United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Municipal Environmental Research ~
Laboratory *"'
Cincinnati OH 45268
Research and Development
EPA-600/S5-82-001 August 1982
Project Summary
Socioeconomic Impacts of
Water Quality Strategies
Robert F. McMahon
This report provides a set of methods
and techniques for considering socio-
economic impacts in the water quality
planning process. Socioeconomic impacts
considered include those in the following
impact categories: fiscal effects, em-
ployment effects, individual costs and
benefits, land use and growth effects,
public service impacts, sensory impacts,
public health effects, and historic re-
source impacts. These types of impacts
have typically not been given adequate
consideration In water quality planning.
The report is divided into two parts.
Part 1 presents a prototypical socio-
economic impact assessment process
and guidelines for integrating it into the
overall water quality planning process.
Four assessment activities are discussed
in the context of water quality manage-
ment planning: impact identification, im-
pact measurement, impact evaluation,
and impact mitigation. Techniques for
each of these activities are discussed
and examples presented. A particular
emphasis of the report is on evaluating
alternatives rather than on assessing the
impacts of a "best" alternative. The
types of water quality strategies dis-
cussed in Part 1 include conventional
and alternative wastewater techniques,
stormwater management controls, hydro-
graphic modifications, water conservation
controls, industrial wastewater controls,
growth management controls, and other
non-point source controls.
Part 2 considers techniques for esti-
mating the impacts of water quality con-
trols for the above impact categories.
Socioeconomic issues, impact Indicators,
and measurement techniques are pre-
sented for each impact category.
This Project Summary was developed
by SPA's Municipal Environmental Re-
search Laboratory, Cincinnati, OH, to
announce key findings of the research
project that Is fully documented In a sep-
arate report of the same title (see Project
Report ordering information at back).
Introduction
Since its inception in 1969, the National
Environmental Policy Act has called for
the Socioeconomic effects of the water
quality planning process to be assessed.
Despite this mandate, Socioeconomic
impacts have received spotty attention
in the environmental assessments and in
impact statements that accompany
wastewater facilities plans and area-
wide water quality planning efforts.
Increasingly, however, Socioeconomic
issues, such as the effects of land use and
user charges, have influenced the public
acceptance of water quality strategies.
Typical Socioeconomic issues associated
with water quality strategies are shown
in Table 1.
The purpose of this report is to provide
water quality planners with methods
and techniques for considering socio-
economic impacts in the water quality
planning process. Although the report
was originally designed to provide gui-
dance for areawide water quality man-
agement planning, it is also relevant to
sewerage planning done under the Sec-
tion 201 construction grants program.
Water Quality Strategies
One of the main purposes of the back-
ground research supporting the develop-
ment of the report was to develop an
understanding of how Socioeconomic
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Table 1. Representative Socioeconomic Issues in Water Quality Management
Planning
Employment and Economic Growth
• increase in construction-related
employment for pollution control
facilities
• locational shift of businesses
• increase in employment for opera-
tion and maintenance of pollution
control facilities
• increase in employment for admin-
istration, planning, and manage-
ment of pollution controls
Public Fiscal Costs
• increase in capital, operation, and
management costs related to public
pollution controls
• increase in revenue from pollution
control charges and fees
• increase in regulatory costs related
to private pollution controls
Land Use
• pre-emption of land for pollution
control facilities
• changes in site design
• changes in use of existing built
environment and land uses
environment and land uses
• changes in growth pattern (timing,
amount, locations, and type of growth)
Public Health/Safety
• impacts associated with operation of
pollution control facilities involving
hazardous wastes
• impacts associated with improved water
quality for drinking and recreational
uses
• impacts associated with strategies
that offer multiple benefits in terms
of flood prevention, erosion control,
environmental sanitation
• impacts associated with malfunctioning
of pollution control facilities
Private Cost and Benefit Incidence
• increase in pollution abatement costs
for firms,developers
• increase in homeowner user charges
• increase in property taxes
