EPA and State of New Jersey Propose Settlement with Bank of America for Monmouth County, NJ Superfund Site Cleanup

On May 15, 2023 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed settlement with Bank of America to address the White Swan Cleaners/Sun Cleaners Area Groundwater Contamination Superfund Site in Wall Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Under the proposed agreement, Bank of America, the current owner of the White Swan property, will be required to fund and perform vapor intrusion and groundwater cleanup work at an estimated cost of $29 million.

"With this settlement EPA is holding Bank of America accountable for its share of the cleanup at the White Swan site," said Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia. " After years of investigation and cleanup efforts, this is a significant step towards resolving the contamination issues at the site for the benefit of the community, the environment, and public health."

“The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are committed to protecting the health of those who live and work in the vicinity of the White Swan Cleaners/Sun Cleaners site,” New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn M. LaTourette said. “We have partnered together to test indoor air at hundreds of business and residential properties and installed ventilation systems on dozens with vapor intrusion concerns. This settlement with Bank of America ensures that long term cleanup, including remediation of contaminated groundwater and future vapor mitigation work, will be funded by the responsible party, not by the taxpayers.”

Bank of America became legally responsible for the site when it bought the White Swan property through a series of bank mergers and acquisitions in 2004.

Bank of America also will reimburse EPA for certain aspects of its cleanup work, paying $10.8 million, and pay up to $1.5 million for future EPA oversight costs. As part of the agreement, Bank of America will construct and then run the groundwater pump and treatment system for four years to capture and clean the most highly contaminated groundwater at the site.

The company will pay up to a total of $6.5 million to the State of New Jersey to settle its liability for cleanup and removal costs, to voluntarily resolve its liability for natural resource damages (NRD), and to address long-term operational needs of the treatment system. This amount includes $3.7 million for cleanup costs and $2.8 million set aside in an escrow account for any future groundwater system operation and maintenance or added vapor intrusion work needed after the State takes over the cleanup.

Vapor intrusion occurs when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from contaminated soil and groundwater seep into buildings, potentially exposing occupants to harmful chemicals. EPA has found that the former dry-cleaning operations of White Swan Cleaners and Sun Cleaners were the sources of soil and groundwater contamination. VOCs from the contamination can easily evaporate into the air and cause health hazards. EPA added the site to the National Priorities List (NPL) in 2004. In the course of the cleanup, EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) have installed several indoor air ventilation systems after conducting indoor air testing on residential and commercial properties. In 2018, EPA also oversaw Bank of America’s removal of contaminated soil from the White Swan property. Cleanup of the Sun property, which is not related to the White Swan property, is being funded by EPA.

https://www.epa.gov/vaporintrusion/what-vapor-intrusion

The proposed consent decree, which has been lodged in the U.S. Federal District Court of New Jersey, is subject to a 60-day comment period. The Department of Justice and EPA will evaluate the comments and decide whether to proceed and then, if appropriate, seek final approval by the court.

For more information, to view the proposed consent decree and to give comments, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/enrd/consent-decrees

For additional background, please visit the White Swan Cleaners/Sun Cleaners Area Ground Water Contamination Superfund site profile page.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) www.EPA.gov
Press Release dated May 15, 2023
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-and-state-new-jersey-propose-settlement-bank-america-monmouth-county-nj-superfund

It’s official: Alberta’s oilsands tailings ponds are leaking. Now what?

A years-long international investigation has found ‘scientifically valid evidence’ the massive pits that store toxic waste in the oilsands are leaking, leaving Albertans wondering who’s going to clean them up

There are more than a trillion litres of toxic oilsands waste stored in tailings ponds near Alberta’s Athabasca River — and they’re leaking.

...

Not only that, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation report noted there is evidence tailings fluids “may circumvent [containment] systems and contaminate aquifers” and end up in the groundwater.

...

“It’s making its way to the groundwater, so is it making its way to our surface water? Is it making its way to the foods and wildlife that we rely on for subsistence purposes, our traditional foods? Are we consuming it?”

The answers to these questions are largely unknown, which is a big part of the problem.
...

