Quarry Bend Reservoir Drought Allocation: A Debate Kit

Resolution: "During the drought, the Quarry Bend Reservoir Authority should cut irrigation deliveries to farms by one-third in order to guarantee the city's drinking water supply."

Background: The fictional Quarry Bend Reservoir serves both the fictional city of Quarry Bend and the farms in the valley around it. In a normal year there is enough water for everyone. After three dry years, the reservoir has dropped far below normal, and the authority must decide how to divide a shrinking supply. The city depends on the reservoir for drinking water, and farms depend on it for irrigation. Farms in this valley hold long-standing water rights, meaning they have a legal claim to a share of the water built up over decades. Cutting their deliveries by one-third would force some growers to fallow, or leave unplanted, part of their land. Agriculture is a large water user everywhere: it accounts for roughly 70 percent of the freshwater people withdraw worldwide. That scale is exactly why farm deliveries are the first place many people look for savings in a drought, and also why farm communities argue that cuts fall hardest on them.

Roles: Assign an affirmative team (arguing for the cut), a negative team (arguing against the cut), a moderator who keeps time and enforces turns, and two or three judges who score with the rubric. Each team prepares an opening claim, at least one rebuttal, and a closing statement.

Case for the cut (affirmative):

1. Drinking water is a basic need with no substitute. People can adjust what they eat, but a city cannot function without safe tap water, so protecting the city's supply first is a defensible priority. (General reasoning for this debate.)
2. Agriculture is the largest water user, accounting for roughly 70 percent of freshwater withdrawn worldwide, so even a partial cut to irrigation frees a large volume relative to what the city uses. (Source: FAO / UN Water.)
3. Some farm products take far more water than others. Producing a pound of beef takes roughly 1,800 gallons of water, while a pound of wheat takes roughly 220 gallons, so choices about which crops to grow during a drought can save large amounts. (Source: Water Footprint Network global averages. Most of the beef figure is rainwater used by pasture and feed crops, not irrigation or tap water.)
4. A fictional authority engineer's memo for this debate estimates that a one-third irrigation cut would keep the reservoir above the level needed to supply the city through a fourth dry year. (Illustrative estimate created for this debate, not a documented figure.)

Case against the cut (negative):

1. The valley's farms hold long-standing water rights, a legal claim built up over decades, so cutting their deliveries by one-third overrides established law and sets a precedent that could unsettle every user who relies on such rights. (General reasoning for this debate.)
2. Fallowing farmland does not only affect farmers. A fictional valley growers' association, created for this debate, argues that lost harvests would cut jobs at packing sheds, trucking firms, and local stores, spreading the harm well beyond the farms themselves. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)
3. The same water-footprint facts cut both ways: because a pound of wheat takes only about 220 gallons while beef takes far more, the authority could target specific thirsty uses or offer to buy back water voluntarily, rather than imposing a flat one-third cut on all farms. (Source: Water Footprint Network global averages.)
4. The city has conservation options of its own, such as tighter limits on lawn watering, that could stretch its supply without forcing farms to fallow land, so the cut may not be the only way to protect drinking water. (General reasoning for this debate.)