Should Water be Free?

[EddMarkStarr]

The western United States is heading for a water crisis and it looks like the USA is "easy pickins" for foreign governments looking for low cost/ free water.

Better get it while it lasts?

 

[Rickrock]

I was trying to figure this out and found it is not exporting water in tankers to Saudi Arabia, but instead growing hay in Arizona and exporting the hay to Saudi Arabia. I imagine that they could do this in any other open state but the desert land in Arizona was probably cheaper to buy.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I'm not generally for protectionism, but this is more a domestic fight, as there have been wars over water rights for centuries in North America.

My belief is not that water should be free, as it is a resource that requires a lot of infrastructure to deliver to the consumer, so a utility is perfectly reasonable to recover those costs rather than tax everyone for another's use.

However, I support the nationalization of water rights, due to the uneven distribution of populations in the Great West and the difficulty in ensuring a clean water supply there. That means states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and others can sell thteir water and use a federal distribution system no different than the inteterstate highway system or the electrical grid.

The feds would also have final say as to the clearance for major industrial uses to have permits when opening a facility, weighing not only the environmental impacts, but the human population's relative needs. This would also apply to agricultural use.

I envision more a regulatory role rather than the federal govvernment owning the water. It should obviously be an office within the Department of the Interior.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

Beefing up water rights is very important to Canada, as California has already tried to reach a distribution deal with British Columbia.
(as I recall, the BC boys smelled a rat, and the deal fell through)

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

Beefing up water rights is very important to Canada, as California has already tried to reach a distribution deal with British Columbia.
(as I recall, the BC boys smelled a rat, and the deal fell through)

Trump's recent ramblings about how Canada should turn on tsome imaginary huge tap to send water into the US is a reminder to Canadians that stupid politicians with no fucking clue about how watershed systems work will likely one day be the reason that the US invades Canada to get the water...or tears up the Great Lakes water management agreement that regulates how much water can be taken by each country.