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada Jonathan Wilkinson ... noted an additional $46 million in funding has been allocated to the federal environmental enforcement agency. But the federal government has so far been reluctant to punish oilsands companies for leaking tailings ponds.

And despite years of uncertainty, the federal government still hasn’t created regulations for the release of tailings fluids into waterways.

Tar sands tailings

 - Pembina Institute - https://tinyurl.com/ydc8xbuq

According to the Alberta Energy Regulator, “tailings are a mixture of sand, clay, water, silts, residual bitumen and other hydrocarbons, salts and trace metals.”

...

The total area of the tailings ponds has increased from around 25 square kilometres in 1985 to over 250 square kilometres in 2016, nearly double the size of the city of Vancouver. 

As for the amount held in the tailings ponds — well, that’d be around 1.25 trillion litres as of 2018. That’s up almost 200 billion litres from 2014. Wondering how much 1.25 trillion litres is? That’d be enough drinking water for a million people for 1,700 years.

As the factual record notes, “freshly produced [tailings fluid] is a substance acutely toxic to aquatic organisms.” 

Part of the mix, known as fine fluid tailings, remains suspended in water and can take decades to slowly settle to the bottom of a body of water.

...

Tailings ponds are often very close to the Athabasca River. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation report includes information from Syncrude that estimates approximately 785 million litres of tailings fluid “migrated” past collection ditches in 2017. 

...

Suncor pointed The Narwhal to a prepared statement, which noted “as a whole, the industry spends approximately $50 million each year on monitoring in the region, with an additional $130 million per year on site-specific monitoring. To date, these programs have not indicated an adverse impact to the Athabasca River from the oilsands industry.”

...

The report found indications industry and government have known tailings ponds leak since the early days of oilsands development in the Athabasca region, citing a study dating back to 1973.

...

How expensive will it be to clean up Alberta’s tailings ponds one day?

The Alberta Energy Regulator tracks the estimated cost of reclaiming oilsands mines, based on figures submitted by industry. Its most recent estimate of total liabilities associated with oilsands mines is $30.81 billion.

That price tag is largely related to cleaning up the tailings ponds, according to experts.

FOR FULL STORY GO TO

https://thenarwhal.ca/tailings-ponds-leaking-alberta-oilsands/

Published by Sharon J. Riley, The Narwhal's Alberta-based investigative journalist. Her essays, interviews and long-form nonfiction have also been published by The Walrus,..

The Narwhal https://thenarwhal.ca

We note on June 26, 2017 in "Tar Sands Tailings: Alberta's Growing Toxic Legacy" at https://tinyurl.com/y9oub92q Anthony Swift witing in the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) blog reported "Cleaning these toxic lakes will be an expensive undertaking. According to some industry estimates cleaning the tar sands tailings will cost as much as $44.5 billion and reclaiming the land will cost another $6.8 billion. To put this liability in context, these costs exceed the $41.3 billion royalties the province of Alberta has received from its tar sands operations since 1969. 

In addition, on November 1, 2018 in "Cleaning up Alberta’s oilpatch could cost $260 billion, internal documents warn:" at https://tinyurl.com/ybcp4ozt Mike De Souza of the National Observer, Carolyn Jarvis of Global News ,and Emma McIntosh and David Bruser of the Toronto Star  Special to Global News reported that Rob Wadsworth, vice-president of closure and liability for the Alberta Energy Regulator says a “flawed system” of industrial oversight is to blame for estimated liabilities being far higher than any liability amount made public by government and industry officials.  He called on all stakeholders to accept tougher regulations and move away from a system that now allows the largest companies to take centuries to clean up their toxic well site graveyards. Until 2018 the public had been told the liabilities have been calculated at about $58 billion, far less than Wadsworth’s estimate. The government, meanwhile, had only collected $1.6 billion in liability security from companies. The liabilities include costs that companies must assume to shut down aging and inactive oil and gas exploration wells, facilities and pipelines once they are no longer needed. Another significant part of the liability is the clean-up of toxic tailings ponds from oilsands extraction mines near Fort McMurrray. The ponds have sprawled to cover an area the size of Kelowna.  The tailing ponds are used by companies to dump the waste from the mining of bitumen. The process normally requires hot water to separate bitumen from the oily deposits of sand beneath the boreal forest in Alberta, leaving behind a yogurt-like sludge.

