Water issues in the intermountain U.S. west or many other places are a “short blanket” problem, a zero-sum economic issue where there is not enough of a vital asset and Improving one outcome automatically worsens another.
Water policies sometimes also embody irrational economic choices. Consider that “the average price of water paid by agricultural purchasers across the three states, weighted by volume, was $30.32 per acre-foot,” according to a study by the UCLA Institute of the
Environment and Sustainability.
“The average price of water paid by municipal entities, weighted by volume, was $512.01 per acre-foot.”
So the wholesale price charged to water suppliers serving city customers was nearly 17 times higher than charged to agricultural customers.
UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability
Agriculture also represents most of the water use. Agriculture accounts for roughly 70- to 80 percent of water use in the Colorado River Basin and similar Western systems.
In other words, residential rates equate to hundreds or thousands of dollars per acre foot ($3/1,000 gal ≈ $977/AF before fixed charges or higher tiers), where agricultural users pay perhaps $30 per acre foot.
Actual household bills also embed system-wide costs that agricultural users often avoid.
And, to be sure, residential customers pay for fully treated, pressurized, reliable delivery plus system upkeep.
Agricultural rates often cover only diversion or basic delivery of untreated water.
Fixed charges, tiered residential rates (designed to discourage high use), and pumping surcharges further raise household bills.
Still, the inescapable point is that the economics of water pricing do not encourage water conservation by the users of 70 percent to 80 percent of all the water.
In fact, western water use rights actually encourage agricultural consumption, as any reductions risk losing future allocations.
So water conservation in the arid U.S. intermountain region can be a frustrating exercise.
In the current drought, it seems that residential water usage has been cut about five percent, though water managers were aiming for 20 percent reductions.
Some of us might argue that 20-percent reductions are not feasible, for a number of reasons. Since 2000:
Population has grown as much as 40 percent but water consumption in the Denver metro area has declined 30 percent to 38 percent
Citizens consume only seven percent of Colorado’s water
Agriculture accounts for 89 percent of the total water consumed within Colorado.
source: Water Education Colorado
What nobody wants to discuss, much less do, is focus on reducing water use by the users of 70 percent to 80 percent of the water.
As much as most people would prefer to support local agriculture, there are probably real limits to how much more water savings are possible in urban areas, given population growth and reduced consumption already between 30 percent and 38 percent.
The point is that there simply are limits to how much less water consumers can routinely be expected to use.
The core obstacles include western water law’s “prior appropriation” system. Basically, that creates a “use it or lose it” system with strong disincentives for senior (priority) right holders to conserve.
Among the key issues:
Prior appropriation (“first in time, first in right”): In most western states, senior appropriators get their full allocation before juniors get any in dry years
Use it or lose it: Many states presume abandonment or allow cancellation of rights after years of non‑use (five years in Oregon, 10 in Colorado)
Beneficial-use and diversion requirements: Rights are often defined by a specific place of diversion, place of use, and type of use. Conserving by changing crops, fallowing, or switching to efficient irrigation can trigger administrative review and risk losing flexibility or volume if the saved water is not legally “owned” by the conserved
Third‑party injury and transfer hurdles: Even when conservation is allowed, moving saved water to other uses (including instream flows) can be blocked by protests from other users concerned about return flows and hydrologic impacts, making transactions slow and uncertain
The result of misaligned rules is “defensive” overuse, such as irrigating even when uneconomic or maintaining low‑value crops, as the legal right is more valuable than the annual crop.
The perhaps-obvious solution is to change the rules:
Statutory “conservation credits” and safe harbors: Laws that let users keep ownership of water they save through efficiency (rather than risking forfeiture)
Flexible leasing and temporary transfers: Short‑term leases of water that let rights holders reduce use without abandoning the right
Strategic water reserves and state purchases: Letting states or others lease or buy high‑priority rights to maintain streamflows, recharge aquifers, or retire pumping
Demand‑side management; crop or portfolio shifts: Shift to higher‑value/less‑water‑intensive crops
The longer-term issue is harder to avoid. Agriculture in the arid U.S. west is challenged by the lack of water. Under the best of circumstances, the U.S. intermountain west is simply arid, as are the Great Plains (west of the 100th meridian).
source: Environmental Defense Fund
This is a short-blanket problem for sure.
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