• increase in special assessments
• increase in real estate values
Other Public Services
• change in water consumption
demands
• change in water supply availability
• change in solid waste management
• change in storm drainage
management
• change in street maintenance
Visual
• conflicts in fit-with-setting
• conflicts with visual identity
• visual nuisances
• conflicts with views and vistas
• changes in natural elements
Historic Resources
• changes in the number, type, location,
use, and character of historic,
archaeological, and architectural
resources
Recreation
• changes in recreational opportunities
• changes in recreational demand
impacts—both direct and indirect—occur
from water quality strategies. The report
divides water quality strategies into three
component parts:
• Physical controls or management
practices
• Implementation measures
• Institutional arrangements
Physical controls or management
practices are physical actions that modify
or reduce pollutants. Controls include
not only end-of-the-line approaches
such as treatment plants but also any
physical activity that modifies the physi-
cal generation of wastes in the waste
stream process. Four general types of
physical controls in water quality man-
agement are: reduction of waste genera-
tion; modification of wastes after gene-
ration in on-site, collection, or final treat-
ment facilities; redistribution of wastes
from one receiving media to another; and
alteration of the assimilative capacity of
the receiving media. Physical controls
may range from simple .management
practices such as contour plowing used
in agricultural erosion control to advanced
wastewater treatment plants.
A variety of features of physical con-
trols stimulate impacts:
Physical features
Capacity
Resource inputs
Physical by-products
Construction activities
Operating characteristics
Location is a unique issue that shapes
each of the above characteristics in
stimulating impacts. Certain features
such as construction activities may not
have any socioeconomic effects, but
when combined with location, construc-
tion activities may affect historic re-
sources or produce sensory impacts for
an adjacent area.
Implementation measures are the
incentives or inducements that precipi-
tate or spur an action. For physical control
actions to take place, they must have
some type of trigger to ensure their
implementation. These implementation
measures may take a variety of forms,
such as sewer use charges, sediment
control ordinances, operation and main-
tenance manuals, or zoning by-laws.
They may be regulatory, enforcement,
economic, or educational in nature.
Not only will implementation measures
influence the effectiveness of control
strategies, they will also stimulate socio-
economic impacts. Regulatory and eco-
nomic incentives have the most potential
for stimulating impacts. For example.
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stormwater control ordinances, pretreat-
ment ordinances, erosion control ordi-
nances, and sewer surcharges—all of
these generally induce private sector
compliance costs as well as public fiscal
administrative costs.
. Institutional arrangements, the third
component of a water quality strategy,
encompass the institutions and arrange-
ments to manage and finance a water
quality strategy. The type and distribu-
tion of socioeconomic impacts asso-
ciated with institutional arrangements
will depend on the following factors:
• The number and type of manage-
ment responsibilities to be per-
formed;
• The distribution of responsibilities;
• The methods used to finance public
control strategies and to finance im-
plementation measures.
Obviously, the greater the number of
management functions to be performed
by a public agency, the greater the po-
tential for increased public expenditures.
The size of the impact, however, will be
affected by public/private sector distri-
bution of responsibilities and by the geo-
graphic distribution of responsibilities
among agencies. Public finance mecha-
nisms represent a means of further
distributing public costs to the private
sector—to firms and individuals.
The above factors help explain how
direct socioeconomic impacts occur
from water quality strategies. Indirect
impacts are those stimulated by direct
impacts. For example, a water quality
strategy that imposes erosion controls
on farmers might change the farmer's
production costs, or crop income, or
both. These direct cost and revenue
changes might, in turn, stimulate the
impact chain shown below:
Changes in
Agricultural Production
Erosion -*-Costs and -^Changes in
Controls Revenues Land Values
The impact chain could, of course, go
on further as population changes may
trigger changes in public service demand,
employment, land use, recreational op-
portunities, etc. The likelihood and mag-
nitude of indirect impacts depend on the
likelihood of the preceding impact and on
the context of the impact area.
