Oh, this is good. Duke Power floats actually charging municipalities for the water they drain from Duke’s lakes along the Catawba River and people run around with their hair on fire in response. The city of Charlotte, which has a nice little racket in providing water to residents and charging pretty much whatever it wants for it, is shocked — shocked! — that someone would put a price tag on water.
This is also an interesting development for the raging enviros in the area who should know that giving water away as if no one actually owns the stuff guarantees the resource will be over-used, perhaps dangerously so. It is no coincidence that the areas of the globe without a well-developed notion of, or protection for, property rights have chronic water shortages. If everyone — “the public” — owns water, no one is responsible for it.
Duke, of course, needs to honor any contractual deals it may have made regarding water over the years and generally act like a good corporate neighbor moving forward, but charging for Catawba’s water is probably inevitable and likely net good for the region.
