Tag: "water use"

Water Desalination Efforts Can Really Benefit Texas

Water issues are becoming a growing problem for many places around the United States, especially in Texas. Droughts and a population boom are continuing to put more pressure on the state’s water supply. On top of that, the process of fracking (very popular in Texas) uses lots of water that is turned into waste water. The process of desalination can turn waste water, brackish water and even sea water into water that can be used as drinking water, irrigation and other uses.

An article by William McKenzie of the George Bush Institute in the Dallas Morning News highlights the desalination efforts in Texas, with a focus on the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Plant in El Paso.

He includes some recommendations for Texas:

  • The Texas Water Development Board can hire more geologists to research brackish water.
  • Communities can work on efforts to recycle brackish water.
  • Private/Public desalination plant partnerships, like in California, can provide enough water to millions of residents.
Aug 27, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by

Green Growth: Developed vs. Developing Nations

Difference between Developed and Developing

Before getting into the policy portion of this post, a distinction needs to be made between developing and developed nations. While they clearly have different connotations, the definitions are quite fluid and often prompt controversy.

Nevertheless, Princeton University defines a “developed” nation as one that has a high level of development according to certain criteria. Often, economic criteria have dominated the discussion, but recently the Human Development Index (HDI), which combines an economic measure with other measures, such as life expectancy and education, has become a more common use. Those with a very high HDI are considered “developed.”

Contrarily, a “developing” country is one in which the nation has a low level of material well-being or lower levels of HDI.

As no universal definition of either “developed” or “developing” is accepted, the interpretation varies per study. However, for the purposes of this post, the two definitions above, along with accepted identities of nations, will be used to clarify the boundary.

Green growth and Developing countries

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), green growth, a combination of economic policy and sustainable development, attempts to reduce poverty by bolstering economic growth and to address resource scarcity and climate change by improving environmental management. However, while green technology is generally more affordable by developed countries with robust economies, investment is particularly important for developing countries.

  1. The potential impacts, both economic and social, of environmental degradation are unique for developing countries, as they are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and as they tend to be more dependent on the exploitation of natural resources for economic growth than developed nations. Additionally, developing nations face risks from premature deaths due to pollution, poor water quality, and diseases at rates higher than developed nations.
  2. Although developing nations contribute smaller shares of global greenhouse gas emissions than developed nations, they will increase emissions if they follow conventional economic growth patterns.

However, as a report from Duke’s Law School points out, while developing nations have growing demands for climate-friendly processes and technologies, they often face many barriers because of trade policies and intellectual property regulations. Proposed by the study, one solution to the problem would be the establishment of a “global exchange forum in which transnational green technology holders, green venture capitalists, and developing country entrepreneurs could broker for efficient allocation of investment, resources, and technologies.”

Some developing nations have already taken steps to implement green growth policies. Viewed as successful, these regulations and processes are being initiated by other developing nations.

  • Costa Rica: discourages deforestation by paying forest owners through taxes on fuel and water for the environmental services that the forest produces, such as watershed and biodiversity protection.
  • Nepal: recognizes community forest user groups as autonomous bodies for managing and using community forests, generating employment and income from forest protection, tree felling, log extraction, and non-timber forest products and restoring forest resources.
  • Bangladesh: WasteConcern, an enterprise founded in Bangladesh, turns roadside organic waste into agricultural compost, saving millions in foreign currency by avoiding the import of chemical fertilizer. Annually, 124,400 tons of waste is processed, and 986 direct jobs are created.

By helping developing nations gain access to green growth and technology, a core objective of the “bright green” framework mentioned in Profiling Environmentalism, they will be able to simultaneously grow their economies and tackle environmental degradation. Economic growth and environmental sustainability are considered the twin objectives of the bright green framework, objectives that should be embraced by every nation, particularly those with a “developing” status.

Tanner Davis is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Jun 09, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by

EPA Advancing on Numerous Fronts

The Environmental Protection Agency has been all over the new recently with a flurry of activity. Joining the President’s strategy of going forward with their agenda and without Congress, the EPA is taking bold steps while receiving some harsh criticism.

