An abundance of freshwater in a region may be a form of wealth. Physical location on planet earth determines this wealth. People that own property in a region that is wealthy with naturally occurring freshwater may or may not benefit when private or governmental entities build projects for freshwater redistribution -- the redistribution of wealth.
Desert Dwellers
The American southwest plus southern California probably would not be considered rich with freshwater. The people that own property, live, do business, and even vacation there probably would benefit if freshwater redistribution projects gave them plentiful supplies of freshwater from other regions. Yep, already happens.
Consider: Maybe the Land Owns the Freshwater
Naturally occurring freshwater, in regions fortunate enough to have some, is directly associated with a physical location -- the land. Maybe it could be said that the land owns the freshwater that comes from that land. Logically, the people that own property, live, do business, and even vacation there probably should benefit when freshwater redistribution projects take freshwater from a region.
The Aqueduct Only Flows One Direction
There may be rare individuals that enjoy the health benefits of physically shouldering and carrying a sack of clean burning low sulfur coal to the New Castle region. More commonly, freshwater aqueducts and pipelines carry water to where there is a need for some. And generally, the place that the transported freshwater comes from has plenty to begin with. (The long established and profitable practice of carrying coal from New Castle.)
Centralized Infrastructure
(Excerpt) "... China [is] embarking on one of the most colossal infrastructure projects this world has seen ... Its economic engine is the northern cities, specifically Beijing, which is a relatively arid region ... Beijing, wracked by drought for decades, continued building, at no consumer expense, large engineering projects to fix the problem of dwindling water supplies. The city’s two largest reservoirs have gone dry. Now, two-thirds of the city’s water demand is met with groundwater, which has lead to massive agricultural impacts as farmers’ wells have dried up and their lands dry, crack, and subside. The Chinese government, recognizing the economic implications of this water crisis, have begun construction of ... [another freshwater redistribution] project which will bring trillions of gallons of water from southern rivers to the thirsty north. The project entails the construction of thousands of miles of pipelines and canals ...
China, unlike the US, is unencumbered by NEPA, water rights and democratic processes in general. Such a pipeline here in the US would therefore surely have little chance of being realized [currently] ... consider three things. First, in the US, there are 55,000 miles of crude oil pipelines. If the commodity to be transported is valuable enough, the transportation infrastructure will be built ... Second ... water [is predicted] to be the next oil and the result will be the construction of water pipelines, the volume of which will exceed that of oil pipelines. Third, consider that the seven states who receive water from the Colorado River comprised 19% of total US GDP in 2010; California, the 8th largest economy in the world, alone comprised a whopping 13% of total US GDP in 2010.
... [the existing Colorado River freshwater redistribution project] was doomed from the start: the Colorado River Compact of 1922 was based on six years of flow data, which, as it turns out, were years of unusually high flow."
Source: http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/09/06/western-water-woes-is-big-infrastructure-the-way-to-go/http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/09/06/western-water-woes-is-big-infrastructure-the-way-to-go/
Question for Blog Readers:
Who should pay the monetary costs of building freshwater redistribution systems? And logically, who should 'get paid'?
LIFT (Link I Found Today):
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Enabling writers to self-publish content with on-demand printing and online distribution services. Authors retain their rights and sales profits. The company Zero Mass Engineering is innovating the self-publishing tools. Amazon.com wholly owns CreateSpace. The software development shop has been for six years located near to Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo) and is guided by two Cal Poly Engineering graduates while employing Cal Poly alumni, students, and others. Their trademarked phrase is: “put creativity to work.”
Source: Cal Poly Engineering, “Doing” 2010-2011 Annual Report.
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