Carriker, Roy R.

English

Research Papers in Economics

ISSUES  IN WATER  ALLOCATION:  WHO  GETS TO
USE  HOW MUCH  FOR WHAT?
Roy R. Carriker
University of Florida
Nationally  when  compared  to all  other water-using  sectors  of the
United States economy, irrigated agriculture accounted for almost half
of all withdrawals  of freshwater,  and more than 80 percent of all con-
sumptive use of freshwater in 1975. Because of its conspicuous role as
the predominant  user of water  in the United  States,  irrigated  agri-
culture has become  the focus  of much scrutiny and  policy  discussion
as the combined pressures  of population  and economic  growth  create
stress on  the nation's  water resources  and  on the nation's  fiscal  re-
sources.
What issues must be resolved as growth in population and economic
activity  generate  competition  with  agriculture  for water  resources?
What  are the implications  for public policy?  What  should be  the role
of public policy  education in context of these issues and their resolu-
tion?
Water and Irrigation
The United States has roughly 422 million acres of cropland.  Of the
51 million acres of agricultural land under irrigation, about 41 million
acres  in  cropland.  Thus,  about  10 percent  of the  nation's harvested
cropland  is  irrigated.  About  90  percent  of this  irrigated  acreage  is
located in 17 western states. Most western  states irrigate at least half
their  harvested  cropland.  In  the  east,  only  Florida  approaches  that
proportion  and 12 other eastern  states irrigate  only  1 percent  or less
of their harvested  cropland.
The concentration  of irrigated acreage in the west is not surprising.
The primary purpose of irrigation  is to compensate  for lack of rainfall
and lack of rainfall characterizes  the arid climate of much of the west.
Rainfall in the east is generally abundant. Irrigation in the east, there-
fore,  serves  a  different  purpose  - as  insurance  against  temporary
drought or  compensation  for the  poor  ability  of some  soils to retain
water.
The  outlook for irrigation in the United  States is dominated by an
inherent disparity  between water  supply and irrigation demand.  Ag-
83riculture  accounts for 90 percent of consumptive water use in the west
used to irrigate about 40 million acres.  But renewable water supplies
available  locally are inadequate  to satisfy that level of water demand
for  precisely the same  reason that water demand  for  irrigation  is so
strong in the first place - it doesn't rain much in the west relative to
the moisture requirements  of most crops.
Largely  because  of irrigation,  water  consumption  in the  west  ex-
ceeds  mean  annual  streamflow  in  central  and  southern  California,
most of Arizona,  New Mexico, eastern Colorado, and the western parts
of Texas, Oklahoma,  Kansas, and Nebraska.  This shortfall  in renew-
able  supplies  has been  met in  part by  groundwater  withdrawals-
withdrawals  that exceed  recharge  in an  average  year by  more than
20 billion  gallons per day.
The  result is  a depletion  or  mining  of available  groundwater  sup-
plies.  The areas where  groundwater mining  is known to be occurring
on a large scale include the southern Ogallasa Aquifer Region of west-
ern  Texas,  Oklahoma,  and  Kansas;  the Gila  River  Basin portion  of
southern  Arizona;  and  several  of the  agricultural  valleys  of central
California.
Groundwater mining has received greatest attention in areas where
growing  urban populations  are  dependent  on  declining  groundwater
reserve.  The  governor  of Arizona testified  in  1976  before  a  congres-
sional  committee  examining  the  need  for the  huge  Central  Arizona
Project  to construct  canals  to carry water from the Colorado  River  to
Phoenix  and  Tucson.  He  reported  that  Arizona  confronted  a  water
emergency  - withdrawals  from groundwater  in the Phoenix area ex-
ceeded  recharge  to the aquifer  by two and one-half times,  and water
withdrawals from groundwater  in Tucson (which is strictly dependent
on  wells) exceeded  recharge  to the aquifer by five  times. The Central
Arizona  Project has been termed a rescue project. Similar proposals to
rescue  irrigated  agriculture  on  the  high plains  of Texas  have  been
rejected.
In eastern states,  especially  in Florida  and in  coastal  areas,  with-
drawals from  aquifers at rates exceeding  freshwater recharge  can cause
the interface  between  freshwater  and  saltwater  in aquifers  to  move
inland  and  upward.  The  result  is usually  a reduction  in freshwater
