Liquid Gold (?)

 

Public goods are non-excludable goods which have no rival in consumption and are “collectively produced and freely available for anyone’s consumption” (Kernell). The costs of public goods are “borne collectively” and no one can be “excluded from their benefits” (Kernell 36). The free use of public goods by citizens doesn’t diminish or deplete resources. Some argue that it is the role of the government to provide them (via tax dollars, in many cases) because it is the only institution which has “sufficient resources to undertake expensive projects” and it alone can employ “ coercive authority to prevent free-riding” (Kernell 36).

 

Many industries might decide to move back to Dayton Ohio in order to take advantage of one public good the region is rich in: water. Since the 1970’s, Dayton’s “ population has stagnated due to the foreclosure crisis and loss of industry,” which hit the region much earlier than the rest of the country. (Wallace) The Great Miami Aquifer contains 1.5 trillion gallons of pure, fresh water which is “constantly being recharged from the rivers and rainfall.” (Wallace) “Mills, factories” and other water-heavy industries once clustered around the aquifer, but globalization ate away at these industries and the region dried up economically. (Wallace) Many local public servants think that “water will be the key to turning things around. (Wallace)

 

“As states like California face major water shortages,” many officials see that Dayton is on the verge of a “business opportunity”--one based in a public good. (Wallace) Many industries that have settled in the “biggest areas of growth” such as the south and southwest are considering relocating to the midwest in light of recently worsening droughts in those popular areas. (Wallace)

 

The head of water marketing for Dayron, Karen Thomas, asserts that the city has “an abundant water source” ready to take on the water needs of industries. (Wallace) “Water is a public good,” she says, “but it is also a commodity.” (Wallace) Economic development teams in Dayton “has conducted talks with several food processors, manufacturers, and beverage makers that could use an inexpensive and abundant supply of water.” (Wallace) Reporter Lewis Wallace states that “Companies that choose Dayton would face little of the regulation placed on water diversions in the Great Lakes basin; here, if you can drill a well, you can drain it.” (Wallace)

 

While the Dayton community might stand to gain economically from moving water-based industry to the area, commodifying it and loosening the regulations on its use and the pollutants it will be subject to will almost certainly cheapen our most abundant public good. Karen Hobbs, an analyst with the NRDC says that “These are difficult economic times. But the troubling part about marketing water resources I think is that it tends to devalue that asset.” (Wallace) Almost 2 billion gallons of water are drawn from Lake Michigan to feed industry in Chicago and is never recycled. (Wallace)

 

Here’s an excerpt from Lewis Wallace’s piece:
“Some people in Dayton believe they’re walking on a liquid gold mine: people may have lost jobs, people, and whole industries, but the Great Miami aquifer is still here.

Though not entirely unthreatened: In the 1980s, the drinking water in Dayton was found to be contaminated with dangerous levels of industrial chemicals. A 1987 fire at a Sherwin Williams paint warehouse had to be allowed to burn for days on end to avoid dousing the plant’s chemicals directly into the aquifer near the wellfield.

 

Following the fire, Dayton and the surrounding municipalities that use the water system passed stringent drinking water protections that incentivize industry to keep chemical contaminants away from the wellfields. Still, today the city sometimes cleans up industrial chemicals including trichloroethylene (TCE) from the water before it’s sent to the tap.

 

Now a handful of local manufacturers are pushing to reduce some of those protections, saying the chemical limits treat smaller businesses unfairly. The city says reduced demand on the wellfields has shrunk the area in need of active protection, and has put forth a controversial proposal to reduce that area by 40 percent.”

If these proposals go through, we might stand to gain in the short term, but what of environmental protections? How will Dayton recover from a contaminated aquifer? Who will come to the region then?

 

In Dayton, Ohio an economic comeback is in the water, Lewis Wallace

 

The Logic of American Politics, Samuel Kernell