Elinor Ostrom Speaks about Property Rights

In a 2011 speech, Elinor Ostrom describes how, in the 1960s, producers of groundwater from a basin below Los Angeles determined how to allocate water rights and how to stop overpumping and saltwater intrusion. A private group called the West Basin Water Association recognized the problems and worked with the United States Geological Survey to produce a study showing the groundwater basin’s boundaries. They then used equity jurisprudence to determine how much water different entities had been pumping from the basin. With a committee of attorneys and engineers and the help of a state court, they developed the idea of mutual prescription and established private property rights to the flows from the groundwater basin. They also built a series of wells along the coast to pump fresh water. Additionally, the association created a special district that imposed a tax to fund the groundwater basin’s replenishment. ___________________________________________________