Do the Central Planners Give a Damn?
I have a cottage at Minaki, Ontario, which is down the Winnipeg River from the Lake of the Woods. Under a treaty between Canada and the United States, the Lake of the Woods can’t go above a certain level. The reason is that part of the Lake of the Woods is in Canada and part is in the United States. So when it gets close to that level, the government opens the dam at the north end of the lake to let the water flow downstream. We downstream people, therefore, are at the mercy of the authorities who open the dam.
What would be a reasonable way to both comply with the treaty and look out for the people downstream? It would be to see what’s happening with snowfall in the winter and, on that basis, predict what will happen to runoff. And then if the estimate is that the spring runoff will be high, start releasing early and not wait until May.
But here’s what they’re doing. One quote is precious:
Since April 20, water levels on Lake of the Woods have risen by roughly 25”, while levels on the Winnipeg River have risen by about 67” since early April. The rise in levels has been driven by the area breaking numerous precipitation and snowfall records throughout the winter. (emphasis added.)
On a site of Minaki residents and cottage goers that I follow on Facebook, a year-round Minaki resident put it well:
Yup you could not have had a clue what was going to happen with all the snow last winter, could you? Let’s guess at a dry spring and hold all the water back because the lake is too low. Trust the science. We are in Ottawa and know what’s going on.
Well said.
The picture above is of the Lake of the Woods, which is partly in Manitoba and Ontario and partly in Minnesota.
READER COMMENTS
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
May 5 2022 at 5:18pm
Dam owner should have to compensate people affected downstream. Why don’t they?
David Henderson
May 5 2022 at 8:04pm
Just as here in the United States, governments rarely compensate for this kind of damage.
But I wouldn’t be happy if they did. Because it wouldn’t be government per se compensating: it would be Ontario or Canada taxpayers, almost none of whom had a role in the decision.
nobody.really
May 6 2022 at 2:21pm
Not sure what the point is. Yup, it looks as if central planners behaved sub-optimally. But what remedy? Bottom line: This is a scenario in which our vaunted property rights regime simply fails. Water is famously difficult to manage–whether in scarcity or abundance.
Imagine the dam operators drained the reservoir early–and then a drought ensues. We’d be treated to a Henderson post about the lack of foresight of those damn dam central planners.
That said, perhaps some good could come from granting injured parties the right to sue for damages. The damages may be unavoidable because central planners lack clairvoyance–but at least we could rely on the blessings of central government (via the court system) to socialize the private costs of these unavoidably centralized decisions.
David Henderson
May 9 2022 at 5:20pm
You stated that you’re not sure what my point is. My point is that the central planners have bad incentives and seem to base their decisions on one treaty and no tradeoffs.
I guess you could think of the Lake of the Woods as, in your words, a “reservoir.” I don’t think the drought issue applies, though. As far as I know, the Winnipeg River, which flows from its northern edge, is not used to irrigate.
nobody.really
May 10 2022 at 3:16pm
Great. And the remedy?
Mark Barbieri
May 6 2022 at 8:04pm
Water has to be one of the most poorly allocated resources. I live in an area with lots of rainfall, but we still have a ton of weird rules around water use. Like everyone in the US, we have pathetic showers, washers, and dishwashers that don’t perform well but don’t use much water. We have rules about when we can water our lawns. When we have a drought, they add rules about washing your car.
I don’t understand why they can’t just adjust the price of water to manage the supply/demand. They already use a progressive pricing structure, so leave the minimum tier cheap so that everyone has plenty to drink and bath with. Rather than try to regulate every use of water, just let the price go up and let people sort out their water priorities for themselves.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
May 6 2022 at 9:20pm
Too few politicians are neo-liberals. If they started pricing water properly, first thing you know they’d be taxing net emissions of CO2. 🙂
Comments are closed.