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<br />Water markets can mean an end to water shortages <br /> <br /> <br />construction and operating costs (Repetto 1986, 37). <br />Water prices from government irrigation projects in <br />South Africa average only 30 percent of operating <br />and maintenance costs and make no provision for <br />interest and redemption of capital (South Africa <br />1986, 1.33). In light of these numbers it should not <br />be surprising that farmers support politicians who <br />push for subsidized water projects. <br /> <br />In addition to burdening the taxpayer, subsidized <br />prices create an insatiable demand for water and <br />encourage inefficient use. With low prices, users <br />have no incentive to consider alternative <br />technologies and lifestyle changes that would save <br />water. Many irrigation systems use less than half of <br />the water that flows into them. The rest runs off <br />fields, carrying with it pesticides, herbicides, and <br />soil nutrients; evaporates as it moves through open <br />canals; or percolates into the ground through <br />unlined ditches. Lands can become waterlogged as <br />farmers apply generous amounts of water to their <br />crops. <br /> <br />Irrigation drainage creates environmental problems, <br />too. For years, California's Central Valley Project <br />provided subsidized irrigation water to the <br />Westlands Water District. The low price of the <br />water encouraged farmers to irrigate even marginal <br />lands. Wastewater from farming drained into the <br />nearby Kesterson Wildlife Refuge via a drainage <br />system built by the federal government (Wahl 1989, <br />198-205). <br /> <br />In 1983, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noticed <br />grotesque deformities in the birds and fish living in <br />Kesterson. The toxic culprit was selenium that had <br />been leached from the soil and carried to the refuge <br />in the irrigation drainage from Westlands. In small <br />doses, selenium is necessary for life, but it can be a <br />deadly pollutant when concentrated, as it was at <br />Kesterson. <br /> <br />Stopping the flow of wastewater into Kesterson by <br />shutting off water to the irrigation district might <br />have been a solution. But the politically powerful <br />irrigators and the banks holding the debt on their <br />farms would not stand for it. Taxpayer-funded <br />pollution control costing millions of dollars was <br />implemented to solve an environmental problem <br />caused by subsidies (Anderson 1995b, 269). <br /> <br />http://www . perc.org/pub1ications/policyseries/priming_ full. php ?s=2 <br /> <br />112/2006 <br />