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Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

This is true and unfortunately more complicated. I've long been saying "just price it at real market value and the issue will be solved", similar to what you are saying. The problem is that farmers don't get the water from the faucet, but through archaic water rights to rivers, lakes, wells, etc. We'd need to reform those water rights and I bet no politician has enough interest to fight a dirty media battle with "the people who provide your food" who I also would expect to likely get physically violent at some point.

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> The problem is that farmers don't get the water from the faucet, but through archaic water rights to rivers, lakes, wells, etc.

By "archaic" do you mean they got there first? Because farming has been around in (e.g.) Arizona for >100 years, and there weren't any problems back then when there was mostly a whole lot of nothin' in the region.

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/an-arizona-farmer-on-h...

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understanding-the-real...

Then folks decided that building large population centres in the middle of the desert was a good idea, and here we are.

It should also be noted that Native Americans were also living and farming before white settlers arrived:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Early_history

Though it's not like having large civilizations living in a desert is unique to the American (South-)West: see Mesopotamia and Egypt. They're just usually huddle around rivers.

There's massive population in the desert now, but that's not where the water is going. The vast majority of water is used by agriculture, which has also expanded massively in the same time frame. It's a red herring that natives and early settlers farmed in the same areas - the water they used is nothing compared to modern agriculture.

Efficient water usage (e.g. drip irrigation) and not growing comically unsuitable crops like alfalfa would solve this problem, even in the face of climate change.

The point is that there was enough water in the desert until people decided building massive retirement communities in the desert was a good idea.

That's simply not true. The retirement communities simply aren't why the water shortage is happening. It's agriculture, not residential use. The water usage numbers are well known. You're just assuming that population growth must have caused the water shortage, while ignoring the much greater increases in agricultural usage over the same timeframe.

The reason for the complaining is the population not the farmers. Why do you think they built the retirement communities in the desert? That's right! The land was gobsmackingly cheap! Why? Because the land was reeeeeeally shitty because the water sources were so poor! Would you be so defensive of the residents if this was Florida coast?

This is really quite simple: farmers use the vast majority of the water. Residential use is small in comparison. We're talking about water. Land use is only indirectly related. It's illogical on its face to say that the main problem is residential use when farming uses vastly more.

that's a good point, maybe the cities should be the ones forced to move out.

I imagine the amount of agriculture going on >100 years ago is but a fraction of the amount of agriculture happening today. Or are you also arguing that the amount of agriculture in the region stayed constant over the last >100 years?

Its pretty disingenuous to argue the impacts of agriculture today is the same as >100 years ago and act like all the expansion has been the cities.

Probably both expanded, but the difference is the farmers secured water rights first and the cities didn't. I don't see a way to take away water rights; there just needs to be a way for cities to purchase the water.

Maybe there's a market-based solution that works well for them too. Let them keep the water rights, but also let them resell the water. It's probably worth more to someone else. I'm sure there's some obstacle to that too.

This seems like a great solution. The only issue I could see is that this doesn't solve nature conservation issues were rivers and creeks will run entirely dry and all wildlife dies. Maybe we can solve this by buying a portion of the water to keep it running in the stream.

Not comparing agriculture to slavery. But people made this private property rights for slavery too. Sometimes wrong is just wrong. Fuck your rights. Wasting scarce water in a desert to grow unsuitable plants because your grandfather bought some cheap water rights is just wrong.

If the plants are so unsuitable, then it'll be more profitable to sell the water than it is to grow the plants. And idk what any of this has to do with slavery, especially in CA, but fortunately the law does uphold private property rights.

I think you are making a comparison to slavery, which is not relevant because no one is suggesting that it's okay to own another human being.

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