[DOWNLOAD] "Willingness to Pay for Non Angler Recreation at the Lower Snake River Reservoirs." by Journal of Leisure Research " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Willingness to Pay for Non Angler Recreation at the Lower Snake River Reservoirs.
- Author : Journal of Leisure Research
- Release Date : January 22, 2005
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 231 KB
Description
Dam breaching on the lower Snake River to save endangered salmon and steelhead would eliminate more than 33 thousand acres of flat water extending nearly 140 miles. (1) The site currently contains 26 thousand acres of land area of which half is designated as wildlife habitat. Because of past failures, new measures to protect the endangered fish have been mandated. The National Marine Fisheries Service 2000 Biological Opinion (NMFS, 2000) specifies that the "action agencies" could request authority from Congress for breaching if mitigation goals are not met according to their designated 10-year timetable. (2) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE, 2002) feasibility study of juvenile salmon migration chose further "system upgrades" over breaching, but they state that their selected alternative is consistent with breaching as a final solution. With breaching, flat water used for swimming, water-skiing, propeller-driven boating, and sailing would be mainly replaced with white water and rapids suitable for kayaking, rafting, and jet boating. Also, much additional land area would exist for picnicking, camping, hiking, biking, wildlife viewing, hunting, and other land-based activities. The willingness-to-pay for current non angling recreation activities measures part of the costs of dam breaching, including loss of power generation, barge transport, and a small amount of irrigation. Our benefits estimate for non angling recreation (net consumer value) is subtracted from projected non angling recreation benefits with breaching (Loomis, 2002) to find the effect of dam breaching on non angling benefits. Loomis predicted that non angling recreation benefits with dam breaching would be $192.7 to $310.7 million per year. (His forecast can vary depending on the treatment of non responders and other factors.) This study uses the travel cost method (TCM) to estimate the net value for non angler recreation at the lower Snake River reservoirs in eastern Washington. We examine existing reservoir recreation with different models and in more detail than was done for the USACE feasibility study. Activities studied include camping, boating, water-skiing, and swimming/picnicking. Estimation of benefits by type of activity allowed us to adjust our survey results to more closely match long-run visitation by activity type. Derivation of benefits by type of recreation activity also is beneficial because they are widely used by federal and state resource managers when local estimates are unavailable (Rosenberger & Loomis, 2000; Rosenberger & Loomis, 2001; Shrestha & Loomis, 2001; Walsh, Johnson & McKean, 1992). Additional activities in the sample (in small numbers) included sailing, wildlife viewing, hunting, and other unspecified activities.