The latest action by the EPA directs bold new standards/regulations on carbon emissions. According to the EPA, by 2030:

  • Cut carbon emission from the power sector by 30 percent nationwide below 2005 levels, which is equal to the emissions from powering more than half the homes in the United States for one year.
  • Cut particle pollution, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent as a co-benefit.
  • Avoid up to 6,600 premature deaths, up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children, and up to 490,000 missed work or school days — providing up to $93 billion in climate and public health benefits.
  • Shrink electricity bills roughly 8 percent by increasing energy efficiency and reducing demand in the electricity system.

While the EPA clearly states some benefits to the new carbon emissions regulations, greater consequences could result from such carelessly calculated action. Electricity rates could skyrocket and the entire economy suffer.

According to the Heritage Foundation there will be serious economic damage:

  • Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are nearly $7 trillion by 2029 (in infla­tion-adjusted 2008 dollars), according to The Heritage Foundation/Global Insight model (described in Appendix A).
  • Single-year GDP losses exceed $600 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars).
  • Annual job losses exceed 800,000 for several years.
  • Some industries will see job losses that exceed 50 percent.

Further action by the EPA has modified the Clean Water Act and directly affects the definition of water ways and the productive aspects of agriculture. EPA also modified the Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (RPA).

The EPA ruling on carbon emission gives the opponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline greater hope that they will succeed in their fight on the pipeline front.

“Going it alone” is a reckless decision for the entire Obama administration. Already reinforcing greater partisan divisions in Washington, completely ignoring entire branches of our government will only lead to greater problems for our entire country.

Jun 04, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by

Diminishing Returns to Dam Building and Other Supply Solutions

“Megadam Projects not Successful” highlights what many in Texas and elsewhere will see as an inconvenient, but critical, truth: there are diminishing returns to structural solutions to water scarcity problems. One reason that it is inconvenient is that there is a lot of money in dam building, and another is that water planners and municipal purveyors are not used to the demand-side approaches to make sure that demand will not exceed supply even in a worst-case-scenario drought.

Sole reliance on supply-side solutions to meet that mandate means the environmentally and fiscally costly construction of some projects that will sit idle most of the time. There are two alternatives that become more and more economically efficient as additional water supply projects come on line:

  • Provision for permanent and temporary market-based re-allocations of existing water rights, which means true private ownership of water consumption rights. Water price differences, or lacking those, water use value differences, will signal which way true markets would move water. It would not be a mass-movement because the prices are changed by the re-allocations, sometimes significantly by small reductions in sellers’ water use. For example, a relatively small re-allocation of irrigation water can slightly increase the value of agricultural water while massively decreasing the cost of municipal water.
  • For water supplies like municipal utilities and irrigation companies, provision of some discounted interruptible service. The option to buy a mix of non-interruptible and discounted interruptible service has been long-time standard fare in industries like natural gas that are much less vulnerable to the double whammy of simultaneous increase in demand and decrease in supply that comes with drought.

But gas providers and users are spending their own money, whereas government-run water purveyors spend someone else’s money. So, as water projects come online it eventually becomes cheaper to provide discounts for service that is interrupted in specified drought conditions than to have a nearly-always idle water project on standby for a rare situation.

Mar 31, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by

Real Water Markets: Another Leadership Imperative

Political and economic freedom plus the rule of law and free enterprise yields the prosperity that we enjoy, and its absence explains why most of the world lags so far behind us. Its absence also explains why some sectors of our economy lag so far behind the rest. We use our resources more wisely than most of the rest of the world because market-determined prices guide most of our resource use decisions.

Changing market prices are a powerful information and incentive system. That system has an impressive track record because every price is the result of a serious, continuous, money-where-your-mouth-is indirect conversation about priorities and costs. It involves the entire population, so it harnesses much more information than the central planning alternative, which is just guesswork by a handful of over-extended public officials spending someone else’s money. Central planning has an awful track record, not just for economic inefficiency and poverty, but for creeping tyranny.

