Arkansas - UNC - Inquiries into Buy and Dry_May2008

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NOTE: Why propose despite lack of fit with first-round guidelines and criteria? Please see cover letter. It is hoped that the issues raised will affect second-round guidelines and criteria. The problem reviewed with CWCB Staff is the 10% cash match, and its incompatibility with other goals. Should that requirement be relaxed, or expressly defined to include foregone salary, this proposal might succeed. The following material is still relevant. Why propose before the program is defined? Because the program should recognize the importance of the kind of work proposed, and that may require having an explanation before the CWCB Staff and Board about this need. The essence of the claim is in two parts which are easy to state. First, the failure of the Arkansas River Basin Water Bank Pilot Program is due to several problems (Appendix contains more detail). The least described within state agency documents, in the author's observations, is a misunderstanding of the nature of the reforms. They were thought to be legal and procedural in nature, but that was the easy part. In fact, the hard part was that they were agricultural innovations which were not pursued in appropriate fashion. There is a 125 year tradition of extension and demonstration for agricultural innovation, and it was not applied. (The details of this tradition are discussed in several relevant studies which are synthesized, referenced, and annotated in a report available on Internet or from the author; Wiener, J.D., 2005, Learning From and About Co-Operative Extension Services, Session Report and annotated references, from Panel Discussion at Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop II, Tallahassee, FL, March 2004. Posted as Appendix to Wiener, 2005 presentation at Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop III, Palisade, NY, International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, at http://iri. Columbia. edu/outreach/meeting/CPASW2005/Presentation/7Wiener.pdf. Second, a great deal of the controversy over permanent agricultural transfers results from market failure: the lack of participation by affected parties in transactions which are made by others. In this case, that includes the wide variety of interests currently being identified in the SWSI Phase II extension of the Non- consumptive Needs Assessment, in progress at time of this submission, and it also includes another important set of interests which have not yet presented themselves effectively; that is the local government and local future interest. It is within the scope of the intended functions of the Basin Roundtables created by the HBOS-1177 Interbasin Compact Commission etc. process to work in this area, but so far it is not apparent that the appointed representatives have seen this as an issue or seen their roles as including this,. But, it is apparent from informal inquiries that many local governments have not yet seen this as an issue, and have not yet undertaken a policy process or planning process which would identify interests and future interests, and provide positions that could be represented. If there were no urgency, that would not be a problem. There is urgency, and the sooner these forms of transfer are effectively developed, which requires the necessary efforts beyond design of the forms, the sooner they may achieve some of their potential. On 12 November, at the Joint Basin Roundtables Meeting for the Arkansas, Metro and South Platte, Todd Doherty presented some information about the direction of the program. From that talk, it was not clear that this kind of work would be considered, and therefore I am sending this in considerable haste while there is time for consideration before the CWCB decides on its criteria. The fashion for promoting "shovels in the ground" as opposed to "what do we need to know?" is certainly understandable, but as we saw with the first efforts for the Water Bank, we can lose time and maybe even lose opportunities in the long term by making insufficiently supported plans.