[googlryas]

What is so complex about eminent domain? Just force the sale of water rights back to the government for a fair price. It will sting a little bit, but sting far less than pretending like only 15% of the water in the western US actually exists.

[gedy]

Politicians are afraid of getting voted out, and frankly many of their constituents prefer to ban this or that symbolic thing in residential usage that scratches their control freak itch.

[pfdietz]

Or, just allow farmers to sell their water to the highest bidder. The Coase theorem to the rescue.

[sacrosancty]

This is what I would expect to happen. Everyone wants the government to "simply" violate property rights and seize it but is there not a way for the market to sort itself out fairly? Are they forbidden from selling their water rights? Or is the water actually worth more to the farmers than the city residents so that the current situation is actually fine?

[lovich]

> Everyone wants the government to "simply" violate property rights...

It's a lot simpler when you don't believe that water is something private individuals have a right to hoard. Imo, water is a natural resource we all have some minimum access to as humans, regardless of if someone wants to buy it up and sell at a higher price later

[sacrosancty]

It's not really natural though, is it? Regulated by the Hoover dam and supplying people living in deserts. Obviosuly people who choose to live in remote arid places don't automatically have the right to be provided with water by everybody else.

[lovich]

> It's not really natural though, is it?

What? I’m not sure how water could not be considered a natural resource. It just exists, it didn’t take a human hand to create.

[sacrosancty]

Obviously I'm talking about the transport of the water from where it naturally occurs to where people want to use it, not somehow creating it out of atoms.

[candiodari]

Unfortunately the government sold it. Now of course they could buy it back ... That's unacceptable, apparently. Just taking it away, no compensation is what everyone seems to want.

[jandrewrogers]

This happens in some places already but a major issue is the absence of a distribution network to get water from where it is to where it is needed most. Being able to move the water consumption to where the water is located is one of the major drivers of cattle ranching out west.