Environmental Economics

More dam economics

Another reason to hate Duke (SC Board denies Duke hydro permit):

Regulators in South Carolina refused today to grant Duke Energy a water-quality certification the utility needs to renew its hydroelectric license for the Catawba River. ...

Two environmental groups, the S.C. Coastal Conservation League and American Rivers, had challenged the S.C. certification. They said it would have allowed Duke to release too little water from its dams for aquatic creatures, including the endangered shortnose sturgeon. ...

Duke has worked to renew its Catawba license, first granted in 1958, for several years. License renewal would allow Duke to continue managing the river and 11 Catawba reservoirs for up to 50 more years.

Someone did!

From the inbox:

Someone should do a study on this....

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200906210345/NEWS08/906210357

Ahem: http://ideas.repec.org/p/apl/wpaper/05-01.html

A rare chance to serve your country as an economist

Another chance to work with me! Not really, but we'd me sibling panel members:

Tampa, Florida - The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is currently recruiting for an Economist to fill a vacancy on its Socioeconomic Panel.

The Panel consists of sociologists and economists who review amendments to fishery management plans and advise the Council on social and economic issues related to fisheries management.

Expected time commitment is 2 - 3 two-day meetings per year. Members are not compensated; however travel expenses are reimbursed.

Economists interested in serving on the Socioeconomic Panel should submit a letter and resume to:

Phyllis Miranda
Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council
2203 N. Lois Avenue
Suite 1100
Tampa, FL  33607

Materials may also be faxed to: 813-348-1711; or e-mailed to phyllis.miranda@gulfcouncil.org. Resumes and letters should be received no later than close of business August 6, 2009.

The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional fishery management councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. The Council prepares fishery management plans designed to manage fishery resources in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Get a job, travel to exciting places, know the MRFSS like your brother, etc

Plus, you get to work with me! Not really, but I'll likely get to meet you some day at a council meeting:

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has two positions for an economist with the Social Science Research Group at the Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami, FL.  The positions will be open through July 24, 2009, and will be filled at the ZP-03 level.

We are looking for economists with research interest in the fields of natural resources and policy analysis to further develop an economics program for research and analysis of management alternatives in support of the management of living marine resources in the southeastern U.S. Duties and responsibilities include:  the development and econometric estimation of economic models and relationships; the development of bioeconomic models; the estimation of the economic effects of current and proposed fishery management actions; the design and supervision of economic data collections when needed;  and the presentation of research results in the form of scientific papers, reports and oral presentations.  The positions involve participation on various committees to provide scientific information and expertise to fishery managers.

To view the announcement and apply online, please go to the following website.

http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/

On the webpage, there are two boxes under the words SEARCH JOBS.   Enter the job title:  NMFS-SEFSC-2009-0020 and click RUN SEARCH.

Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested.

Thanks for your help.

Commercial fishermen don't make much money

From a North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries News Release:

MOREHEAD CITY – Commercial fishermen that work in the Atlantic Ocean tend to make more money and express more optimism about the future of the industry than their estuarine counterparts, according to an economic analysis of a survey by the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.

Although 29 percent of the fishermen in this study reported breaking even or losing money in the previous fishing year, 20 percent made more than $30,000.

“While a $30,000 annual income is no fortune in today’s economy, it is higher than was seen in previous surveys of estuarine fisheries in Albemarle, Pamlico and Core sounds,” said Scott Crosson, the division’s Socio-Economics program manager.

A few, 4 percent, reported fishing income in excess of $75,000 per year. ...

And high fuel prices don't make it any easier:

When asked their level of concern on a variety of issues impacting commercial fishermen, the oceangoing sector ranked fuel prices at the top of the list. The same was true for the estuarine fisheries surveyed in the past several years. The survey was administered in the summer of 2008, when fuel prices exceeded $4 per gallon.

Plus, overfishing has robbed all the fish and fishing communities are a thing of the past:

Inability to predict the business future ranked second, followed by development on the coast, weather and loss of working waterfronts.

Why do they do what they do?

Note: A copy of the economic analysis can be downloaded ... at http://www.ncdmf.net/download/2009AtlanticOceanReportCrosson.pdf.

A rose is a rose

NOAA's getting busy with ITQs (PDF):

NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco today appointed members to a new Catch Share Task Force, which will assist NOAA and the regional fishery management councils as they consider and implement catch-share management programs. This initiative furthers NOAA’s commitment to the long-term prosperity of America’s commercial and recreational fishermen, and to ensuring healthy, productive and resilient oceans. ...

In fisheries managed with catch shares, individuals or groups of fishermen are allotted a share of the total allowable catch of a fish stock. These fishermen then decide how to catch their allotment when weather, markets and individual business conditions are most favorable, and they must ensure that they do not exceed their catch limits. The allocation of shares of the sustainable catch eliminates the biologically and economically wasteful race to capture a share of the total before the fishery-wide limit is reached. In this way, fishermen gain an incentive to conserve fish stocks, avoid market gluts, and catch their allocated share of the total at the least cost.

