A Withdrawal Fee for the Tarleton Basin: A Grade 11 Debate Kit

Resolution: The state should charge every user who withdraws more than 100,000 gallons per day from the Tarleton Basin an annual fee based on the volume withdrawn.

Background. The Tarleton Basin is fictional, and every local figure in this kit was invented for the debate. The basin drains seven counties into the Ludlam River. Its large water users are about 340 irrigated farms, three municipal utilities serving roughly 140,000 people in total, two food processing plants, and one paper mill. Each holds a state permit to withdraw water. The permits are free once issued. Users pay only for the cost of pumping, treating, and delivering.

Late summer flows in the Ludlam River have fallen over the past twenty years. The state reports more days each August when the river drops below the level its own rule sets for fish. Nobody in the basin disputes the measurements. The dispute is about who should pay to change the pattern.

House Bill 214 is a fictional bill written for this debate. It would charge $12 for every million gallons withdrawn above the threshold. Revenue would go to a basin fund for streamflow monitoring, leak repair grants to small utilities, and cost-share payments for irrigation efficiency. Users below the threshold would pay nothing.

Roles. The affirmative team of three defends the resolution. The negative team of three opposes it. A moderator keeps time and enforces the speaking order. Three judges score with the rubric and deliver a decision with reasons. Speaking order in each round is affirmative constructive, negative constructive, negative rebuttal, affirmative rebuttal, with four minutes for constructives and three for rebuttals.

Preparation requirement. Every speaker submits a written case before the first round. The case must state a claim, cite at least three points from the evidence file by name, and name the strongest point on the other side.

Case for the withdrawal fee

1. A free input gets used as though it were free. When a resource carries no price, users have no reason to weigh the cost their withdrawal imposes on everyone downstream. Source: standard economic reasoning about unpriced inputs.
2. The basin fund pays for work nobody is funding now. Streamflow monitoring, small-utility leak repair, and irrigation efficiency all reduce withdrawal, and none of them has a dedicated revenue source in the basin today. Source: the fictional fiscal note attached to House Bill 214.
3. The pipes need money that rates alone are not raising. EPA's needs assessment estimates $625 billion in drinking water infrastructure investment is needed over twenty years, with distribution pipes accounting for about two-thirds of the need. A fee that funds leak repair addresses part of that need directly. Source: EPA Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment.
4. Agriculture is where the volume is. Agriculture accounts for roughly seventy percent of global freshwater withdrawals, so a fee that reaches irrigation reaches the largest share of use rather than only the most visible users. Source: FAO and UN Water.
5. The threshold protects small users. The bill exempts everyone below 100,000 gallons per day, which leaves households, small businesses, and most family gardens outside the fee entirely. Source: the text of the fictional House Bill 214.

Case against the withdrawal fee

1. The fee reaches households anyway. Utilities are large withdrawers, and a utility that pays the fee recovers it in rates. Combined US water and sewer bills already rose about 24% from 2019 to 2024 and about 5.1% in 2025, outpacing inflation. Source: Bluefield Research and industry rate surveys.
2. A fee at this level changes little behavior. A per-gallon charge small enough to be politically possible is usually too small to shift a farm's irrigation decisions, so the state collects revenue without reducing withdrawal. Source: testimony of the fictional Tarleton County Farm Bureau to the state agriculture committee.
3. Competing producers pay nothing across the state line. The two food plants and the paper mill sell into a national market against firms in states with no withdrawal charge, so the fee is a cost their competitors do not carry. Source: the fictional Ludlam Valley Manufacturers Association.
4. Withdrawal is not the same as consumption. A plant that withdraws water, uses it for cooling, and returns nearly all of it to the river pays the same as a farm that consumes almost everything it pumps. Charging on withdrawal rather than consumptive use aims at the wrong quantity. Source: the fictional written comment of a basin hydrologist to the state water board.
5. Small utilities are the least able to absorb it. A widely used rule of thumb, built by adding two EPA benchmarks, treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5% of household income as a high burden, and the basin's smallest utility already serves the lowest-income towns in the seven counties. Source: EPA Water Affordability Needs Assessment (2024), applied to the fictional basin.

Note on sources. Points attributed to a Farm Bureau, a manufacturers association, a hydrologist, or a fiscal note are invented for this debate and should be treated as illustrative testimony. Points attributed to EPA, FAO, and rate surveys are drawn from published material.