capacity  in  the  aquifer.  A  transition  from  freshwater  depletion  to
freshwater  recharge  cannot  readily flush salt out  of the  aquifer once
saltwater intrusion has occurred.
Irrigation Subsidies
Agricultural  development in the west received a boost from the fed-
eral  government  with  passage  of the  Reclamation  Act  of 1902.  De-
signed  as  an economic  development  program,  the  Act  provided that
funds from sale  of public  lands be used  for irrigation  development  in
the  west.  By  1982  water  from  150  Bureau  of Reclamation  projects
84irrigated  nearly  12  million  acres  in  17  western  states  - using  326
storage  reservoirs,  355  diversion  dams,  14,320  miles  of canals,  and
34,290 miles  of laterals.
Historically,  irrigation  water  from  Reclamation  projects  was  pro-
vided  at prices  considerably  below  the total  cost of delivery.  The  re-
sulting  subsidy  to irrigated  agriculture  was  addressed  by the
Reclamation  Reform Act of 1982 which limited the federal subsidy on
project water to farms of less than 960 acres.
With the prospect that foreign and domestic demand for United States
agricultural products will remain soft for at least the remainder of the
1980's,  renewed interest has emerged in the apparent inconsistency  of
federal programs  that, on the  one hand,  are designed to restrict pro-
duction and raise prices and farm income and, on the other hand, are
designed  to increase productive  capacity of the agricultural  resource
base. A recent United States Department of Agriculture  (USDA) study
ordered  by  Congress  produced  a  suggestion  that  full-cost  pricing  of
irrigation  water and limits on water use would be rational measures
to reduce program  inconsistency.
A perverse question  of fairness  arises.  Is it fair to induce  irrigated
farming in arid areas,  induce families  for two or more generations  to
stake their livelihood on farming with federally subsidized water, and
then abruptly "change the rules" in a manner that threatens financial
hardship for individual farms involved?
Water Rights Issues
Steady  growth  in  population  and  economic  activity  in  the Upper
Colorado River Basin and throughout the southwest has placed grow-
ing stress  upon the water  institution  of the  region.  The  nineteenth
century  influx of Anglo  population  included many  miners whose  op-
erations  in the  upper reaches  of the region's  watersheds  usually  re-
quired the storage and diversion of streamflow to locations some distance
away from  the main water course.  In order to secure  their claims to
water for this purpose,  miners evolved the prior appropriation system
of water  rights.  This  system  was  also  compatible  with the  needs  of
farmers  and was eventually codified  into the laws  of the western ter-
ritories and states.
In  more  recent  years, Indians  have  issued competing  assertions  of
rights to water.  These claims  are usually lumped  together, in discus-
sion of water rights issues, under the term "Winters Doctrine rights".
The Winters  Doctrine was enunciated  in a 1908  opinion delivered  by
the United  States Supreme  Court  in the  case  of Winters versus  the
United States.  The essence  of the  doctrine  is that the United  States,
in creating Indian reservations,  also reserved  waters  appurtenant to
reserved  lands sufficient  for the purposes of the reservation.  This has
been construed to include sufficient water to irrigate  all the irrigable
acreage  on the land.
85Paralleling  the Indian  Winters  Doctrine  is  the  Federal  Reserved
Rights  Doctrine which, simply stated,  asserts that whenever the United
States sets aside land for specific purposes there  is implied a concom-
itant intent to reserve sufficient water  to fulfill the purpose for which
the land was set aside.
Increased  pressure  to recognize  federal  reserved  rights  and,  espe-
cially,  Indian  Winters  Doctrine  rights,  are  significant  because  they
arise after the water within the basin had been fully appropriated by
other users.  Reserved rights  and Winters  Doctrine  rights are in con-
flict with prior appropriation  system of water law also in place within
the region.
Interjurisdictional Transfers of Water
The inherent temporal and spatial disparity between water demand
and water supplies has given  impetus to major projects  for water im-
poundments,  storage,  and transfer.  The Central  Arizona  Project  is a
large  and well-known  example.  It involved  interstate transfers of water
