Day: July 13, 2021

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-drought-upends-life-west-basin.html

Water crisis reaches boiling point on Oregon-California line
by Gillian Flaccus

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Beginning in 1906, the federal government reengineered a complex system of lakes, wetlands and rivers in the 10 million-acre (4 million-hectare) Klamath River Basin to create fertile farmland. It built dikes and dams to block and divert rivers, redirecting water away from a natural lake spanning the California-Oregon border.

Evaporation then reduced the lake to one-quarter of its former size and created thousands of arable acres in an area that had been underwater for millennia.

In 1918, the U.S. began granting homesteads on the dried-up parts of Tule Lake. Preference was given to World War I and World War II veterans, and the Klamath Reclamation Project quickly became an agricultural powerhouse.

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“The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, ‘See if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.” ― Harry Browne

Here we have another great example of the tragedy of the commons!

Of course the little L libertarian solution is private ownership.

Here’s a quick mental model:  All of the stake holders are given ownership of the law and they manage it.  I would bet a payday that in a few years there’d be more water than needed.  Will it be messy and contentious?  Sure!  But it would be “solved” without the Gooferment.

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