, and that of generations to come, depends on it.

A columnist in the LA Times wants more dams:

We didn't know back then about global warming reducing the Sierra snowpack and melting it faster, threatening even worse droughts and floods and making water storage even more crucial. And the earthen levees of the Delta mixing bowl weren't crumbling as they are today.

What both these columns fail to mention (perhaps on purpose) are markets. Markets can "solve" problems related to global warming by smoothly reallocating water among cities, farms and nature.

Although I agree that hard infrastructure is useful, it is hardly the solution for the environment (allowing gradual release of water) or safety feature (preventing flooding) that advocates promise. A true environmental solution would allow spring floods to run naturally but that solution has problems:

First, there are the human developments that have filled the floodplains and are hiding behind weak levees.

Second, there are the farmers who like the water to come in the summer, not the spring, but they are fighting a losing battle with local warming.

Whoops -- here's why dams are getting so much attention: Farmers want the water for irrigation. Even worse, those dams will be built with tax dollars. What we have here is a Baptists and Bootleggers "alliance" of nature/fish/flooding with farmers who want their water cheap and plentiful.

So why not markets? Mr. Skelton and I had an "email discussion" in which he expressed skepticism of markets (remember Owens Valley!). He thought that farmers should not be able to sell "excess" water because that would be a windfall profit. The water should be left in the stream if farmers are not going to use it. But his reasoning does not consider how farmers facing "use it or lose it" will prefer to make $10 on low-value crops to nothing from letting the water flow. Unfortunately, water the farmer uses cannot go to cities suffering from local warming -- where it may be worth $200 or $500.

This is the problem in California (and elsewhere). "Beneficial use" laws lead to waste, and property rights in water are too restricted to get the water to highest and best use. Markets could reallocate that water (in a win-win) if farmers were allowed to sell or lease their water rights.

Bottom Line: Nietzsche says "Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal." Some people think that dams are the path, but what is the goal? Environment? Let the water flow. Flooding? Don't build in a floodplain? Food? Stop subsidizing competition (ethanol) People? Let water markets work.

Dams have a role to play, but markets can play a much bigger role.