Market-determined prices will address Texas’ water management challenges more effectively than our current system of limited markets and central planning. Willing buyer — willing seller exchange of privately-owned water rights will tell us what each basin’s lowest value water uses are worth. Until we know what price existing users would sell water for, we cannot tell which potential water projects are wise investments. Price differences between water basins tell us if inter-basin transfers make economic sense, and tell us what restrictions on inter-basin transfers cost. The same price information is an essential element of water conservation planning.

Texas surface water law allows water rights’ exchanges, but transfers are over- regulated. For example, water rights holders cannot change water uses without state permission. Water rights are just revocable permission to use state water; a factor that undermines exchange, investment in water-related infrastructure, and promotes wasteful use-it-or-lose-it usage. Let’s hope for the wisdom and leadership to fix that before our drought and recent referendum push us to waste billions of dollars and the environmental disaster of unnecessarily flooding thousands of acres under new reservoirs.

Texas groundwater law has not even come that far. Many groundwater basins have long since reached the point where recharge can no longer keep up with unlimited pumping, which means that efficient use requires quantified pumping rights and a price system. Only the Edwards Aquifer area of South Central Texas has quantified pumping rights, but even there, water users cannot trade directly. Much of the Edwards Aquifer permitted pumping is locked into historic and mostly low water uses. Those are very expensive restrictions. How expensive? Only a system of market-determined prices can reveal the true amount.

The legal infrastructure needed to foster market-determined surface- and ground- water prices will have to incorporate numerous geologic, hydrologic, and historic use details that are beyond the scope of this commentary. But nothing about issues like third-party claims, drought management, and environmental values preclude the government from severely curtailing its costly micro-management of water use. Getting there is just a matter of leadership; selling the correct, limited government policies to a general public interested in freedom-based new ideas.

Mar 24, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by

Eliminate Agricultural Subsidies, Charge More to Use Water

Recent heavy rains have not stopped California’s multi-year drought. As growth continues in other western states such as Arizona and Colorado, water will become even more precious. Instead of pleading for California residents to conserve water, Governor Jerry Brown and state officials should consider several agricultural policy changes that allow the market to encourage conservation.

Despite its favorable soil and warm weather, California is a less than ideal agricultural climate. Growing crops in sunny, high-temperature, low-humidity conditions requires up to six times as much water as growing the same crops in slightly cooler more humid conditions.

California needs to price its water correctly to decrease waste. While agriculture uses 80% of all California water, it accounts for only 2% of economic activity. Worse, by one calculation farmers have only paid 15% of the cost of the federal irrigation system that delivers water. While food production is important, the state should take several steps to preserve water. It should create a binding study group of agricultural and environmental experts, not politicians, to determine how much water farmers actually need. It is crucial that this group be non-governmental to reduce the political impulse to favor the agricultural crop with the strongest lobbyists over another crop.

Once it determines how much water farmers need, the state should stop providing discounts to agricultural users. It should charge commercial water users in the same manner that it charges residential users. Farmers should pay a flat rate per gallon for the amount of water needed to grow a basic crop such as carrots. But just as homeowners pay more for non-basic uses such as swimming pools, farmers should pay more for using extra water for luxury crops such as pistachios.

California should also consider short-term subsidies for crops that California has the comparative advantage in growing and increased rates for other crops. For example, carrots and olives use average to below average amounts of water to grow. And few places in the country other than California can grow carrots and olives. However, growing wheat and oats uses above average amounts of water. And many locations throughout the country can grow wheat and oats. Once California begins pricing water correctly the market should eliminate most of the problems. But to speed the transition, the state should offer short-term subsidies (five years at the most) to continue producing carrots and short-term penalties to discourage wheat production.

Mar 05, 2014 | 13 comments | by

Obama’s Ocean Policy Initiative: Washington’s Latest Power Grab

A little-noticed Obama Executive Order will open the door to federal zoning throughout the United States. A regulatory structure is being put in place that will allow unelected and unaccountable Washington bureaucrats to dictate local land and water use decisions.

Oct 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment | by
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