Monetizing Ecological Benefits of I&e Reductions

Monetizing ecological benefits of reducing impingement and entrainment (I&E) at cooling water intake structures presents both ecological and economic difficulties.  Ecological difficulties arise because, although in theory I&E can have both direct impacts on affected fish populations and indirect impacts on ecosystem services, in practice it has been difficult to demonstrate and measure these impacts.  Economic difficulties arise because many of the potentially affected ecosystem services cannot be valued using market-based methods.  Attempts to value ecosystem services using stated preference (SP) surveys often produce unreliable results, in part because they confound “indirect use” values such as prey production or nutrient cycling, which at least in principle are quantifiable using empirical data and models, with “nonuse” values arising from respondents’ preferences for particular states of nature.  This paper describes an approach to valuation based on the ecological service function approach advocated by the USEPA Science Advisory Board.  Data and models are used to quantify and value, to the extent possible, direct and indirect impacts of I&E on ecosystem services.  Nonuse values are then estimated by an SP survey that measures respondents’ willingness to pay for reducing I&E relative to their willingness to pay for other nonuse benefits available via public policy.