TOTAL ECONOMIC VALUATION OF STREAM RESTORATION USING INTERNET AND MAIL SURVEYS

The economic value of restoring Deckers Creek in Monongalia and Preston Counties of West Virginia was determined from mail, internet and personal interview surveys. Multi-attribute, choice experiments were conducted and nested logit models were estimated to derive the economic values of full restoration for three attributes of this creek: aquatic life, swimming, and scenic quality. The relative economic values of attributes were: aquatic life > scenic quality ~ swimming. These economic values imply that respondents had the highest value for aquatic life when fully restoring Deckers Creek to a sustainable fishery rather than "put and take" fishery that can not sustain a fish population (defined as moderate restoration for aquatic life). The consumer surplus estimates for full restoration of all three attributes ranged between $12 and $16 per month per household. Potential stream users (anglers) had the largest consumer surplus gain from restoration while non-angler respondents had the lowest. When the consumer surplus estimates were aggregated up to the entire watershed population, the benefit from restoration of Deckers Creek was estimated to be about $1.9 million annually. This benefit does not account for any economic values from partial stream restoration. Based upon log likelihood tests of the nested logit models, two sub-samples of the survey population (the general population and stream users) were found to be from the same population. Thus, restoration choices by stream users may be representative of the watershed population, although the sample size of stream users was small in this study.