and required extensive  negotiation and litigation over interstate com-
pacts to resolve water rights and other administrative  issues.
Spatial  and  temporal  disparity  of water supply  and  water demand
is not just a problem of arid regions, however.  Due to the existence  of
highly concentrated  demand, transfer proposals arise in areas of gen-
eral water abundance  in eastern portions of the United States. Trans-
fer of water from one political jurisdiction to another, for example, has
been a practice of long standing in the case  of water supplies for New
York City.  The Norfolk  area of Virginia  has faced resistances  to pro-
posals  to  keep  pace with growing  urban water demand  by  importing
water from neighboring counties. Florida's "water wars" consist of heated
disagreement  over the appropriateness  of further measures to develop
well  fields in neighboring rural counties for delivery  of water to  fast-
growing Tampa, St.  Petersburg, and other coastal  cities.
Policy  Issues  and Institutional Reform: Opportunities for Education
Agriculture,  along with other water users and water managers, will
be  affected  by a long-term  transition  from traditions  of water  abun-
dance  to the tradition of greater  scarcity that will emerge  in response
to  growth in  demand  for  water.  Policy  issues  must be resolved,  and
opportunities exist for institutional change to facilitate the transition.
In some  instances,  measures  that resolve  conflicts without  doing vio-
lence to generally held concepts  of fairness will test the fiber of social,
legal, and  political systems.
Broadly speaking,  the role of extension is to  deliver information to
decision  makers along with educational  materials designed to aid de-
cision makers  in incorporating  the new  information  into  use.  Public
policy  education  can  help  to  reduce  conflict  by  reducing  uncertainty
86about the probable consequences  of pursuing one set of policy options
versus any other set in the process  of resolving  policy issue.
Water policy  education programs  can be patterned after the public
policy  research  and education  model outlined  as early  as  1955  by J.
Carroll  Bottum and endorsed by the Extension  Committee  on Policy
over the years.  This method  of extension  education  on  public policy
issues  uses four  steps.  Step one  identifies  the  problem,  explains  the
situation, and generally develops sufficient background to permit iden-
tification of the problem giving rise to issues of public policy. Step two
sets forth all the significant and recognized alternatives which might
be suggested for solving the problem. Step three analyzes the economic
consequences  of each of the significant alternatives. Step four provides
for a situation in which the learners,  individually or collectively,  may
apply their values and formulate their own judgment as to which pol-
icy alternative to support.
As a  practical matter,  delivery  of a  good extension  education  pro-
gram on water management and policy is difficult to do on short notice
or on an ad hoc basis. Moreover,  the task of water policy  education is
not likely to be "done"  in the foreseeable  future in the sense that all
educational  needs are  satisfied and all policy issues resolved.
The  problem  situation  underlying  water  policy  issues  is  complex.
Issues  vary  in context  from place  to place.  Individuals  interested  in
modifying  or implementing  state or regional water policies discover  a
need to understand and assimilate terminology,  concepts, and factual
material from a variety of sources  and disciplines.
In  other words,  step  one  of Carroll  Bottum's  policy  education  ap-
proach  should  probably  receive  a substantial  commitment  of applied
research and educational efforts. The reasons are obvious. Arguments
following or  opposing regulation  of consumptive  water use as  a mea-
sure  to  resolve  problems  resulting  from,  say,  overlapping  cones  of
depression in groundwater  aquifers will have little substance without
referring to aquifer levels, recharge rates, potentiometric surfaces, cor-
relative  rights,  conveyance  loss,  evapo-transpiration,  and  a  host  of
other topics from several interrelated subject matter areas. Arguments
favoring (or  opposing)  interjurisdictional  transfers  of water  also  will
be  bound in similar terminology.  Data will be  needed on patterns  of
water use over time, space,  and economic  sectors and on the economic
feasibility  of demand  reductions  versus  the  technical  and  economic
