W a t e r , P l a c e , a n d E q u i t y

American and Comparative Environmental Policy
Sheldon Kamieniecki and Michael E. Kraft, series editors
Russell J. Dalton, Paula Garb, Nicholas P. Lovrich, John C. Pierce, and John M.
Whiteley, Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia
Daniel A. Mazmanian and Michael E. Kraft, editors, Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy
Elizabeth R. DeSombre, Domestic Sources of International Environmental Policy: Industry, Environmentalists, and U.S. Power
Kate O'Neill, Waste Trading among Rich Nations: Building a New Theory of
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Joachim Blatter and Helen Ingram, editors, Reflections on Water: New Approaches to Transboundary Conflicts and Cooperation
Paul R Steinberg, Environmental Leadership in Developing Countries: Transnational Relations and Biodiversity Policy in Costa Rica and Bolivia
Uday Desai, editor, Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized
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Kent Portney, Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously: Economic Development, the
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Edward P. Weber, Bringing Society Back In: Grassroots Ecosystem Management,
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Norman J. Vig and Michael G. Faure, eds., Green Giants? Environmental Policies of the United States and the European Union
Robert F. Durant, Daniel J. Fiorino, and Rosemary O'Leary, eds., Environmental
Governance Reconsidered: Challenges, Choices, and Opportunities
Paul A. Sabatier, Will Focht, Mark Lubell, Zev Trachtenberg, Arnold Vedlitz, and Marty Matlock, eds., Swimming Upstream: Collaborative Approaches to
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Sally K. Fairfax, Lauren Gwin, Mary Ann King, Leigh S. Raymond, and Laura
Watt, Buying Nature: The Limits of Land Acquisition as a Conservation Strategy,
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Christopher McGrory Klyza and David J. Sousa, American Environmental Policy, 1990-2006: Beyond Gridlock
John M . Whiteley, Helen Ingram, and Richard Perry, eds., Water, Place, and
Equity

W a t e r , P l a c e , a n d E q u i t y edited b y J o h n M . W h i t e l e y , H e l e n I n g r a m , a n d R i c h a r d Perry
S 4 I HOC T H f l lfGUYEM
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1. Water resources development. 2. Equity. I. Whiteley, John M., 1940-
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D e d i c a t i o n
This book is dedicated to the late Chris Nunn Garcia. The mother of three children, she graduated with distinction with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Mexico and earned a Ph.D. in natural resources economics and law from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Chris worked in academics, public policy research, and community service, pursuing each with her characteristic charm and single-minded devotion. Her involvement in one project prompted a colleague to remark, "Chris was recorder, institutional memory, and conscience." She
J : A u:„Ul.. J.J
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—

vi Dedication academic. Chris's many community projects include the founding of the
New Mexico Regional Water Planning Dialogue. Also, she headed several major projects for the University of New Mexico Law School's Utton
Center for Transboundary Resources.
Chris was inquisitive and threw herself into everything she touched.
This was true in her professional work as well as her friendships. She appreciated the value in everyone's unique position. Her genuine interest in the perspectives of others is why so many people felt that Chris understood them and why her work was often much larger than herself.
The commitment of the contributors of this book to interdisciplinarity inquiry and more equitable public policy is a commitment reflected in
Chris's life's work.

C o n t e n t s
Series Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
1 The Importance of Equity and the Limits of Efficiency in Water
Resources 1
Helen Ingram, John M . Whiteley, and Richard Perry
I Water, Place, and Equity 33
2 The San Luis Valley and the Moral Economy of Water 37
Thomas Clay Arnold
3 Ethical Issues in Storm Water Policy Implementation: Disparities in Financial Burdens and Overall Benefits 69
Sheldon Kamieniecki and Amy Below
4 Equity and Water in Mexico's Changing Institutional
Landscape 95
Margaret Wilder
5 From Equitable Utilization to Sustainable Development: Advancing
Equity in U.S.-Mexico Border Water Management 117
Stephen P. Mumme
6 Developing a Plentiful Resource: Transboundary Rivers in the Pacific
Northwest 147
Paul W. Hirt
II Civic Engagement and Governance 189
7 The Global Water Crisis, Privatization, and the Bolivian Water
War 195
Madeline Baer

