APPLETON, WIS. — Implementing a market system for water could improve the quality and quantity of one of the world’s most important resources says Terry Anderson, executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Mont.
The second of three events planned in Lawrence University’s year-long series on entrepreneurial thinking, Anderson presents “Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Sell” Monday, Feb. 18 at 4:30 p.m. in Science Hall 102. The event is free and open to the public.
A leading scholar of free market environmentalism, Anderson believes introducing the price mechanism into water policy could help alleviate the problem of water scarcity in areas of the United States by encouraging consumers to utilize the resource more carefully. The presentation will outline how water markets can work, examine the importance of clear and transferable water rights, provide evidence of current working water markets and suggest how water markets could be primed to do more, especially in the Great Lakes region.
A senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of the book “Water Markets: Priming the Invisible Pump,” Anderson has written extensively on economic and environmental topics. His work as co-author of the 1991 book “Free Market Environmentalism” was recognized with the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award, which honors publications that have made the greatest contributions to the public understanding of the free society.
