MKJ
Contributor
yeah, but that would mean to own all of the property that has water, to include the stream that runs behind my house.
Well, if you own the body of water, under this kind of idea you would own the water. I am not sure how that would be managed in cases with streams when the water flows through - maybe the downstream people would just be out of luck if the upstream people did bad things.
But now in most places in the West, even if the body of water or aquifer is on your property, you do not really own it.
What is kind of interesting to me is the way we take these things for granted. We tend to take for granted that it is obvious that water should have at least a public interest element in its ownership, but we do not mind oil wells being privately owned.
Some people though have argued that oil or even other natural resources in the ground are more like water, and there have been times when they have been treated as such in the past. For example, all the local farmers might be able to claim some of the products of a local quarry which was administered by the local government or lord. And in some places they have nationalized things like oil reserves.
The arguments of those who want to privatize water are not that different than the arguments for privatizing a lot of these other things.
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