Archive for May, 2010
End War, Create Army Surplus
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
I read somewhere recently that the US Army is the biggest polluter in the world. That is quite a bummer. But I decided to think about the military industrial complex as a huge untapped resource. If some amazing change in human nature and human society brought a lasting end to large scale [...]
Speed Blogging
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Groundwater tapping out in North China says the communist party paper. I guess that’s a good reason for the Party to build the south-north canal. What happened to restrictions on groundwater extraction and higher prices?!? Oh yeah, sustainability isn’t so exciting…
“TaKaDu can take sparse and spiky data from existing sensors and [...]
Speaking of corruption
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Katherine Hart, who regulated the industry her husband lobbied, was fined $600 for her conflict of interest. Even worse, she still has her job.
That’s totally ridiculous. I suggested a much harsher penalty (as well as firing her).
$600 is merely the cost of doing business. (I bet her husband deducts it from his [...]
Taugher on Westlands and Corruption
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Corruption, n. When someone uses political office for private gain.
Taugher says:
A former Bush administration official [Manson] whose tenure was marked by systematic attempts to weaken endangered species protections has gone to work for a powerful California farm district [Westlands] that has the same aim in the Delta.
I’ll put it this way: Show [...]
Human rights FAIL
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
I sent my human rights paper to UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights and got this reply from the Special Procedures Branch (Water and Sanitation):*
General Comment No. 15 [pdf] is the authoritative interpretation of what the human right to water is under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
So what [...]
Bleg: Increasing block rates
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
I’m blanking here…
Does anyone have an example of increasing block rates being used outside of regulated (water, gas, electric) utilities?
It seems that IBRs do not exist in any markets. Curious Important!
Rating 3.00 out of 5
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Watershed management
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Read this speech [PDF] by Mehan (ex-EPA). It’s deep and thorough:
For too long water quality management has been characterized by compartmentalization and the creation of artificial boundaries among and between various aspects of what should be a unified approach to water quality in terms of the chemical, physical and biological integrity of [...]
What were they thinking?
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
DW asks:
Why did many Westland farmers, knowing that water shortages were on the horizon, tear our their seasonal crops and replace them with almond orchards that need water year round?
What were they thinking?
I have no idea, really.
What do you guys think?
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National Geographic on water
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Read it.
They also did a special issue in 1993 — after the LAST big drought. I’m wondering if these are going to be more frequent. After all, nobody ever says that the Sahara is in drought.
Here’s the money quotation:
If you think about how we settled the West, it was all limitless, limitless [...]
Subsidized or not?
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Westlands Water District (WWD) is famous as a large irrigation district that uses a lot of water to grow a lot of crops. Some claim that this water is subsidized; others worry that WWD receives subsidies for growing crops.
According to this letter from environmental groups [pdf], the all-in cost (operations, capital, energy) [...]
The economics of things we love
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
TTTE says it:
Economics is the study of resource allocation. It informs decision-making by comparing different options by a common denominator (money).
At this point the haters say “you can’t put a dollar value on everything!”. This may be true, but merely attempting to put a financial value on non-financial objects is part of [...]
Useless stimulus and phoney green jobs
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
I was talking to a friend, and he mentioned that he’d hired an extra guy under the stimulus program.
“Yeah, they are paying 80 percent of his wages and overhead. It’s a win-win for him and me…”
“…but then I fired another guy; he just cost too much compared to the new guy.”
So we [...]
Groundwater marketing and regulation
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Noah Hall (via RM, via Aquadoc) says YES, you can market groundwater:
So here’s the bottom line: The legality of groundwater marketing depends on common law doctrines that vary by state and were created long before massive groundwater water marketing was even possible. The public trust doctrine does not apply to groundwater and [...]
60 Minutes on the All American Canal
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Michael at Knowledge Problem covers the [pipe break, boil order, demand for bottled water] story here, pointing out that politicians are worried about price gauging on bottled water. I left this comment:
This is wrong in so many ways. First, there’s the extra bottle-police who shoudl be working to get MORE water into [...]
Monday Funnies
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
World Water Shortage vs. Golf Course Consumption
Don’t forget that the “big” oil companies, together, pump less than 20% of global oil. The rest is pumped by state-owned companies (Libya, Saudi, Venezuela, et al.). Why doesn’t anyone attack them?
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About that oil spill
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is growing at a rate of 5,000 bbl/day.*
Given the fact that one liter of oil can contaminate one million liters (one ML), that means that the BP spill may be contaminating 795 km^2 of sea water per day. (How much is that in gallons [...]
