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. In the first place, the present complex political and legal arrangements have evolved over many years and could not be easily altered. Even if they . ~ o o N could be, and the upstream users utilized a smaller quantity of the water, changing the upstream-downstream allocation would take us only part way to the socially optimal level of per acre water use. Much would . depend on how each group chose to react in reducing quantities, and this, in turn, would depend on the structure of water rights and state . administrative qualities. If junior appropriators were cut off from any water allotment and senior appropriators were left unaffected, there would be benefits conferred on downstream users because fewer acres . would be irrigated, the salt load would be diminished and the river flow would be augmented. But the externality problem applying to those acres irrigated by the senior appropriators would be unaffected. To attack this . problem, a per acre restriction on water use would have to accompany the reallocation. One way to do it would be to indiscriminately cut the . water entitlement to each user to OA units per acre. Even then, however, e the farmer may not apply his entitlement equally to each acre as would I be socially optimal unless forced to do so. He would ge guided strictly by the MNB function. If he could profit more by applying lOA' units of I water to each irrigated acre than by spreading it even+ among all potentially irrigable acres at rate OAe, he would do so. It is difftcult to see how he could be forced to use water at the socially optirrlallevel at reasonable . . enforcement costs. He might be bribed to do so, but this option fa Us . 10 .