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:>1 ';Kj fi Chapter 4 Addressing the Basin's Problems -', The central theme of the preceding chapters is that the composition of the competing demands for the water and related resources of the Upper Rio Grande Basin is complex and shifting over time, the total level of competition is rising rapidly, and the institutions-both private and public-with responsibility for managing the resources are lagging behind. In short, the current system of resource management is a foot on the brake, retarding the ability of these resources to improve incomes and standards of living in the Basin and for efforts to maintain and restore the Basin's ecosystem. In an ideal world, well-regulated markets would materialize to release the pressure on the brake. Buyers and sellers representing all types of interest in the resources would readily effect transactions, everyone would have full knowledge of the tradeoffs among competing resource uses, and resources continually would move from low-value uses to high-value ones. :--, ;~i ~{.l -,;. The real world is far different. Transactions are rare, and nothing other than very limited, local markets are likely to develop in the foreseeable future.! Many of the Basin's resources remain in low-value uses as high-value demands expand. Resource-management institutions are struggling to break free of habits and legislative legacies based on the far-simpler resource-competition of the past. Nobody can seriously contend that current patterns of resource use are sustainable, and many recognize that the longer unsustainable practices continue the greater the ultimate cost of recovery. ~.) In the absence of well-regulated markets, resource managers must employ other ins titutional mechanisms if they are to increase the value of the goods and services derived from the Basin's resources, expand the resources' contribution to jobs, incomes, and standards ofIiving, and address the concerns of those who see resource allocations as unfair. Most of the alternative mechanisms, such as lawsuits and political tussling, retain the winner-take-all competitive spirit of markets, but they are far more 1 Market mechaniams, such as a water bank, can encourage the voluntary transfer from low- to higher-valued uses. A water bank can be used to facilitate temporary or drought-year water transfers between agriculture and urban users. The water is not transferred permanently between the two sectors, but moves to the more highly valued use when most needed. In the Upper Rio Grande Basin, the Middle Rio Grande Conservation District (MRGCDl is attempting to form a water bank. To date, however. the potential success ofthe program remains undetermined. ("."''"1'"'0 \ u'-~~ 109