The report outlines in summary form
direct and indirect socioeconomic issues
for the following types of water quality
control strategies:
• Conventional centralized wastewater
treatment systems
• On-site and alternative wastewater
treatment systems
• Residuals management
• Hydrographic modifications
• Infiltration/inflow and combined
sewer controls
• Water conservation controls
• Industrial wastewater controls
• Urban stormwater source controls
• Urban stormwater flow attenuation
controls
• Urban stormwater storage treat-
ment controls
Measurement Techniques
A large portion of the report is devoted
to techniques for measuring the effect of
the following 10 socioeconomic impact
categories:
• Public fiscal
• Private individual costs and benefits
• Private firm costs
• Employment and economic growth
• Land use, housing, and population
• Other public services
• Recreational opportunities
• Historic resources
• Sensory
• Public health and safety
There is a chapter for each of these im-
pact categories, and each chapter covers
the following topics: impact description;
impact indicators; preliminary consider-
ations; measurement techniques; data
sources; and references. Numerous
examples and checklists highlight the
discussion of the impact measurement
techniques. Two examples are shown in
Figure 1 and Table 2, and a typical
checklist is shown in Table 3.
In addition to presenting specific
impact measurement techniques, the
report presents a step-by-step process
Conversion i
of Land to Changes in
-^•Developed -^-Housing -^-Changes in
Uses Supply Population
for doing all aspects of a socioeconomic
assessment. Socioeconomic assessments
consist of four activities: impact identifi-
cation, impact measurement, impact
evaluation, and impact mitigation. The
steps involved in doing these four modu-
lar activities are summarized in Figure 2.
Suggested techniques and alternatives
for performing these activities are pre-
sented in the report.
The full report was submitted in fulfill-
ment of Contract No. 68-03-2618 by
Urban Systems Research and Engineer-
ing, Inc., under the sponsorship of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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Impacts:
Direct Impacts
Sewage
Treatment
Plant
Indirect Impacts
Housing
IU
Population
11
1 ^
Private
Firm Costs
13
Employment
10
Public
Services
17
18
Figure 1. Direct and indirect impacts associated with a sewage treatment facility in Smithville. Background: Smithville is a small
bedroom community of5,000 located along Interstate 24 about 20 miles south of Center City. Because of poor soils
that limit development with on-site wastewater systems, the town is considering its first sewage treatment facility.
About 2,000 of the town's residents will be served by the first phase of the project. Local capital costs for the project
will be financed by long-term general obligation bonds that will be paid off by property taxes, benefit assessments.
and user charges. Local capital costs will total $3 million. The only two industries in town, two leather tanning
firms, presently discharge to the North River. The proposed plan calls for them to discontinue their present
direct discharges of tanning wastes and to pretreat their wastes and tie into the new advanced sewage
treatment plant. Because of a shortage of sites along the North River, the plant will be built in an area
characterized by large-lot single-family homes. 1. Sensory = increased visual and noise nuisances. 2. Recreation
= loss of public access to boating and canoe launching area. 3. Employment = increase in construction-related and
operational employment associated with the plant. 4. Land use = increase in developable residential land
in the southern part of town and commercial land around Interstate 24 highway interchange. 5. Public fiscal =
increase in capital and operational costs associated with public sewerage. 6. Individual land values = increases
in property values of proposed sewered land. 7. Individual land values = decrease in land values in the
area surrounding the treatment plant. 8. Recreation = increase in demand on other riverfront public boat and canoe
areas. 9. Employment - increase in multiplier service-related employment. 10. Housing - increased number of
housing units; changes in single-family/multi-family mix in town; and increased rate of development. 11. Population
increased population and rate of growth. 12. Employment = increase in commercial and construction employment.
13. Employment= increase in multiplier service-related employment. 14. Public services = changes in public services
demand. 15. Private firm costs - changes in wastewater costs and tax burdens for firms connected to municipal
systems. 16. Employment = decreases in local manufacturing employment. 17. Public services = change in water
consumption demand. 18. Individual costs = changes in wastewater costs and taxes. 19. Public services = changes in
proposed water supply facilities construction.
