The Visible Hand as Well

• Author: David B. Brooks
• Position: Senior Advisor - Fresh Water for Friends of the Earth Canada
• Pages: 29-29

MARCH/APRIL 2009 ❧ Page 29

Copyright © 2009, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, Match/April 2009

anoTher view

Notwithstanding its reputation

for wretched excess, Las Vegas is an

interesting case study illustrating

the daunting challenges of trans-

planting a humid lifestyle to an arid

land. e Las Vegas Strip, home to

many of the world’s largest hotels,

with fountains and a lake suf‌f‌icient-

ly large to stage pirate battles, dem-

onstrates the benef‌it of water reuse

and recycling — an increasingly

attractive option given the scar-

city and price of water and water

treatment. e average hotel room

uses 300 gallons of water per day,

but almost all of it is recycled. e

Strip accounts for barely 1 percent

of Nevada’s water use but generates

60 percent of its economic out-

put. In another measure, Las Vegas

started paying $1 per square foot to

remove Kentucky bluegrass or turf

and, in 2005, saved 2.8 billion gal-

lons of water on this score alone.

Water consumption has actually

declined, despite unceasing popu-

lation growth from 2002 to 2004.

Meanwhile, agriculture consumes

90 percent of the state’s water —

pointing to the possibility of water

transfers and substantial prof‌its for

farmers who, at some point, want

to retire.

Will Technology Save Us?

Desalination, a technol-

ogy that removes salt

from seawater or brack-

ish groundwater, is a

promising approach

to water reclamation or treatment

despite outstanding questions with

regard to f‌inancial, environmental,

and energy issues. Only 2.5 percent

of the world’s water is fresh water

and suitable for human consump-

tion. Cities from Algiers to Tampa

are pursuing desalination as a so-

lution to water scarcity. e NRC

has noted that, in 2006, worldwide

online desalination capacity was

roughly 10 billion gallons a day, or

0.3 percent of the total freshwater

use. From 2000 to 2005, U.S. de-

starting point. However, they im-

mediately lead to two questions:

First, those approaches have

been urged for at least the past

half century. Why has it been

so dif‌f‌icult in the United States

to implement them? Analysis of

governance should be as much

about what does not, as what

does, get done.

Second, how will we reach

decisions for those uses of water

not easily evaluated by market

processes? Imaginative analyti-

cal methods show that services

provided by our ecosystems are

real and of def‌inable value to the

economy.

Both of these questions are

profoundly political — in the

non-pejorative sense

of the word. Solutions

should be informed

by economics but also

shaped by other disci-

plines and mediated

through public con-

sultations.

We cannot achieve

sustainable water

management in North America

simply by adjusting the micro

elements of today’s practices —

full-cost pricing, life-cycle analy-

sis, etc. ose adjustments are

needed, but, we also need macro

changes in water management.

Since about 1980 water with-

drawals in the United States have

been declining, and Canada seems

to be following a similar course.

Despite governmental neglect

and water prices that barely cover

pumping cost, a more ef‌f‌icient,

equitable, and environmentally

satisfactory water future seems

to be within reach — if only we

could grasp it.

David B. Brooks is Senio r A dvisor

– Fresh Water for Friends of the Earth

Canada.

Tracy Mehan’s position on

water policy ref‌lects two

key ideas: that the mar-

ket will def‌ine economic

ef‌f‌iciency, and that the

least government is the best gov-

ernment. Both ideas have wide

currency in the United States.

From the time of Confederation

in 1867, Canadians have expected

their governments, both federal

and provincial, to play a more ac-

tivist role than have Americans.

eir implicit reasoning accepts

the market’s invisible hand, but

believes most systems work better

with two hands — the second one

being that of government.

Nowhere has this two-handed

approach been more evident than

with fresh water, where

water allocation has

not so much followed

development as led it.

At times, government’s

hand has been too

heavy, as when farming

was promoted in areas

that should have been

left as rangeland. How-

ever, in recent years, government’s

hand has been too light, and Ca-

nadians have experienced adverse

ef‌fects on human health, losses in

viable ecosystems, and unsustain-

able rates of withdrawal.

e Canadian approach is ar-

guably better than that of the

United States. Water occupies an

awkward position between a com-

modity and the commons. All

uses of water have some aspects

of a commodity and, in most,

some aspects of a human right or

an ecological necessity. No other

natural resource exhibits so many

externalities and such widespread

evidence of market failure.

When water use exhibits major

aspects of a commodity, the ap-

proaches described by Tracy Me-

han are appropriate, at least as a

e Visible Hand as Well

David B. Brooks