Odds and ends: MWD, economics, and water; plus water conservation, the LA Aqueduct yesterday and today, and a hat tip to the Pastie Lady

Interesting tidbits this week out there in the blogosphere:

Metropolitan Water District the topic of dissertation: Aguanomics blog writer and newly minted PhD David Zetland has posted his dissertation (economics, I believe) on Metropolitan Water District. Congratulations, Dr. Zetland, is it? He has posted his abstract and a link to download a copy. Writes David: This case study explains how MET—as a cooperative—is inefficient and how its member agencies suffer from this inefficiency. I show that MET is inefficient by demonstrating that its members have heterogeneous preferences over outcomes: Members that are more dependent on MET prefer policies that increase water supply; others prefer lower rates. He also writes:I use 60 years of panel data to show that water increases land value, dependency lowers it, and water may have been misallocated during the 1987–1991 drought. I describe how marginal water can be auctioned after inframarginal, “lifeline” water is allocated and present experimental results for “water” auctions in which water managers suffer endowment effects but compete more (relative to students). [Huh? I say, blowing the dust off my economics book....] You can read it all from the Aguanomics blog by clicking here.

More economics & water: Water Wired’s Michael Campana weighs in on Jeffrey Sach’s new book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, which discusses water issues, among other things. Writes Michael: If the [Newsweek] article is any indication of what Sachs thinks about water and the solutions we need, then it’s nothing new for us Water Wonks. Yeah, things are bad and will probably get worse. But perhaps Sachs’ book will convince others – politicians, “regular people”, et al. – that action is needed. If it does that, then he’s done us all a service. Michael goes on to say that what the United States needs is a national water policy – not a plan but a policy. Check it all out from the Water Wired Blog by clicking here.

Water Conservation on the Surviving LA blog: Here’s a blog that has posted an article on water conservation. Says the writer: Water management has traditionally involved the manipulation of water supplies, rather than focusing on altering water demand. There are many advanced techniques and devices to help conserve water, such as greywater reuse, rainwater collection, water-conserving landscaping and irrigation practices, the installation of low-flow fixtures and appliances, and proper swimming pool maintenance, but few are taking such measures. The article discusses a myriad of ways to conserve water, and includes good ideas for homeowners with swimming pools. Click here for Surviving LA’s Water Wise Redux.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct through Elsmere and Whitney Canyon: Here’s a website which shows sections of the Los Angeles Aqueduct as it passes through the Santa Clarita area on the way to the Cascades facility. The writer describes the infrastructure extensively, and has historical photos of the construction, along with present day pictures of the area. Check it out by clicking here.

Pastie Lady, I owe you one …. On Saturday, I posted a story about the Ojai Pastie Lady – click here to read the post. I commented how posting pictures of girls would raise my readership, and quipped quite tongue in cheek at the end, “I’ll be sitting here, watching my sitemeter count soar … ” Well, that is exactly what happened. Seemed everybody, their brother and their dog were searching “pastie lady” over the weekend, and I got five times the usual number of hits. Traffic has been slowing down somewhat since then, but still remains busy. So, hat tip to the Pastie Lady!

Now if I could only figure out how to get rid of those darned hacker “Guru Sucks” ads…

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