What are the Economic Health Costs of Non-Action in Controlling Toxic Water Pollution?

This paper identifies information that may be important in determining the benefits ofpreventing toxic water contamination (or equivalently cost of nonaction) when a given toxificationoccurs. It attempts to identify information and behavior issues that need to be considered when weestimate benefits and weigh them against the costs of removing toxins. This paper also provides“scenarios” for three toxic pollutants that are found in water bodies. We make use of twoalternatives--one for developing countries and the other for developed countries--to demonstrate, withspecific examples of arsenic, mercury and Atrazine, how benefit estimates and control policies varywith different assumptions concerning behavior/information and type of chemical contamination. Acomparison with EU evaluation experience is also carried out.