It is illegal to water your own lawn. That is what it's come to here in central Texas. As anyone who lives here knows, we've been going through an enormous drought. From our dead lawns to all the dried up ponds, you don't have to look far to see just how bad it is.
Not only does it make our parks a lot uglier, the drought is actually hurting the Texas economy. As Reuters reported this afternoon[1], the drought has cost Texas "more than $5 billion in agricultural losses." Government officials have noticed. Accordingly, Austin is in Stage 2 watering restrictions[2], which means you can only water for a few hours once a week.
This situation brings up the question: is putting more regulations on citizens the best way of dealing with shortage? Water is owned by "the government"--but doesn't that mean that it really belongs to no one? If property ownership rights were established for water, I believe it would give a lot more reason to conserve water. Though it may seem crazy, let's look at a couple of reasons for water rights.
Currently, you own the water that is directly beneath your property, but, generally speaking, the state owns water that is above ground (rain water, streams etc). Ownership systems like our water have been referred to by some as "the tragedy of commons"--which essentially states that if a resource is held by no one or everyone, there won't be the motivation to keep it in order. In the same way, there isn't much of an incentive to conserve the water that comes out of our hoses and faucets, because it belongs to everyone. Just as you don't have as much concern for a rental car as you do for your own, possessing ownership of an object (such as water) gives you a reason to take care of it.
This is not an unprecedented idea. The natives of Hawaii actually had a system of water-rules for thousands of years in which streams were privately owned. The owner had domain from the stream's headwaters to the sea. Infringement on these property rights was punishable with death[3]. You thought my idea was extreme? Though this is just one example, history shows that shortages are best handled my market forces, not government regulation.
If we gave ownership of water to several different companies, for example, they would have to compete to provide quality, responsibly use their resources, and would overall run a much more conscientious and effective operation than our government. In fact, Jonathan H. Adler (Professor of Law), of the Cato Institute, said in his 2009 article Warming Up to Water Markets: "water management must shift toward recognition of transferable rights." Meaning water should be bought and sold within a market.
Implementation obviously wouldn't be simple. There would need to be rules ensuring safety, prohibiting abuse, monopolies, and things of that nature. It wouldn't happen overnight, but this system is viable if the proper regulations are put in place.
Because people have an incentive to conserve what is theirs, if we changed the ownership of water to specific owners, I think it would result in water being better conserved, and used more wisely. Water should be a form of property.
[1] Article titled: "With the onset of fall weather, the U.S. South was starting to creep out of a devastating drought that has caused billions of dollars in damages, according to a national drought report issued Thursday."
[2] City of Austin website. "Stage 2 Water Restrictions Begin for Austin
[3] National Park Service. "A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island". http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/kona/history1g.htm
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