scholarly journals Benefit-cost analysis of water quality policy and criteria in the Delaware River

Water Policy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-327
Author(s):  
Gerald J. Kauffman
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Optimal Level ◽  
Water Quality Criteria ◽  
Delaware River ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Marginal Costs ◽  
Benefit Cost

Abstract This research conducts a benefit-cost analysis of water policies to reach an optimal level of dissolved oxygen (DO) to meet year-round fishable water quality criteria in the Delaware River. A watershed pollutant load model is utilized to estimate marginal cost curves of water quality improvements to meet a more protective year-round fishable standard and annual benefits are defined to achieve future DO criteria in the Delaware River. The most cost-effective DO standard is 4.5 mg/L defined by the point where the marginal benefits of willingness to pay (WTP) for improved water quality equals the marginal costs of pollution reduction. This optimal criteria (4.5 mg/L) can be achieved at a cost of $150 million with benefits ranging from $250 to $700 million/year. While a future DO standard of 4.5 mg/L reflects an economically efficient level of water quality, this DO criteria is less protective than the level of 5–6 mg/L needed to protect anadromous fish such as the Atlantic sturgeon. The policy to reach a DO level of 6 mg/L (at 80% DO saturation) may be difficult to achieve at summer water temperatures that approach 30 °C in the Delaware River at Philadelphia.

scholarly journals Water quality indices and benefit-cost analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Walsh ◽  
William J. Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Quality Parameters ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Aggregation Function ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Regulatory Impact Analysis ◽  
Aggregation Functions ◽  
Benefit Cost

The water quality index (WQI) has emerged as a central way to convey water quality information to policy makers and the general public and is regularly used in US EPA regulatory impact analysis. It is a compound indicator that aggregates information from several water quality parameters. Several recent studies have criticized the aggregation function of the EPA WQI, arguing that it suffers from “eclipsing” and other problems. Although past papers have compared various aggregation functions in the WQI (usually looking at correlation), this is the first paper to examine these functions in the context of benefit-cost analysis. Using data from the 2003 EPA CAFO rule, the present paper examines four aggregation functions and their impact on estimated benefits. Results indicate that the aggregation method can have a profound effect on benefits, with total benefit estimates varying from $82 million to $504 million dollars. The net benefits of the rule vary from negative to positive over this range of estimates. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis does not find convincing evidence to substitute the current aggregation function, although several changes to the underlying WQI methodology may be warranted.

scholarly journals Benefit-Cost Analysis of Environmental Projects: A Plethora of Biases Understating Net Benefits

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip E. Graves
Keyword(s):  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Net Present Value ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Marginal Costs ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
Technical Details ◽  
Benefit Cost ◽  
Proper Science

There are many reasons to suspect that benefit-cost analysis applied to environmental policies will result in policy decisions that will reject those environmental policies. The important question, of course, is whether those rejections are based on proper science. The present paper explores sources of bias in the methods used to evaluate environmental policy in the United States, although most of the arguments translate immediately to decision-making in other countries. There are some “big picture” considerations that have gone unrecognized, and there are numerous more minor, yet cumulatively important, technical details that point to potentially large biases against acceptance on benefit-cost grounds of environmental policies that have true marginal benefits greater than true marginal costs, both in net present value terms. It is hoped that the issues raised here will improve future conduct of benefit-cost analyses of environmental policies.

The Energy Efficiency Gap in EPA’s Benefit-Cost Analysis of Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Regulations: A Case Study

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 432-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria Helfand ◽  
Reid Dorsey-Palmateer
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Energy Saving ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Fuel Savings ◽  
Energy Efficiency Gap ◽  
Benefit Cost ◽  
Efficiency Gap

Recent federal regulations require new light-duty vehicles to have lower greenhouse gas emissions and better fuel economy. This paper presents the reasoning used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its benefit-cost analysis of the standards. According to EPA, many available technologies could achieve these goals without affecting other vehicle qualities, and fuel savings would pay for the increased technology costs with short payback periods. This lack of market adoption of cost-effective energy-saving technologies has been termed the energy efficiency gap or energy efficiency paradox. It suggests that either there are additional costs, such as changes in vehicle qualities, not considered in cost estimates, or markets for energy-saving technologies are not achieving all cost-effective savings. EPA argued that, even if consumers do not accurately consider expected future fuel savings when buying new vehicles, consumers are projected to receive those savings; the latter measure should reflect the impacts of the rule on fuel expenditures. For the cost side, EPA used a measure of technology costs required to meet the standards while maintaining baseline (2008) vehicle attributes. Estimates of how these costs would be affected by changes in vehicle attributes were not included.

Volume Analysis for Attainability of Water Quality Criteria for Three Loading Constituents

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Wang ◽  
Lewis Linker ◽  
James Collier ◽  
Gary Shenk ◽  
Robert Koroncai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Water Quality Criteria ◽  
Volume Analysis
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