Food Chain Radio Show #1045

Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist

Ground Water and the Tragedy of the Aquifers

This Poll is closed!!

Who should own the groundwater in the aquifers?

Community members

Land owners

*

66%

33%

Guests: Horatio Amezquita from The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water; and Stiv Wilson, Campaign Director for “The Story of Stuff” Project

Produced with UC Intern Producer Dylan Huntzinger

Everyone in the village is free to graze their goats on the grass of our common pasture.

Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Ground Water and the Tragedy of the Aquifers: who should own the water in an aquifer?

Those who have the most goats will get the most grass, those who have the fewest goats will get the least grass, and soon all the grass will be grazed away.

This economic theory was first articulated in an 1883 essay entitled “The Tragedy of the Commons” by William Forster Lloyd, and re-upped in an 1968 article of the same name by ecologist Garrett Hardin, as a way to describe the management of common resources, like oceans, rivers, fish stocks and so on.

One of the most common of commons is the ground water contained in an aquifer. When an aquifer contains enough water to satisfy everyone’s needs, few pay the management of the aquifer much attention. But when there is not enough water to go around, management of the aquifer comes into contention. As the Old West saying goes: “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting.”

A prolonged drought has caused many of the West’s aquifers to be sucked nearly dry. Some in California are so dry surface land is sinking at the rate of a foot a year; others are so dry salt water is intruding from the oceans, rendering the remaining water unusable.  Though the winter’s El Nino rains have brought much-needed water, they have not brought enough water, and so the fight is on for what water remains in the West’s aquifers.

This fight for water leads us to ask…

Leave a comment below: Who should own the water in an aquifer?

Tune in here, for the syndicated Food Chain Radio Show #1045 February 27, 2016 Saturday 9AM Pacific