Will the Pacific Northwest Become a Water Farm?

Last week I received a call from one of our legislative liaisons who told me he would forward me an email inquiring about selling Oregon water in the international market. "Uh-huh," I thought. I received the email, in which the author, a prominent Oregonian, speculated that if Oregon could annually sell 1 MAF of its water, presumably taken from the mighty Columbia River, for the paltry sum of 1 cent per gallon, that would generate about $3.26B annually for Oregon's coffers.

For a state with limited financial resources, that's quite a sum.  Our legislative person asked if he could supply my name and email to the individual, and I said "Sure". Haven't heard anything yet.

I said to no one in particular, "Why sell our water on the international market? Just sell it to Las Vegas." But I also thought, "Oh boy, it's happening. It's coming back - the Pacific Northwest as 'water farm.' " As Yogi Berra reputedly said, "It's like deja-vu all over again."

“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.” – Mark Twain 

Comments

[Timothy Colman]

I was talking with a customer from Oregon yesterday who is a master gardener.

She said- "You know-- we export more water in the Northwest than anywhere else in the country." And I thought she was going to tell me some surprising news about the Columbia River for sale.

But she said "If you look at all the fruit and vegetables, all the wheat, the seafood, you see the main ingredient is H2O."

I had never thought about this view.

I'd be interested in how fast we change our uses of pavement everywhere in California, Oregon and Washington.

Conservation would seem to be the next big change in water -- especially the silly notion that we flush our poop down the drain with fresh water. What else?

There must be a hundred ideas like rain gardens, ecoroofs, restoring prairies, etc...

[Michael]

Hi, Timothy.

Thanks for commenting.

Your customer is of course correct - we export (and import) a lot of "virtual water" that few consider. The issue is that if you decided to forego using that water to grow crops or make widgets and decided to sell it directly (if you could) out-of-state, people would scream bloody murder. Go figure.

We are talking more about conservation and reuse. Times are (hopefully) changing.

[Anna Smith]

Oregon and Washington will be providing water to Californians one way or another. Either it gets piped down to them or they move up here. It seems important to focus on what the water is used for, rather than WHO uses it.

[David Zetland]

From my blog: "A vast aquifer lies under the Cascade Range of Oregon and Washington. Some people think it's a good idea to pipe it down to California. That's a dumb idea -- neither economical nor ecological. People should move to the water. Buy land up there? That's a smart idea."

http://aguanomics.com/2008/06/dumb-ideas-smart-ideas.html