That's exactly the problem with seniority. You overallocate and the highest seniority levels get everything. Basically there is no need for allocation at all.
Keep in mind the imperial valley's massive use of water predates the Colorado River Compact.
Think about it this way: you move somewhere and you're using 50 gallons per day of water. An agreement comes up that says you can keep doing that. 10 million people move in after and there's now a water problem. Were you over-allocated 50 gallons per day?
You could look at it two ways: you should sacrifice to help everyone else. Or, screw everyone else they shouldn't be here anyways.
My general opinion is that while there's benefits to growing food in the imperial valley, they don't outweigh the benefits of not having to move tens of millions of people out of the southwest - that's like throwing trillions in development into the trash. California has access to the ocean for desalination, and other southwest states don't. The best thing for the country as a whole would be for California to ween itself off the Colorado River. But I don't think that's going to happen, at least, it won't without a fight.
My opinion that the seniority should be settled once and for all in terms of date and volume.
Once this is done, parties can work towards solutions. The southwest states and users can start buying rights from California and farmers.
One reason there is so much fighting and acrimony is that each party thinks they can get more water for free by convincing a judge they deserve or need it more.
This is further complicated by the fact that the best way to demonstrate need it to increase your dependence and set yourself up for even worse disaster if you don't get what you want.
"Think about it this way: you move somewhere and you're using 50 gallons per day of water. An agreement comes up that says you can keep doing that. 10 million people move in after and there's now a water problem. Were you over-allocated 50 gallons per day?"
There was a time when factories could pollute legally as much as they wanted. Then things change and they had to adapt. We can't have people insist on water rights that were given at a different time. They have to adapt.
Land eventually exert pressure in the form of property taxes. For water rights there's no such thing.
In general, I feel like humans should not "own" natural resources. You can rent it from society, which is how I view property taxes, even though that's not exactly what they are.
I also don't think they should be arbitrarily seized. According to the article, some of the water reductions are being compensated for monetarily. I don't know the whole story there though.
AFAIK, you can't legally just buy a farm in the imperial valley and say you're going to use that water for residents in Arizona. Rights are based upon the use case.
Let's assume I agree that it should be a shared resource by all. How do you get from the current state to the desired state.
You start from a place where the state has granted water rights by law and told people that this is yours, you can use it up to the very last drop. This has been the law for 150 years and people have built businesses and lives based on the idea that the government upholds the laws and contracts it made.
Do you just start one day and tell people with water rights that it sucks to suck, but the people have decided that they want what we previously promised was yours forever. It's your fault because you believed that the government would be consistent and uphold it's commitments.
It could have been the case where the seniors were only given their rights because it was assumed there were 16.5 million acre-feet, and not 11 million.
Or perhaps the juniors only agreed because they thought there would be 16.5 million acre-feet.
Or the federal government may have allowed senior rights to continue to exist for so long because they thought there would be 16.5 million acre-feet.
The idea of senior water rights, not sharing such an important resource, is inherently unfair. The senior people did nothing to earn more water than anyone else. They didn't put the river there.
It seems there are better factors to consider when deciding how to distribute the water at this point than treaties based on bad data, signed a long time ago, when things were a lot different than they are today.
Seniority doesn't and shouldn't rely any flow assumptions or the agreement of juniors.
I would argue that seniority systems are the most fair, because the junior parties are the ones that drive the scarcity and create the problem.
On a small scale, If a family has been living off a stream for 100 years, and someone wants to move in an use the stream, in makes sense that the newcomer doesn't get access if there isn't enough for both. Similarly, it makes sense that the newcomer go without if there is a shortage.
I suspect in general if 'they were here first' is the only tool in your policy toolbox, you are going to have a bad time of it with growth and resource allocation. It works pretty ok with symmetric situations, but most situations aren't.
I'm not sure what you mean by being the only tool in the toolbox. There's a long list of policy tools once you establish ownership. For example, if I want to turn your house into a public park, I can raise a tax to buy it instead of just taking it from you.
You argued that "seniority systems are the most fair" and I pointed out they often don't work that well. I'm not sure why you brought in eminent domain, but agree that it can be a more reasonable way to resolve the friction, rather than just screwing someone over.
In general water rights (even moreso than mineral, air, etc.) are notoriously hard to get "right", and nobody seems to have managed so well that it's the obvious approach to follow.
Do you have any examples a system that doesn't respect senior property rights and work better?
Most land in the united states has followed a possession seniority system since it was conquered and bought from native Americans. Decision makers don't periodically redistribute it without consideration for current ownership or compensation. The few cases where it does happen are widely considered grave miscarriages of justice.
I bring up eminent domain because it is a relevant policy tool in the toolbox that can be used given that a legal doctrine and history of water right ownership has already been established in the west.
Some people think we should just pass laws to dissolve established property ownership. Some people in this thread don't even get that far and think the state should just ignore law and history and simply seize it.
>Are you saying that the problem with seniority is that it clearly solves
Sarcastic quips like this do not promote a productive discussion. The commenter above is probably arguing that the oldest use is not necessarily the most valuable, and relying on stack allocation fails to make the most economically effective use of a limited resource.
I wasn't being sarcastic. They replied the following in a discussion about seniority causing allocation problems.
>Basically there is no need for allocation at all.
They might be saying what you did, but it was far from clear to me. If so, my response would be pretty straightforward:
Seniority settles the question of rights. Buying and selling of rights and water is a very clear and effective way of putting them to the most effective economic use.
If a potential user wants water and can put it to better use, they can simply buy it. If they are the city or state, they can even use eminent domain to force the sale.