Nitrogen Washing Off Midwest Farms Cause Billions in Annual Damage to Gulf of Mexico Fisheries and Marine Habitat, New Study Finds - Dead Zone Compounds Crushing Pandemic Impact on Gulf Fishing Economy

With federal scientists expected to forecast, within days, the size of this year’s “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, a new study shows that one of the dead zone’s biggest causes—nitrogen that flows downriver from Midwest farms—has been responsible for up to $2.4 billion in damages to Gulf fish stocks and their habitat every year for more than 30 years. The amount of nitrogen coming off Midwest corn and soybean farms, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) study, equates to enough fertilizer to fill 3,000 standard size shipping containers every year since 1980 on average.

The economic analysis, detailed in the UCS report “Reviving the Dead Zone: Solutions to Benefit Both Gulf Coast Fishers and Midwest Farmers," built on peer-reviewed research that estimated the damage, in dollars, that a given quantity of excess nitrogen has on fisheries and marine habitat. UCS applied that damage value to the Gulf based upon the peak nitrogen influx between 1980 and 2017.

“Gulf Coast communities know that the dead zone impacts their livelihoods, but research has never put a dollar value on its damage to the fishing industry,” said Rebecca Boehm, an economist at UCS and author of the report. “This study quantifies both the amount of nitrogen flowing to the Gulf from farms upstream, and the toll it is taking economically on the foundation of the Gulf fishing industry.”

For many farmers looking to maximize yields and profits, inexpensive nitrogen fertilizer is a convenient boost to crops. However, increasingly intense rainfall in the spring flushes excess fertilizer into streams and rivers, and much of that nitrogen flows down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. Nutrient overload in coastal waters creates low-oxygen areas, which can cause widespread die-offs of some fish and shellfish and drive others from their normal habitat. The persistently large dead zone can lead to reduced catch and increased fuel demands for Gulf fishers who must travel further out for their hauls.

Local residents’ professions, and by extension way of life, seem more threatened now than ever.

“Lots of factors cause shrimpers to lose business, but COVID-19 may completely shut many of us down,” said John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance and a Gulf shrimper for more than three decades. “Hopefully the industry will get through this health crisis, and in the meantime, we need to address what we can to ensure the Gulf’s long-term sustainability. As long as the dead zone persists, our way of life, and the rich seafood culture of the region is in danger.”

It’s a Superfund Site, but It’s Also Their Livelihood - The New York Times

...

Alberto Rodriguez', Los Primos Auto Repair and Sale, is one of six businesses at the intersection of Cooper and Irving Avenues in Ridgewood, Queens, that have been targeted for demolition as part of a cleanup plan released recently by the Environmental Protection Agency. The businesses are within a Superfund site, the term for sites covered by a program that finances the cleanup of hazardous waste.

The small, triangle-shaped tract, hemmed in on one side by an abandoned rail spur, does not look particularly active...  But for business owners like Mr. Rodriguez, who have turned the block into a one-stop shop for automotive needs ... the proposed plan threatens to uproot well-established livelihoods.

...

Mr. Rodriguez’s shop sits atop land formerly occupied by the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, which from the 1920s through the 1950s extracted metals from imported sand. In the process, the company produced waste containing two radioactive elements, thorium and uranium, which it disposed of by dumping the waste into sewers and perhaps also by burying it .......

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0206479

The E.P.A. has been aware of radioactive contamination at the site since at least 1988, but it was not until 2014 that the agency assigned Superfund status to the site. Before then, the E.P.A. installed interim protections, including placing slabs of concrete, lead and steel beneath floors and sidewalks to block radiation from emanating upward.

Those measures wreaked havoc with Mr. Rodriguez’s business, he said. 

...

