Choke Out River Pollution – a la Robin Hood!

Choke out River Pollution – a la Robin Hood!

Ganga Prasad G. Rao
gprasadrao@hotmail.com
http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar



What does a 'Green Robin Hood' do for a living? Rob the rich-right to feed the poor on the left? Not exactly, but not far from the truth either! So, what will a 'Green Robin Hood' propose if he is handed charge of controlling pollution in the infamous Cooum river? We're all aware of how rivers run across jurisdictional boundaries and how upstream pollution affects downstream water quality. But what do we do about it – beyond giving a couple of billion rupees to a Singaporean firm to clean it up? What's the prescription?

The Green Robin Hood, as it turns out, also has a modicum of economics. So, he proposes a property-rights solution to solve river pollution. Consider the river basin as the unit, and 'hack' it in to 5 or 10 kilometer cross-sections, or better yet, in to cross-sections each representing a twentieth of the river-length. (The number of divisions would affect transactions cost). Call for a public auction for a multi-year lease of each river cross-section with the condition the auction will proceed upstream from the river mouth. Each lease comes with the right to charge the upstream lessee for 'inlet' pollution, and the obligation to compensate the downstream lessee for the pollution 'transferred' to him. The charges and the compensations could take the form of either a pollution tax, or a pollution license/fee. Additionally, the 'river-mouth lessee' must fulfill standards applicable for waters discharged in to the sea/ocean.

There are several twists of the 'turn-you-livid-with-rage' kind to this proposal. The river mouth parcel and sections immediately upstream are offered to 'Green institutions' (and/or to the poorer sections of the society). The 'green identity-cum-equity' criterion is gradually relaxed as the auction moves upstream (Plainspeak: a Mittal could bid, but only for the upstream reaches of a river). The property-rights are transferable, but only within the 'criterion-class' (a Mittal can sell his upstream lease to Gates, not Rao!). Finally, and given the water-quality impacts adjacent the river, each lessee is liable to compensate owners of adjacent land parcels for ground-water quality degradations due pollution in the river.

The intention and hopefully, the outcome of the auction, will be the bidding up of downstream parcels to what the 'Robinhoods' of the society value the environmental purity of those parcels for, (or the degree to which the society trades off environmental cleanliness for equity). Notice that the auction price of the river-mouth section has a cascading, almost domino-impact upon auctions upstream of it, and upon the taxes/fees charged. For this reason, the stringency of the standards governing discharge of river water to the sea/ocean will be paramount. Under this proposal, each lessee has the incentive to both monitor the quality of water entering/leaving one's jurisdiction and minimize the pollution entering river from any tributary. In turn, polluting industrial and commercial entities will factor in the water pollution levies in their technology and siting decisions, thus bringing about a measure of abatement-efficiency.

The system of taxes/fees/liability is best enforced online with the supervision of the river basin authority. Blah....Blah....Blah.....

Hey, will my grandson ever swim the Cooum?!