Smaller Government and Water Resoures

This is an excellent article by Chrs Edwards and Peter Hill of the Cato Instittute - - Cutting the Bureau of Reclamation and Reforming Water Markets.  The article is parts history lesson, economics, and policy recommendations.  They write the following:

However, the underlying problems of water in the West relate to inefficient policies regarding water prices and water transfers. Governments have kept prices artificially low for so long that it has encouraged water waste and water usage in low-value activities. The Bureau of Reclamation charges users only a fraction of the full costs of water, as we have discussed. Also, local irrigation districts partly rely on taxes to finance their activities, and that reduces their incentive to efficiently price water. Water prices in most districts do not reflect the opportunity costs of the water.

And - -

A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that "the capacity for water to support cities, industry, agriculture, and ecosystems in the U.S. West is near its limit under current management practices." We need new "management practices" in water, and a growing number of economists, environmentalists, and resource experts believe that the answer is to pursue market-oriented reforms to federal and state water policies.