WSP00913

• File Number: 8272.600.60
• Description: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program - Basin Member State Info - Utah
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 3/7/1975
• Title: Colorado Regional Assessment Study - Phase One Report for the National Commission on Water Quality - Part 2 of 2 -- Chapter VI - end
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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a higher price for higher quality water, and with the proceeds a per acre

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lump-sum subsidy paid to the irrigators upstream to offset the diversion

tax. It must be admitted, however, that implementing such a scheme

would not be easy. .

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I Kneese and Bower report several instances where user charges
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have been successfully used to control industria 1 waste in Winnipeg,

Canada, Springfield, Missouri, and Delaware estuary, and in the Ruhr

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industrial area of Germany. They point out that private firms respond

to these charges by changing production processess, improving management,

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and/or treating wastes. Irrigators may behave in the same way within

the physical limits imposed by irrigation technology and by the consumptive

use proce s s.

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It may be necessary to tax water at a higher rate if used on ,highly

saline soils, although this would be difficult to determine and enforce.

Tietenburg has recently argued, however, that an "efficient set of taxes

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for waste control will change over time and might be different for various

firms, not only because the benefits of a unit reduction of pollutant concentra-

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tions change over time and the number of sources changes, but also because

the relationship among pollutants and waste products is governed by varying

and basically uncontrollable elements in nature." Hence, social efficiency

will not, in general, be achieved by temporally uniform tax rates. 9 This

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comment would seem to apply to irrigation waste and suggests that user

surcharges (taxes) may need to vary over time as water supply conditions

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