Summary
Water banks aren't a particularly new idea. Farmers along Idaho's Snake River established the first water bank in the 1930s, as a way to share unused water. "It operated for a number of years informally outside of the regular legal water-law system," says Clay Landry, the managing director of a consulting company called WestWater Research. "The local community got together and came up with this concept, and it was such a good idea that the Legislature authorized it 40 years later."
"People at the local level will find what's comfortable for them," [Larry MacDonnell] says. "If they are comfortable, it's going to work. Otherwise, you're going to create institutional rules nobody's going to use."Regardless of how water prices finally shake out, the water bank also provides a twist on an old antagonism in the state. Some California agricultural communities still harbor a lingering stigma about selling water to big cities. The water bank could provide cover for farmers who'd like to sell some of their water, but can't stomach the idea of selling it to Los Angeles. As one longtime observer of the state's water dealmaking says, "It's a lot easier to show up at the local coffee shop and say, 'I'm not sure who my water's going to, but I'm selling it to this bank.' "See the full content of this document
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With $250 billion in taxpayer money headed their way to remedy their phenomenal incompetence, banks aren't exactly paragons of public confidence right now. But in California, where two years of severe drought have emptied reservoirs and created a water crisis almost a...
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