WSP00088

• File Number: 8273.100.50
• Description: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control - Federal Agencies - Bureau of Reclamation
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 1/1/1985
• Author: Gardner & Young
• Title: An Economic Evaluation of the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

The Soil Con~ervation Service is active-
ly engaged in planning and implementing
on-farm irrigati(m improvement pro.
gram~ for ~alinity control in ~everal areM
of the Upper Colorado River Ba~in. Co~t
and ~alt reduction e~timate~ were avail-
able for nine salinity control unit~, Each
r.elie~ on irrigation ~y~tem improvements
to reduce deep percolation and salt load,
though ~ome unit~ include the lining of .
off-farm irrigation later~.
Our benefit e~timate~ are compared to
the SCS e~timate~ of cost~ in Table 3. Non-
dllicounted benefit~ and cost~ are ~hown,
together with their pre~entvalue~ M if all .
unit~ began con~truction thlli. year and
were completed according to SCS time-
table~. Total co~t~ wereM~umed to. be.in-
curredat the .~me rate M CoIi~truction
Combining annual agricuIt"ra! benefit~. cost~. Saltreduction~ were M~igned .in the .
of $39,100 per mg/liter with annual mu- ~ame proportion M co~t~ and at the end.of .
nicipal benefit~ e~timated at $218,700 per the year co~t~ were incurred. Thi~ lli agen~
mg/liter, we obtain a total~alinitycontrol erous =uniption ~ince not all construc-
benefit e~timate of $257,800 per mg/liter, tion may be finllihed in one year, and ~ome
. or abolit $26per ton of ~altremoved from irrigation improvement~ may take time to
the river. deliver their full benefi~. U~ing our ben-
The B"reau of Reclamation estimate of efit e~timate of $26 per. ton, only three of
$513,300 per mg/liter (USBR, 1983:21) theiline SCS salinity control program~ are
when updated to 1982 dollar~ cOnvert~ to fea~ible. .
$51.90 per ton of salt removed from the There SCS projectbenefit-co~t ratio~ are
river. USBR benefit e~timate~per ton of under~timatedin that irrigation labor ~av-
~alt removed are nearly twice as large as ing~ resulting from on-farm improve-
those of the author~. MO~t of thi~differ- meilt~have not been counted. Such re-
ence i~ accounted for by our diScOunting ductiom in assoCiated coot~ wOllld normally
for retention time. and notinduding sec~ be ~ubtracted frOm program co~t~ to get a
ondary benefit~. .. . . ...jt. . net social co~t of ~alinitycoritroI. Our]e-
. 31. LS7;gDO~513,300 . 9

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Card~r 4nd Young-...

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plier~), into theW total e~timate~ of dam-
age~ avoided. We take the contrary
po~itioil, argued forcefully by McKean and
other~,. that~econdary impact~ are not
properly included in apprallial~with a na-
tional economic efficiency criterion. Since
the alternative public or private expendi-
ture of fund~ inve~ted in the project in
. qUe~tion would. them~elve~ geilerate ~ec-
ondary imI>act~ el~ewhere in the econo-
my; secoridljry impact~ represent no real
net gain to ~ociety. Further, in thi~ partie-
"lar in~tance, the ~econda.ry impact~
claimed in the federal analy~i~ appear to
be incommen~urate with ~trictwilIingness
to pay .benefit and co~t mea~ure~, in that
they are not mea~ure~ of net indirect in-
come, but are e~timated gross indirect
monetary imI>act~. Finally, the federal
analy~i~ of~econdary impact~ lli incon~i~-
. tent, in that only the agricultural-related
impact~ are claimed. Secondary impacts
for the hou~ehold rector ~imilarly ana-
lyzed would be negative, reflecting reC
duced household outlay~ for ~alinity-in-
duced benefit~. If a. ~ymmetric approach
were. taken, the negative urban ~econdary
effect~ would ~wamp the po~itive ~econd-
ary impact from .agriculture. .

Total Benefits of SaltnityControl

~rt~!

Salinity Control-Et,>a/uatton

EconomicF easibility of Salinity
. Control

The revi~ed ~alinity control benefit e~-
timate~ can now be compared to govern~
ment e~timates of the cost of salinity con,
troI efforts. Economicfea~ibility here
means that real economic benefit~ exceed
re9:I economic co~ts, both meMured in uni-
form annual equivalent~.

SCS On-Farm Projects.

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