Word: mono
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...water it would take to flood an acre one foot deep, and if you can find 70,000 of them lying around for the taking in Southern California, you can probably change your name to Yahweh and begin collecting burnt offerings. No obvious replacement source presented itself in the Mono Lake dispute until recently, when an economist named Zach Willey suggested that the city and the environmentalists get together to buy water from farmers on the western side of the Sierras in California's vast central valley...
...surrender an acre-foot of the water they regard as their birthright, and second, Willey's employer, the Environmental Defense Fund, has a reputation for fighting the new water projects coveted by a lot of farmers. But Willey and E.D.F. offered to find farmers willing to sell, and the Mono Lake litigants agreed to pay for the search...
Willey reads the unspoken cue; they are imagining Owens Valley: The Sequel, in which Los Angeles, having glommed up water and put farmers out of business in the now infamous valley south of Mono Basin, casts a thirsty eye their way. He tries to reassure them. The idea is to spread the water-marketing deals around to avoid a concentrated effect on any single farming area. No one is telling farmers to take land out of production or move to the city. A textbook negotiator, Willey subtly points up benefits that the farmers would rather temporarily overlook: Wouldn...
Both irrigation districts are firm on one point. The bid of $60 an acre-foot that Willey has presented on behalf of the Mono Lake litigants will cut no deals. One farmer states the proposition from Willey's point of view: "You get the price up, and if farm prices aren't so good, you're going to get other districts saying, 'Look what those fellows are doing over there.' " A price upwards of $125 might begin to stir their interest. Then they grimace and stare at their thumbs as if to say they honestly wished they could do better...
...farmers who receive subsidized water for crops, and further subsidies not to grow those crops, should profit handsomely on the sale of the subsidized water. Willey argues that the profits will be going to produce new public benefits: irrigation systems that use less water and produce less pollution. A Mono County businessman suggests that the sale of water rights ought to be regulated to prevent profiteering. But here Willey hews to the free-market line: even if the price per acre-foot starts out high, he says, competition will drive it down to a fair level as other irrigation districts...