Just Enough to Fight Over

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Few farmers waste water by choice. Marc Reisner, author of Cadillac Desert, an incisive history of water development in the West, observes that subsidized water is "so cheap the farmers can't afford to conserve it." Ten miles west of Phoenix, for example, Mike Duncan, 38, would have to spend considerably more to irrigate his cotton if he were to use water-saving drip tubes. "If I farmed in the Coolidge area, where water is $80 an acre-foot," Duncan says, "I'd most seriously look at using drip irrigation." Instead, Duncan gets water at the federally subsidized rate of $9 an acre-foot. Better to keep pouring it on the field.

Like natural gas a decade ago, water is in short supply only because of outmoded laws and customs that prevent its sale to willing buyers in most states. The doctrine of prior appropriation has in practice meant "use it or lose it." Thus Utah, for example, diverts Colorado River water for which it has little present use. Other obstacles to water marketing are bureaucratic: muscular interests like Southern California's metropolitan water district and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation tend to view water marketing as a threat to their present service monopolies.

If farmers could freely sell or lease their water rights, profit motives would provide a powerful incentive for conservation. In Arizona, where such "water ranching" is widespread, farmers are drawing top dollar and, in the words of former Governor Bruce Babbitt, "retiring to beachfront condos in La Jolla ((Calif.)) to raise martinis instead of alfalfa." If water rights were widely traded, proponents say, cities and factories could assure their needs for posterity. Agriculture would still receive four-fifths of the West's water and would thrive, despite the increased costs.

Already, farmers have proved they are able to profit in some districts where unsubsidized irrigation costs as much as $75. They shift to crops that use less water, require heavy capital investment and bring a higher price: orchard fruits and nuts, specialty vegetables, safflower. They invest in drip irrigation and other water-saving technologies, and, where possible, water their land with inexpensive sewage effluent.

For all these benefits, free-market water stirs enmity in rural communities. La Paz County in western Arizona has watched with alarm since 1985 as nearly half its privately held land has been sold, mostly by farmers, to water- ranching interests. County Manager Neta Bowen decries the loss of tax base and employment: "When farmlands are retired in a community that depends solely on agriculture, what happens to the corner grocery? The cafe? The gas station? The local bar?"

One answer: some towns might tap the West's outdoor recreation industry, which is worth $40 billion and booming, not least among foreign visitors. Western recreation should get a fresh boost from water marketing. Many environmentalists support the concept, especially as it recognizes the "in- stream values" of water: for trout fishing, white-water rafting and habitat for game birds and animals. Says Babbitt: "In many parts of the West, a cow has a lot less economic value than an elk." It is time for water laws and practices to recognize that new equation.

*An acre-foot is the amount of water necessary to cover one acre to the depth of one foot, or roughly 325,000 gal.