Sunday’s guest column on the plight of the bighorn highlights the growing gap between market-based pricing and historic uses of public lands. We need a more realistic linkage between the prices paid for public resources and the cost of those resources.
In the case of grazing sheep and cattle in mountain pastures, we are vastly underpricing the value of this resource. Quoting the column, “Sheep producers pay just $1.35 a month per ‘animal unit,’ which is comprised of five sheep.’ “ Such pricing undervalues the mountain hydrology (our primary source of water) during a time when the value of water is rising rapidly.
For example, the Arizona Department of Water Resources published a study in June, indicating groundwater resources will be insufficient to support projected population growth. Arizona now is grappling with how to modify its groundwater-use regulations.
Grazing sheep and cattle in public mountain pastures can be addressed in two steps. First, raise the cost of pasture leasing to the market value of such grazing. Second, progressively increase the price of those leases to include the costs of environmental damage to those mountain pastures. Subsidizing mountain grazing with public resources is an anachronism that we can no longer afford. Market-based pricing mechanisms efficiently allocate scarce resources to the highest value end uses.
Let capitalism do the work.
Thomas DeHudy
Durango
