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<br />Economic Efficiencv of Alternative Control Stratecies. <br /> <br />The l1near program was first solved to establish the benchmark (no <br /> <br />~ salinity controll scenario (table 2, Part A, Row 1l. Annual net returns to land <br />~ <br />~ and water are an estimated $2,522,000 for the entire study area. This amounts <br />~ <br />to just over $50 per acre average net return. The base solution requires <br /> <br />222,250 acre-feet of irrigation water resulting in 237,350 tons of salt <br /> <br />discharged into the river via deep percolation and field ditch seepage. This <br /> <br />figure is similar to the earlier estimates of both SCS and Leathers and Young. <br /> <br />Policy instruments or strategies for reducing the emissions of water <br /> <br />pollutants include administratively-set incentives (subsidies or taxes), <br /> <br />marketable effluent permits and most commonly, direct controls on emitter <br /> <br />behavior (Bohm and Russell). Three basic types of control strategies were <br /> <br /> <br />tested: 1) irrigation system subsidies, 2) effluent taxes on salt discharges, <br /> <br />and 3l taxes on irrigation water, (ttinfluenttt taxes). <br /> <br />Var i ations and <br /> <br />combinations of these were also examined. <br /> <br />Def1n it10n of Net Social Cost. Net social cost of salinity control is <br /> <br />expressed in annual terms to include the annual ized capital cost of on-farm <br /> <br />imp rovements, plus income foregone from production changes, adjusted by <br />crediting the value of irrigation labor saved.6 Alternatively stated, net <br /> <br />costs to upstream farmers plus the government's cost equals the net social <br /> <br />cost. The cost to one group can exceed net social cost if the other group is <br /> <br />subsidized by the policy. <br /> <br />Net farm income foregone from production changes may include that from <br /> <br />cropp i ng pattern adjustments and land reti rement. The cost of add itional <br />overtime labor (based on the market wage rate) for irrigation is also a social <br />cost. Cap ital cost subs i dies and taxes on salt or water, however, are <br /> <br />10 <br />