The demolition plans are not final. Another possibility raised in the plan is the demolition of just the vacant warehouse and the excavation of soil around the remaining buildings. That option would require government checkups every five years, the plan said, with maintenance costs “in perpetuity.”

...

The health risks from the radiation at the site are small, said Dr. David Brenner, the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, who reviewed the E.P.A.’s risk estimates at a reporter’s request. If no further remediation were done at the site, a future resident would see an increased risk of cancer of about 0.005 percent, the plan predicted.

Walter Mugdan, an acting deputy regional administrator for the E.P.A., acknowledged that the site’s tenants “are not in any significant danger at all.” But the agency’s goal, he said, is to ensure that the site can be used in the future, perhaps even for residential development.

...

Any demolition would not be undertaken until 2019 or 2020 at the earliest, Mr. Mugdan said. About two dozen Superfund sites are ready for cleanup at any given time, he said, but because of limited funding, usually work begins on only six to eight each year. The projected cost of the government’s preferred plan for the Wolff-Alport cleanup is more than $39 million.

The E.P.A. often seeks to hold companies responsible for the contamination financially accountable for the cleanup, but Wolff-Alport has been defunct for decades. Mr. Mugdan said his agency would try to determine if the company ever sold itself to any existing firms.

The protracted timeline for demolition offers small consolation to the site’s current tenants. “The rent is crazy. I can’t find a place like that,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who pays $3,600 a month in rent.... The E.P.A. will offer small businesses up to $25,000 to help them set up at another location....

...

FOR FULL STORY GO TO:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/nyregion/queens-epa-superfund-radiation-businesses.html

By VIVIAN WANG

The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com

August. 4, 2017

Also see

The Most Radioactive Place in New York City

Queens' Hottest New Bar Is "The Most Radioactive Place in New York City"

https://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6427a6b7538955c585257359003f0230/609e310b78c3ef7a85257cd20055a13a!OpenDocument

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0206479

https://ny.curbed.com/2014/7/3/10079546/ridgewoods-radioactive-superfund-site-worries-neighbors

Court Orders Owners of Former Plating Company in Richmond to Pay $5.2 Million for Hazardous Waste Violations

The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) was recently awarded $5.2 million in civil penalties from Marion Patigler and the estates of her parents, Gerhard and Ingrid Patigler, for years of hazardous waste violations.

The judgment took into account the more than $500,000 in enforcement costs incurred by the California Attorney’s General Office and $300,000 in cleanup costs incurred by DTSC. Marion Patigler was also permanently banned from engaging in any future hazardous waste management practices in California.

Marion Patigler was sentenced to three years in jail for her failure to complete the cleanup of hazardous waste left at the facility in Richmond in 2015. For many years Electro-Forming operated as an electroplating and metal polishing company located in a mixed-use residential neighborhood in Richmond.

Putting a value on injuries to natural assets: The BP oil spill

Summary:

When large-scale accidents cause catastrophic damage to natural or cultural resources, government and industry are faced with the challenge of assessing the extent of damages and the magnitude of restoration that is warranted. Although market transactions for privately owned assets provide information about how valuable they are to the people involved, the public services of natural assets are not exchanged on markets; thus, efforts to learn about people's values involve either untestable assumptions about how other things people do relate to these services or empirical estimates based on responses to stated-preference surveys. Valuation based on such surveys has been criticized because the respondents are not engaged in real transactions. Our research in the aftermath of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill addresses these criticisms using the first, nationally representative, stated-preference survey that tests whether responses are consistent with rational economic choices that are expected with real transactions. Our results confirm that the survey findings are consistent with economic decisions and would support investing at least $17.2 billion to prevent such injuries in the future to the Gulf of Mexico's natural resources.

...

