Here is the propaganda from App State: "Respondents willing to pay for stormwater management and reduce negative effects from runoff"!
Using the Boone Creek watershed that runs through Appalachian State University’s campus as a laboratory, an interdisciplinary research team at Appalachian has been studying impacts from stormwater runoff and how to manage that runoff.
“What our research shows is that stormwater runoff causes high temperatures and high salt levels in Boone Creek,” said Dr. William “Bill” Anderson, professor in and chair of Appalachian’s Department of the Geological and Environmental Sciences.
In an article recently published in the Journal of Hydrology, a team of seven faculty researchers and two Appalachian students presented results from a model assessing how effective various stormwater management measures may be for reducing high temperatures and salt levels in the Boone Creek watershed. ...
In addition to assessing how to reduce runoff, the team has conducted surveys throughout the Appalachian region to learn more about public perceptions of stormwater. Funding for this survey work was provided by the Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics (RIEEE) at Appalachian.
“We found that people are somewhat concerned about runoff, generally, as a water quality issue,” said research team member Dr. Tanga Mohr, professor in Appalachian’s Department of Economics. “Those people who were concerned, did report a willingness to install stormwater management technologies on their property,” she added. ...
In the latest survey, the research team asked respondents if they would vote for a referendum to charge a one-time tax ranging from $28–$329 to manage stormwater and lower salt levels in local waterways. Preliminary results reveal that a majority would vote in favor of such a tax, even at the higher levels of $226–$329.
Additionally, the survey results revealed the respondents’ willingness to pay such a tax is influenced by the amount of the tax coupled with how effective the management measures would be. For example, 82% of respondents reported they would pay $28 to reduce salt levels by 10%, and 71% of respondents indicated they would pay $122 to lower salt levels by 50%.
And yes, we found plausible scope effects. However, we didn't initially. My mistake, I distanced the information about scope (and the tax amount) from the referendum question in the survey (let's call that one a pretest [a rookie mistake from a 30+ year veteran). In a revised survey we tightened everything up and the willingness to pay model looks good. It makes one wonder how many of those papers that don't find scope effects could be improved with a redesigned survey.
I'll be looking to hit the conference circuit with these results in 2020. Or ... invite me for a seminar!