uiii Contents
8 Modernizing Mountain Water: State, Industry, and Territory 225
Ismael Vaccaro
9 Whose Water Is It Anyway? Water Management, Knowledge, and
Equity in Northeast Brazil 249
Maria Carmen Lemos
10 Water and Equity in a Changing Climate 271
Helen Ingram, David Feldman, and John M . Whiteley
List of Contributors 309
Index 313

S e r i e s F o r e w o r d
There is little question that the availability and distribution of global water resources rank among the most profound environmental policy challenges of the twenty-first century. Water is a scarce resource today in many parts of the United States as well as worldwide, and it is likely to become even scarcer in the years ahead. Among the major reasons are substantial growth in water-intensive economic activities, especially in arid or semiarid areas; the effects that climate change is likely to have on precipitation rates and evaporation, which will compound the problem of development pressures; and a continuing increase in the world's population that will add perhaps another three billion people to Earth's total by 2050.
Highly uneven and often inequitable access to vital water resources is striking today. This may well lead to serious and potentially more disruptive social, economic, and political conflicts in the future. So it is no exaggeration to say, as the authors of this volume argue, that water is likely to dominate natural resource politics around the world in the twenty-first century as much as oil influenced global politics in the late twentieth century. Whether the issue is one of potential conflict between water-rich areas of the United States and the arid Southwest and West, how to ensure the sustainability of groundwater in the Middle East, or how to improve the efficiency of agricultural water use worldwide, one conclusion is certain.
The coming decades will require fresh perspectives on water resources that have long been taken for granted and reconsideration of the most appropriate principles of water resource governance and public policies.
In this innovative volume, the editors and contributors make a strong case for the primacy of equity considerations in the distribution of water resources. This perspective challenges the conventional view that norms of efficiency should govern water use, and that markets can be relied upon to distribute water as long as the proper pricing mechanisms are in

x Series Foreword place. As many of the cases discussed in the book make clear, human uses of water may conflict with ecological or cultural needs in ways that are not easily amenable to resolution. Nor can water supplies be increased simply by improving infrastructure. Sooner or later, new strategies of public involvement and stakeholder collaboration, among others, will seemingly become essential. At that point the global quest for sustainable water resource governance may depend upon how well equity concerns can be integrated with the long-standing centrality of utilitarian management of this precious resource. In this regard, this book makes an original and important contribution to the literature on water policy.
By focusing on water use in specific places and both older and newer perspectives on equity, the contributors present an array of intriguing normative case studies. These cases help to build understanding of how equity concerns arise and the effects they can have on decisions over water allocation. The authors' analyses of the cases also suggest promising paths for future research, and thus help to ensure that others can build on the distinctive scholarly and practical policy contributions in this collection.
This book illustrates well our purpose in the M I T Press book series
American and Comparative Environmental Policy. We encourage work that examines a broad range of environmental policy issues. We are particularly interested in volumes that incorporate interdisciplinary research and focus on the linkages between public policy and environmental problems and issues both within the United States and in cross-national settings. We welcome contributions that analyze the policy dimensions of relationships between humans and the environment from either a theoretical or empirical perspective. At a time when environmental policies are increasingly seen as controversial and new approaches are being implemented widely, we especially encourage studies that assess policy successes and failures, evaluate new institutional arrangements and policy tools, and clarify new directions for environmental politics and policy. The books in this series are written for a wide audience that includes academics, policymakers, environmental scientists and professionals, business and labor leaders, environmental activists, and students concerned with environmental issues. We hope they contribute to public understanding of environmental problems, issues, and policies of concern today and also suggest promising actions for the future.
Sheldon Kamieniecki, University of California, Santa Cruz
Michael Kraft, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
American and Comparative Environmental Policy Series Editors