ECONOMIC DISCOVERY IN FEDERALLY SUPPORTED IRRIGATION DISTRICTS - A TRIBUTE TO MARTIN,WILLIAM,E. AND FRIENDS

Ex post evaluation of economic projections validates our shared unders tanding of economic methodology and methods. The recent economic histo ry of Central Arizona Project (CAP) agriculture reveals the predictive power of economic reasoning and its policy impotence within a politic al environment intent on obtaining its share of federally allocated wa ter. The financial inability and unwillingness of large irrigation dis tricts to pay for CAP water under existing federal rules produced an u rban tax- and rate-payer controlled CAP decades earlier than planned. Yet irrigation districts remain a large residual buyer of CAP water un der new pricing and allocation rules. Unfortunately, water markets rem ain an underutilized and distrusted tool in the water development game .