The federal judge in an initial phase of the lawsuit involving BP determined that the best estimate of the amount of oil released was 134 million gallons, making it the largest maritime oil spill in U.S. history. On behalf of the trustees of the Gulf's natural resources and under the guidance of the lead agency for this process, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), we estimated the monetary value of the natural resource damage from the spill, as specified by the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) of 1990. Such estimates can inform settlement negotiations between the government and the responsible parties, be entered as evidence at trial, and contribute to choosing projects to restore injured environmental resources (1). Trustees undertook a number of studies to quantify ecological impacts and economic damages caused by the spill, including what we describe here. The natural resource–damage case was settled in April 2016. The Consent Decree called for total payments of $20.8 billion, $8.8 billion of which was for natural resource damages. Decisions related to the settlement details are confidential.

Economic measures of the damages to natural resources consider the effects on use (or active use) and nonuse (or passive use) values (2). “Use values” arise when an individual derives satisfaction from using a resource (e.g., fishing or visiting a beach), either now or in the future. “Nonuse values” arise when an individual derives satisfaction from the existence of a resource, even though that individual would not visit or use it. The OPA regulation specifies that damage measures include both use and nonuse or the total economic value lost. Private claims by those engaged in commercial fishing or in operating hotels are handled separately.

After the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and controversy over assessing monetary damages with stated-preference surveys, an expert panel (3) recommended criteria for conducting these studies. Research has since established ways to ask stated-choice questions that induce truthful responses and meet these proposed criteria. Subsequent criticism of stated-preference research has focused on how large the change in the average person's value should be with changes in the size of injuries to natural resources. The research we discuss here identified what can be expected on the basis of a conventional economic model of an individual's choices, with minimal assumptions. It also offers evidence that the average individual's likelihood to vote for a program to avoid injuries is causally linked to a consistent understanding of the severity of the injuries.

...

The study interviewed a large random sample of American adults who were told about (i) the state of the Gulf before the 2010 accident; (ii) what caused the accident; (iii) injuries to Gulf natural resources due to the spill; (iv) a proposed program for preventing a similar accident in the future; and (v) how much their household would pay in extra taxes if the program were implemented. The program can be seen as insurance, at a specified cost, that is completely effective against a specific set of future, spill-related injuries, with respondents told that another spill will take place in the next 15 years. They were then asked to vote for or against the program, which would impose a one-time tax on their household. Each respondent was randomly assigned to one of five different tax amounts: $15, $65, $135, $265, and $435.

...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

The final questionnaire was administered to a random sample of households in the contiguous United States that included at least one English-speaking adult. Face-to-face interviews were completed between October 2013 and July 2014 by nearly 150 trained interviewers. A total of 3,656 people completed the survey for a weighted response rate of 48%. A nonresponse followup (NRFU) survey involved mailing paper questionnaires to households at which no main study interview had been completed. NRFU questionnaires were received from 1492 households, representing a NRFU household response rate of 51% (see SM for details of weighting and nonresponse)....

For each injury description, support for the program declines as the tax increases, consistent with the first test for consistent decisions. For each tax amount, support for the program increases as the set of injuries increases, consistent with the second test.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

The estimate for the lower-bound mean WTP for the smaller set of injuries is $136 (standard error $6.34) and for the larger set is $153 (standard error $6.87). The aggregate estimate reported at the outset—$17.2 billion—uses the WTP lower-bound estimate for the larger set of injuries ($153) multiplied by the number of households (112,647,215) represented by the sample.

...

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6335/253

by Richard C. Bishop, Kevin J. Boyle, Richard T. Carson, David Chapman, W. Michael Hanemann, Barbara Kanninen, Raymond J. Kopp, Jon A. Krosnick, John List, Norman Meade, Robert Paterson, Stanley Presser, V. Kerry Smith, Roger Tourangeau, Michael Welsh, Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, Matthew DeBell, Colleen Donovan, Matthew Konopka, Nora Scherer

Science http://science.scienceag.org

Volume 356, Issue 6335;  21 Apr 2017; pages 253-254

Estimating the Residential Land Damage of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

Abstract:

