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Water markets can mean an end to water shortages age 21 of27 environmental and fiscal constraints. But if progress toward greater reliance on markets continues, water supplies and efficiency will increase as users trade with one another, and consumption will be tamed by higher prices. ; Today in the western United States, water rights have come full circle. From private property rights freely transferable like any other property on the western frontier, they became public rights governed by legislatures and courts. Now they are becoming tradable property rights once again. States and the federal government, recognizing the practicality of markets for reallocating water, are taking steps to liberate water rights from burdensome rules and regulations. Although the "water is public" and "water is unique" paradigms remain strong, irrigators, environmentalists, urban dwellers, and other water users are overcoming obstacles to markets with innovative arrangements involving voluntary transactions. Notes 1. An acre-foot is the amount of water necessary to cover an acre of land one foot deep, approximately 326,000 gallons. 2. Today all ten states have either repealed these bans or riddled them with exceptions (Thompson 1996,3). 3. Colorado River Water Conservation District v. Rocky Mountain Power Company, 406 Pacific Reporter 2d 798, 800 (1965). 4. The law, Mont. Code Ann. 85-2-104, was repealed in 1985, most likely in response to Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rei, Douglas, 458 U.S. 941, 102 S.Ct. 3456, 73 L.Ed.2d 1254 (1982), in which the United States Supreme Court held that the Commerce Clause generally prohibits states from discriminating against other states in their water allocation. 5.207 U.S. 564, 28 S.Ct. 207, 52 L.Ed. 340 (1908). 6. The irrigation subsidy provided by the federal http://www . perc.orglpublications/policyseries/priming_ full. php ?s=2 9/1212006