feasibility of water supply augmentation,  and information  will be re-
quired on existing rights or entitlements to designated  water sources.
From  an  economic  perspective  the information  needed  to  develop
the problem identification includes data terminology and concepts per-
taining to:
(a)  economic,  engineering, and natural science aspects of water sup-
ply;
87(b)  economic,  engineering  and natural science aspects of water de-
mand; and
(c)  water rights, water law,  and water resource institutions.
To  assimilate facts in a decision framework,  learners require  an
analytical view of water problems and water policy. Therefore,  it is
important to portray the legal framework for water rights as a func-
tional mechanism  subject to  change,  rather than  as  a mysterious,
immutible  code to  be  imposed  but not  questioned.  Similarly,  atti-
tudes  concerning water needs and water requirements must be ex-
posed to the opportunities for tradeoffs inherent in the realities (and
relativity)  of economic  demand.  A better understanding  of costs re-
lated  to water  supply  development  will  permit  learners  to  weigh
the  inconveniences  of reduction  in water demand  against the costs
of further water supply  development.  This will  allow  escape  from
the  frequently  imposed  technical  fix  as  a  response  to  imbalance
between water supply  and water demand.
Researchers  and  extension  educators  can  productively  work  to-
gether  to  interpret  the situation  within which  policy  issues take
shape.  A series of extension fact sheets pertaining to  dimension of
water policy issues will serve the dual purpose  of publication  payoff
(upon which the professional reward system is keyed) while creating
reference  materials of benefit to extension audiences.
Steps two and three of Professor Bottum's approach to public pol-
icy education call for a mixture of skill, experience,  and professional
expertise, part of which must be obtained through close contact with
influential  figures in the policy arena.  Both research and extension
specialists must invest the necessary time to establish and maintain
such  contacts. Realistic  policy  options cannot be invented  in isola-
tion of the personal, social,  legal, and political realities of the policy
process.
Audiences may include farmers, homemakers,  elected officials,  or
a committee  of concerned  citizens.  The credibility  and visibility  of
the extension educator is on the line each time a group is addressed.
It  is  imperative  that  all audiences  be  treated  as  important  audi-
ences,  whether or not they are traditional.
REFERENCES
Brown,  Lee.  "Conflicting  Claims to  Southwestern  Water:  The Equity and Management  Issues."
The Southwestern Review  of Management and Economics, no. 1 (Spring 1981),  pp. 35-60.
Carriker,  Roy.  "The Role  of Extension in Water Management  and Policy Education." Emerging
Issues In  Water Management and Policy, ed. Sandra S. Batie and J. Paxton Marshall, pp.  77-
83.  Mississippi  State: Southern Rural  Development Center and Farm Foundation,  1983.
Fox, Austin, Charles  Moore, and Harold  Stults. Production of Surplus Crops on Irrigated  Land
Served by the  U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Washington  DC:  USDA ERS Staff Rep.  #AGES
831213, Feb.  1984.
Frederick,  Kenneth D.  "Current Water  Issues."  J.  of Soil and Water Cons.  no.  2 (April  1984),
pp. 86-91.
Frederick,  Kenneth  D.  and James  C.  Hanson.  Water for Western Agriculture. Washington  DC:
Resources  for the Future,  Inc.,  1982.
88Frederick,  Kenneth  D.  "The Future  Role  of Western Irrigation."  The Southwestern Review of
Management and  Economics. no. 1 (Spring 1981),  pp 19-33.
U.S. Comptroller General.  Groundwater  Overdrafting Must be Controlled. Washington DC: GAO
CED-80-96,  Sept.  1980.
89

Conflicting Claims to Southwestern Water: The Equity and Management Issues.&quot;

Current Water Issues.&quot;

Groundwater Overdrafting Must be Controlled.

Production of Surplus Crops on Irrigated Land Served by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Washington DC: USDA ERS Staff Rep.

The Future Role of Western Irrigation.&quot;

The Role of Extension in Water Management and Policy Education.&quot; Emerging Issues

Water for Western Agriculture. Washington DC: Resources for the Future, Inc.,

ISSUES IN WATER ALLOCATION: WHO GETS TO USE HOW MUCH FOR WHAT?

ISSUES IN WATER ALLOCATION: WHO GETS TO USE HOW MUCH FOR WHAT?

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