The cost of a nuclear power plant accident critically depends on people’s willingness to pay for avoiding exposure to the nuclear fallout. This paper is the first to estimate such a willingness to pay by observing the change in transaction prices before and after the Fukushima nuclear accident with the degree of radioactive contamination. The estimates, which are based on hedonic price equations with the degree of radioactive contamination measured by airborne surveys, indicate that the contamination decreased the price of residential land and imply a substantial willingness to pay to avoid exposure to the radioactive fallout. The estimated total residential land depreciation ranges from 1.5 to 3.0 trillion yen, approximately equivalent to 15-30 billion US dollars, or about 0.13-0.25% of Japan’s total land value.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-a-nuclear-war-without-a-war-the-unspoken-crisis-of-worldwide-nuclear-radiation/28870

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119017300232

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2017.02.005

by Daiji Kawaguchi, 1 and Norifumi Yukutake 2 

1. Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

2. College of Economics, Nihon University, Misaki-cho 1-3-2, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8360, Japan

Journal of Urban Economics via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com

Available online 2 March 2017; In Press, Accepted Manuscript

Keywords: Willingness to Pay; Fukushima; Nuclear Power Plant; Land Property Damage; Radioactive Contamination; Land Contamination

The Effect of Pollution on Worker Productivity: Evidence from Call-Center Workers in China

Abstract

We investigate the effect of pollution on worker productivity in the service sector by focusing on two call centers in China. Using precise measures of each worker’s daily output linked to daily measures of pollution and meteorology, we find that higher levels of air pollution decrease worker productivity by reducing the number of calls that workers complete each day. These results manifest themselves at commonly found levels of pollution in major cities throughout the developing and developed world, suggesting that these types of effects are likely to apply broadly. When decomposing these effects, we find that the decreases in productivity are explained by increases in time spent on breaks rather than the duration of phone calls. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that the negative impacts of pollution on productivity extend beyond physically demanding tasks to indoor, white-collar work. 

...

Our analysis reveals a statistically significant, negative impact of pollution on the productivity of workers at the firm. A 10-unit increase in the air pollution index (API) decreases the number of daily calls handled by a worker by 0.35 percent on average.2 Productivity declines are largely linearly increasing in pollution levels, with statistically significant results emerging at an API above 100 for some measures of productivity and 150 for all of them. These estimates are robust to the inclusion of meteorology controls, worker-specific fixed effects, and a number of robustness checks that support the contention that we are estimating causal effects. Furthermore, when we decompose this effect, we find that the decrease in calls comes from an increase in the amount of time spent on breaks rather than from changes in the duration of phone calls, a finding consistent with Bloom et al. (2014), who found that breaks were the most malleable aspect of productivity at this firm.  

http://www.humanosphere.org/environment/2016/05/air-pollution-deadly-hurts-worlds-poor/

A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation may be useful to fix ideas. The coefficient from our simple linear specification in Column 1 of Table 3 implies that a 10-unit change in the API translates into a 0.35 percent change in daily productivity. If we assume that this effect applies to all service-sector workers in China, an across the board 10-unit reduction in national pollution levels would increase the monetized value of worker productivity by more than $2.2 billion US per year. The service sector is defined to include: Hotels, IT, Financial Intermediation, Real Estate, Business Services, Science, Household Services, Education, Health, Sports, and Public Management. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2014), the total urban wage bill in these sectors totaled 3,958,960 million Yuan in 2013. At 6.19 Yuan to the dollar in 2013, that translates into $639,243,040,000. Multiplying that figure by 0.35 percent yields $2,429,123,552.

That statistically significant effects emerge in some dimensions when the API exceeds 100 and for all outcome measures at an API of 150 suggests that this is not simply an issue for the world’s most-polluted cities, since such levels obtain with some frequency in urban environments around the world. Given the size of the service and knowledge sectors in the developed world, and the relatively high levels of labor productivity within them, even very small impacts from pollution could aggregate to rather substantial economic damages. The case of Los Angeles is illustrative. In 2014, the air quality index exceeded the EPA standard on 90 days. If all of those days were brought into regulatory compliance, service sector productivity in the county of Los Angeles would have been $374 million larger.  The EPA air quality standard is 100. Los Angeles County exceeded this figure on 90 days for a total of 1895 excess API points relative to the standard. The total service sector wage bill in Los Angeles County in 2014 was $205,620,109,131 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014), which translates into a daily service sector wage of $563,342,765. Multiplying the excess API points by the 0.35 percent coefficient per 10 API point change and the daily wage for the 90 days in violation implies a total productivity effect of $373,637,089.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22328 

by Tom Chang, Joshua Graff Zivin, Tal Gross, Matthew Neidell
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) www.NBER.org
NBER Working Paper No. 22328; Issued in June 2016

Impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on coral reef fisheries: An integrated ecological–economic model

Highlights

• We projected the effects of ocean acidification and global warming on coral reef fisheries.
• Under several ocean acidification and IPCC emission scenarios, landings decline as 92% of global coral cover is lost by 2100.
• To project consumer welfare losses under these scenarios, we estimate a global model of demand for commercial reef fish.
• By 2100, avoiding 2.5 W m− 2 of forcing preserves $14 to $20 billion in consumer surplus (TPV, 2014 USD, 3% discount rate).
• Benefits of policy action appear highest when coral ecosystems have moderate adaptive capacity.
 

Abstract

Coral reefs are highly productive shallow marine habitats at risk of degradation due to CO2-mediated global ocean changes, including ocean acidification and rising sea temperature. Consequences of coral reef habitat loss are expected to include reduced reef fisheries production. To our knowledge, the welfare impact of reduced reef fish supply in commercial markets has not yet been studied. We develop a global model of annual demand for reef fish in regions with substantial coral reef area and use it to project potential consumer surplus losses given coral cover projections from a coupled climate, ocean, and coral biology simulation (CO2-COST). Under an illustrative high emission scenario (IPCC RCP 8.5), 92% of coral cover is lost by 2100. Policies reaching lower radiative forcing targets (e.g., IPCC RCP 6.0) may partially avoid habitat loss, thereby preserving an estimated $14 to $20 billion in consumer surplus through 2100 (2014$ USD, 3% discount). Avoided damages vary annually, are sensitive to biological assumptions, and appear highest when coral ecosystems have moderate adaptive capacity. These welfare loss estimates are the first to monetize ocean acidification impacts to commercial finfisheries and complement the existing estimates of economic impacts to shellfish and to coral reefs generally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Underwater_World.jpg

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800916304311

by Ann E. Speers 1 and 3, Elena Y. Besedin 1, James E. Palardy 1 and Chris Moore 2
1. Environment and Resources Division, Abt Associates, Inc., 55 Wheeler St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

2. National Center for Environmental Economics, Environmental Protection Agency, 1301 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004, USA
3. Opinion Dynamics, 1000 Winter St., Waltham MA 02451 USA

Ecological Economics via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com
Volume 128; August, 2016; Pages 33–43

Keywords: Coral reefs; Ocean acidification; Climate change; Consumer demand for fish; Reef fisheries

Stigma mitigation and the importance of redundant treatments

Highlights

• Spring water is contaminated with a dead sterilized cockroach.

• Experimental results provide measurements of the stigma of disgust.

• Results reveal large differences between stated and revealed preferences.

• Disgust is significantly reduced through simple mitigation steps.

• Multiple mitigation steps are more effective than single steps.

Abstract

Disgust can evoke strong behavioral responses. Sometimes these extreme visceral responses can lead to stigmatization—an overreaction to a risk. In fact, disgust may be so inhibiting that it leads people to refuse to consume completely safe items, such as treated drinking water, leading to important economic and policy implications. Using economic experiments, we provide a measure of the behavioral response to disgust. Our findings suggest that when monetary incentives are provided, the behavioral response may have been exaggerated by previous studies that have relied on survey methods. Furthermore, mitigation steps successfully reduce the stigma behavior. In fact, the results suggest that stigma is primarily reduced not by a specific mitigation step taken but by how many steps are taken consecutively. These results have important implications for policies addressing issues such as the global shortage of drinking water. Some efforts to resolve the shortage have involved recycled water that is completely safe to drink but is often rejected because of reactions of disgust.