Catch shares that are well-designed and thoughtfully prepared are the best way for many fisheries to have healthy, profitable fisheries that are sustainable. Because of these scientific results, moving forward to implement more catch share programs is a high priority for NOAA.

"Catch shares" is the new term for individual transferable quotas.

ITQs on the NYT editorial page

Individual transferable quotas (also called a seemingly endless string of terms intended to find acceptance amongst fishermen: limited access privileges, catch shares, dedicated shares, etc) have a new champion in the Obama Administration (Ocean Rescue):

A more immediate measure of the administration’s commitment is the steps it is taking to meet a 2006 Congressional mandate to end overfishing in America’s coastal waters by 2011. The most important of these is an effort led by Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist who runs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Her mission is to persuade America’s fishermen to broadly adopt a market-based approach known as “catch shares” to manage their fisheries sustainably.

Under the present system, America’s regional fishing councils, which are run largely by fishermen with federal oversight, set annual catch limits. To meet these quotas, most commercial fleets follow a detailed “days at sea” approach regulating the number of days they may fish, how many fish they may catch and what kind of equipment they may use. The system does not work well. Some people obey the rules, and others don’t. The days-at-sea restrictions often lead to a frantic race to catch as many fish as possible as quickly as possible, which in turn leads to indiscriminate and wasteful fishing.

Ms. Lubchenco’s alternative would give individual fishermen or groups of fishermen fixed shares — a guaranteed percentage — of the annual catch, then let them set the rules. The theory is that share-holding fishermen will have a vested interest in seeing their resource grow, much like shareholders in a company.

Fisheries that use this system — also known as “dedicated access” fisheries — have prospered in places like New Zealand. The dozen or so American fisheries with catch shares, accounting for about one-fifth of the total domestic catch, have also done well.

ITQs have been implemented in the Gulf of Mexico and are making some headway in the south Atlantic. Change is scary and the ITQ outcome is highly uncertain for fishermen but the almost certain alternative, no fish, is much worse. It is time to give economic incentives a chance.

The value of an additional fish

I'm currently suffering the ill effects of a visit to Dale Hollow Lake on the Kentucky/Tennessee border this past weekend with two college buddies. We rented a cabin ("Pie in the Sky") for two nights and a boat from East Port Marina at the southern tip of the lake for two days. We spent about $600 and caught six fish. A simplistic way of valuing those fish is to divide $600 by 6, but that would be wrong.

Counting spending as economic value is what is done in economic impact analysis. While $600 is a nice addition to the local economy, that money would be spent somewhere else if 3 college buddies don't go fishing. If I had stayed home last weekend I could have spent the money on a nice dinner and a show one night and ... er, a nice dinner and show the next. By going away I hurt my own local economy. Spending and the resulting economic impacts are simply transfers from one region to another and not reflective of location-specific economic benefits.

The value of those 6 fish is the consumer surplus they generate, the value over and above the money spent to get there. In 14 hours of fishing I caught one little bluegill (picture above right). If someone would have asked me how much (a) further I would be willing to ride in the boat and (b) more I'd be willing to pay in extra gas costs to find a nice fishing hole in order to catch one nice sized bass (largemouth, smallmouth or white), considering my budget constraints and substitutes,I'd have said about $42. The $42 is the value of the additional fish.

Florida weather report

From last weeks NOAA's Fishnews:

South Atlantic Council and Committees to Meet; June 7-12 in Stuart, FL

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, and its advisory panels and committees, will meet June 7-12, 2009, in Stuart, FL. A detailed agenda is provided in the Federal Register notice.

I got home last night after meeting for 2.5 days in the SSC conference room while the Hutchinson Island beach taunted me only a quarter mile away with half-way decent weather most of the time.

The news sounds really, really bad for snapper-grouper fisherman as catch limits, etc are getting more and more stringent in response to overfished stocks. I did my share of adding pressure to the fishery by ordering grouper at least once, but mostly I got the dolphin (i.e., mahi-mahi).

There is some good news, however, as various groups of fishermen are interested in LAPPs (i.e., individual transferable quotas) which is one way to rebuild stocks, reduce effort and allow fishermen to make more money. Socioeconomic analysis also got a boost with the near-establishment of a socioeconomic technical review panel to the SSC (the final vote is Friday).

And, this is really cool, you can watch the rest of the meetings (scheduled through noon on Friday) here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/safmctv.

How to know you're an econogeek

Flipping through the channels and came across a new episode of the Deadliest Catch.  The description reads:

An upcoming drop in price for king crab has the skippers rushing to finish their season.

I watch so I can say I have evidence that changes in future prices shift supply today.