Sheesh! Stop me before I do economics again! And make it a required subject for environmentalists and ecologists so they won't say such silly things.

Society is losing $2.4 billion per year because the Colorado River's water no longer flows all the way to the Gulf of California, says a University of Arizona researcher...

"What I've done is estimate what's the value to society if you just leave the water in the river. Human populations are losing that value when the water is diverted for other purposes."...

Flessa suggests that an environmental impact, or mitigation fee, should be included in the price of water. The money from mitigation fees could be used for ecosystem restoration in the Delta. He said one way to use the money would be to purchase farmland and let it go fallow. Another way would be a forbearance agreement in which the farmer is paid not to grow crops. In either case, water that would have irrigated that land could then remain in the river and flow to the delta.

No, society doesn't lose $2.4 billion, it gets a benefit from the water used for irrigation and urban water supply that greatly exceeds $2.4 billion. It's true that the foregone value of ecosystem services is a cost, but it is not a loss. Subtract that cost from the benefit to determine the net loss or gain to society from choosing to use the water rather than letting it flow instream.

The major water diversions on the Colorado began with Hoover Dam in the 1930s. Before that time, the Colorado River delta was primarily three ecosystem types: desert, floodplain and estuary. What were floodplain and desert have now been almost 100 percent converted into cropland. The delta's once-biologically rich estuary has been transformed into ocean shelf.

Sheesh! Stop me before I do history again! And make it a required subject for environmentalists and ecologists. Major diversions began in 1901, 30 years before the Boulder Dam. In 1905 the full flood of the Colorado river was accidentally diverted into the Imperial Valley in California when an irrigation canal was breeched during spring flood. It took two years to fix it and the water is still there. We call it the Salton Sea now. It was easy to do because the Colorado used to flow that way until that channel silted up at the river mouth and meandered to its present location.

Private entrepreneurs began the effort but the federal government soon became a huge supporter when food was needed to fight WWI and later WWII. There's a whole can of worms related to those temporary increases in consumption that led to cycles of boom and bust and our current agricultural subsidy regime. Cycles of drought and economic depression are involved too. John Wesley Powell and the battles in Congress to try to get it through the thick heads of eastern politicians that the west was different come to mind as well.

He cautions that his analysis is limited to the environmental impacts of the changes. "I don't want to say this is a net loss. We have the cities like Phoenix and Tucson. We also have the market value of the crops raised."

Flessa said, "I'm arguing that everybody should pay more for their water. I'm not happy about having to pay more -- but I know it will do some good. You'll get some restored habitats and a restoration of some of those ecosystem services."

He was just kidding, just sensationalizing science so that it becomes as ludicrous as politics. He succeeded at least in making himself look ridiculous. There is useful work that can be done in environmental economics to quantify the costs of development decisions and help properly price resources consumed. This in turn would help properly price commodities produced and remove some of the market distortions of hidden subsidies.

Development of the delta in Arizona was late. For example, development of the Sacramento Delta in California began in the 1850s and is intimately connected to state history. It's curious that the fervor and outrage of modern, indifferently educated, pseudo-environmentalists are much the same as those who drained the swamps and made the deserts bloom 100 years ago. They were benefactors to society that reduced hunger and disease at a time when those were truly major concerns, while improving the environment as they understood it. Better decisions will be made when better analyses are done that take a long view socio-ecological perspective, and when zealots learn to take a cortical-thalamic pause to consider options and reactions before inserting their feet into their mouths.

Some of the more interesting efforts by committed environmentalists are to purchase land and associated water rights but not use them. It's interesting in two ways: instream flows are increased without political coercion; ecosystem services are lost in farmland as well as gained in rivers. Irrigation, especially flood style irrigation, replenishes ground water and provides habitat for a diverse ecosystem. Drying up 100 year old ecosystems by stopping irrigation affects more than the farmlands. It also affects ecosystems along irrigation canals and pools where tail water accumulates. There have been some interesting legal battles between those who seek to conserve water and those who seek to preserve ecosystems. Greenhorns like Flessa should consider that in the western U.S. messing with water rights is cause for war. Most of the world feels the same way and we will hear plenty about it in coming years.