We find that participants require $0.38⁵ on average to drink a three-ounce cup of spring water. Most participants (89%), however, required no compensation to drink spring water. The average WTA (Willingness to Accept) for spring water that had been in contact with the cockroach was much higher, $3.70, but interestingly, the majority of participants (68%) still required no compensation to drink it. This result indicates that cockroach-contaminated water does evoke stigma for some people, as indicated by their overreaction to the participatory risk associated with drinking this water. However, the stigma response is far less extreme than indicated in previous studies that relied on hypothetical questioning. In fact, we find that only 13 participants (14%) refuse the cockroach-contaminated water as indicated by their WTA of $30.00. All other participants are willing to drink it, albeit at a price. When we compare cockroach-contaminated water after a single mitigation step to cockroach-contaminated water, we find that overall WTA drops well below $3, with diluting being the lowest at $2.39. We conclude, that a single mitigation step may alleviate some but not all of the consumers’ concerns about the contamination. Looking at two mitigation steps, three of the six mean WTAs are below $2 dollars and two mean WTAs are below offers made for one mitigation step, suggesting that, overall, two mitigation steps may be more effective than one. All mean WTAs were below $2 for three and four mitigation steps.

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/06/04/long-awaited-epa-study-says-fracking-pollutes-drinking-water/

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487016000167

by Maik Kecinski 1, Deborah Kerley Keisner 2, Kent D. Messer 1, William D. Schulze 2

1. Department of Applied Economics and Statistics, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, United States

2. Dyson School for Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, United States

Journal of Economic Psychology via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com

Volume 54; June, 2016; Pages 44–52
Keywords: Disgust; Stigma mitigation; Risk; Experimental economics

Bad Air Days: The Effects of Air Quality on Different Measures of Subjective Well-Being

AbstractAir pollution makes us feel bad when we think about it – but do bad air days really affect our subjective well-being (SWB) when we are not thinking about them? And if so, do they affect the range of possible measures of SWB in similar ways? Using data from over 165,000 individuals in the UK, we model evaluative, experiential and eudemonic SWB as a function of demographic and local area characteristics including the background concentration of particulate matter. Our results indicate that air pollution adversely affects all of the positive measure of SWB included in our analysis; how satisfied people report being with their lives overall, how happy they report feeling on the previous day and how worthwhile they rate their activities as being, and that it does so over and above its effects on self-reported health. These effects can be monetized and may imply greater priority being afforded to pollution abatement programs than is currently warranted based on existing estimates of the health effects alone.

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Our preferred specification in Model 4 finds evidence of significant relationships between pollution and all three positive measure of well-being: life satisfaction; worthwhileness and happiness yesterday. The decrease in satisfaction associated with a increase in fine particulate matter in the main analysis is 0.0171 on an 11-point scale. This result is remarkably similar to that found by Orru et al. (2016) which documents a negative association of 0.0171, on a 10-point scale, with increase in coarse particulate matter, using data from the European social survey. Interestingly, the associations between PM_2.5 and reports of happiness yesterday and worthwhileness of activities are almost as large in magnitude: an increase of in PM_2.5 concentrations is associated with an average reduction of 0.0138 and 0.0150 points, respectively. No such associations were found between PM_2.5and reports of anxiety yesterday.

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Air pollution may act to reduce an individual’s SWB indirectly through its impact on their health and also directly. By running regression models that incorporate self-reported health status, we are estimating the effect of air pollution on SWB over and above its effect through health. Here we present the regression estimates for the association between air pollution and SWB with and without controlling for self-reported health status and note that self-reported health status appears to partially mediate the relationship between air pollution and SWB. The association between PM2.5 and satisfaction, for example, is reduced by approximately 6% when health is controlled for in the model, compared to the same coefficient when health controls are removed. Similarly, the coefficients are reduced by nearly 7% and 4% in the happiness yesterday and the worthwhile model, when health is controlled for. These results suggest that health is one mechanism through which air pollution influences life satisfaction but that it is not the exclusive pathway. In contrast to this, we find no evidence of an association between anxiety yesterday and PM2.5 concentrations, either when health controls are present or absent from the model.
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