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Table 2. Effect of a New Sewage Treatment Facility on Employment of Construc-
tion Workers
Facility Cost = $77.9 million
Assumptions:
• skilled labor accounts for 25% of total cost
• unskilled labor accounts for 40% of total cost
• skilled labor - $15/hour
• unskilled labor = $10/hour
• person-year = 2000 person-hours
Dollar value of skilled labor = $77.900.000 x .25 = $19.5M
Dollar value of unskilled labor = 77.900,000 x.40 = $31.1M
Level of effort of skilled labor - 19,500,000 H- $15/M + 2000 hours =
19,500,000 +$15/M 4- 2000 hoursGSO person-years
Level ofeffort of unskilled labor = 31,100,000 4- $JO/M +2000 hours -
19,500,000 + $15/M+20001555 person-years
Total labor = 2205 person-years
Assumptions:
• construction period = 10 years
• construction season is 6 months (0.5 year)
Therefore: 2205 person-years -f- 10 (.51 actual construction time =
440 people employed during the construction period for 10 years
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Table 3. Suggested Checklist for Visual Impacts
Visual Impact Factors
1. Fit with Setting
Component Questions
Massing Are the height, bulk, setbacks, site cover-
age and open space patterns of project
design compatible with that of the sur-
roundings, especially at project edges?
Form Do major elements of architectural
form—roof line, solid/void relationship,
windows, etc., correspond to those of the
project's surroundings?
Surfaces Are the colors, textures and materials of
the project surfaces comparable to those
of the surroundings?
2. Visual Identity
Character Will the proposed facility constitute a
compatible land use in the community;
will it encourage an increase in the rate
and extent to which undeveloped land is
converted to urban uses?
3. Views and Vistas
Sightlines Does the facility design respect sightlines
from public areas to views valued by the
community?
Vantages Does the facility design conserve a valued
vantage point on-site from which views
are traditionally enjoyed, or does it create
one?
Vistas Is the facility as a whole compatible with
its setting where seen from afar? Will it
encourage development that is
compatible?
4. Visual Nuisances
Physiological Does the facility provide conditions
Comfort favorable to the ease and comfort of sight
(no glare, shadows, flashing lights, etc.)?
Physiological Does the facility eliminate or screen
Comfort visual nuisances or eyesores?
5. Natural Elements
Conservation Does the strategy encourage the
conservation or preservation of existing
topography, vegetation, etc.?
Landscaping Does the control strategy provide or
encourage the use of new natural
features (i.e., planting shrubs, trees,
grass, etc.)?
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Impact Identification
Describe the Alternative or Proposed Action
Determine Direct Impact Issues
Determine Direct Impact Incidence
Determine Indirect Impact Issues
Determine Indirect Impact Incidence
Aggregate and Display Results
Impact Measurement
• Perform Scoping Analysis
• Determine Measurement Approach
—Level of Analysis
—Appropriate Indicators
—Measurement Techniques
—Area of Analysis
—Assessment Time Frame
• Determine Baseline Conditions
• Perform Impact Measurement
—Magnitude
—Direction
—Timing
—Duration
—Incidence
• Present and Display Impacts
Impact Evaluation
• Develop and Apply Screening Activities
• Determine Dominant Alternatives
• Determine Preferred Alternatives
• Determine Community Preference
Impact Mitigation
• Select Impact Prevention Measures
• Select Impact Management Measures
• Evaluate Mitigation Measures
Figure 2. Socioeconomic assessment activities.
•&U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE-. 1982/559-092/0458
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Robert F. McMahon is with Urban Systems Research and Engineering. Inc.,
Cambridge, MA 02138.
Don C. Niehus and Frank Evans are the EPA Project Officers (see below).
The complete report, entitled "Socioeconomic Impacts of Water Quality Strate-
gies," (Order No. PB 82-222 894; Cost: $31.50, subject to change) will be
available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield. VA 22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
For information, Don C. Niehus can be contacted at:
Facilities Requirements Division
Office of Water Programs
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Center for Environmental Research
Information
Cincinnati OH 45268
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