A column about history, culture, policy, and things in between.
The issue of water is heating up and will continue to do so in the coming years. This, along with our dysfunctional system of funding the unsustainable benefit programs for our State and public sector employees, will be two of our largest pubic policy issues in the coming years.
As is typical with enormous issues that touch every one of us, this question of water will get volatile. Amongst all the debate, one thing I don’t hear anyone talking about is CONSERVATION. We are using far more water than we need to, and I believe this is something we would all agree with when we stop to think about it. The long-term implications of over-using a commodity, particularly a commodity whose supply we cannot impact, are not encouraging.
We Americans are a wasteful people; and few areas better demonstrate this than our use of water. Everywhere we turn - in our homes, our yards, in our schools, in our public facilities, when we go out to eat, the wanton waste of water is as ubiquitous as it is obvious.
In my view, the reason we waste so much water is that we don’t respect it. And the reason we don’t respect it is because it has always been plentiful and cheap. Until we understand that water is a precious and finite natural resource, we will not curb our use of it. The answer may in part involve officials carving out massive regional agreements, which seek to maintain by political force the same obscene amounts of water that we say we need. But I believe the answer needs to include letting the market operate.
The market has a way of reducing consumption of valuable things. People will begin to be conscious of water when the cost of it is allowed to freely fluctuate relative to its supply. We may not be comfortable with allowing market forces to regulate things that we come to view as “rights: things like water and health care. But the market cares little about our “rights”; it operates according to its own laws. The primary solution to the problems of water supply and health care are to let market driven consumerism operate. I’ll be writing soon about needed health care reform.
Of all these laws of the market the most inexorable one is that of supply and demand, which dictates that any commodity existing in great abundance will have little value. For most of our lives, this has been true of water. The problem is that it no longer exists in great abundance, but we continue to use it as if it does. This is a dynamic that is sure to perpetuate the problem rather than solve it. Anytime we allow legislation to regulate a commodity instead of the market prices will be distorted, resources misallocated, and long-term supply will be jeopardized. Just look at what is happening with the price of corn, and all the negative and unforeseen consequences that is beginning to have across several industries, because politicians FORCED an ethanol based fuel program on us; a program that the market would never have chosen or supported. The law of supply and demand is as true for water as it is for oil or corn or the value of labor.
The answer to our water problem is to let the pricing mechanism reflect its real value. Then we will learn to respect it, use less of it, and do our part in ensuring its viable supply.
