Factors Affecting Stakeholders' Willingness to Pay to Prevent the Spread of Aquatic Nuisance Species.
Physical separation of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins has been identified as the most effective method for preventing the transfer of aquatic nuisance species, particularly Asian carp, from the Mississippi River Basin to the Great Lakes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers selected Extension to conduct a study of a key stakeholder group, Great Lakes charter captains, as a first step in assessing public opinion on the issue. Results reveal that the charter captains overwhelmingly support basin separation. Expanded educational outreach related to aquatic nuisance species, basin separation, and so forth would improve the ability of clientele to make informed decisions regarding separation of the basins. Introduction, Problem Statement, and Objective The potential threat to the Great Lakes ecosystem from Asian carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Hypophthalmichthys nobilis, and Mylopharyngodon piceus) has been a concern expressed in both the popular media and the scholarly literature for some time (Allington, 2012; Duhaime Ross, 2014; Rasmussen, Regier, Sparks, Taylor, 2011) Aquatic nuisance species (ANS) also known as aquatic invasive species (Van Den Berg Dann, 2008) in general, and more recently Asian carp in particular, have been identified as a critical threat to Great Lakes commercial, recreational, and tribal fisheries (Hansen, 2010; Michigan Sea Grant, 2007; Ohio Sea Grant, 2010) Interested parties have discussed numerous strategies for preventing the movement of Asian carp from the Mississippi River Basin, where they are now ubiquitous, to the Great Lakes Basin, where their presence could devastate fisheries. The proposed closure of the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) which links the two basins, is one such strategy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers analyzed the feasibility of physically separating the GL MR basins in accordance with the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [USACE] Chicago District, 2010, 2014) Because it physically connects the GL MR basins, the CAWS is a potential pathway for the transfer of Asian carp and other ANS between the two basins. Many have called for the CAWS to be closed (Great Lakes Commission and Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, 2012; Rasmussen et al. 2011) The Thomas W. Blaine Associate Professor Ohio State University Extension Columbus, Ohio blaine.17@osu.edu Frank R. Lichtkoppler Professor Emeritus Ohio Sea Grant/Ohio State University Extension Painesville, Ohio lichtkoppler21080@g mail.com Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study has resulted in baseline economic reports on key stakeholder groups in the Great Lakes that could be affected by the transfer of ANS between the basins, including commercial fisheries, pro tournament fisheries, treaty and subsistence fisheries, recreational fisheries, and the charter fishing industry (USACE Chicago District, 2012a, 2014) Much of the controversy concerning separation of the GL MR basins involves the high cost of the actual separation infrastructure and the much higher costs of addressing numerous flooding, water quality, and transportation issues that basin separation would entail. Policy makers wanted to begin to assess public opinion on this topic by first gauging the views of key stakeholder groups prior to surveying the general public (USACE Chicago District, 2010) The Great Lakes charter fishing industry is one such stakeholder group. It provides recreational access, on thewater experience, and information about the Great Lakes to thousands of anglers who may not have the craft, equipment, or knowledge needed to safely and productively venture onto the Great Lakes. In 2011, 1,904 active charter captains took more than 340,000 anglers on roughly 77,000 Great Lakes charter fishing trips, generating estimated sales of between $34.4 million and $37.8 million (USACE Chicago District, 2012b) The Great Lakes Sea Grant Network has a long history of Extension outreach with key stakeholder groups, including charter captains (Dawson, Lichtkoppler, Kuehn, Pistis, 1995; Kuehn, Lichtkoppler, Pistis, 2005) With funding from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network surveyed members of the Great Lakes charter industry, using a "payment card" version of the contingent valuation method (CVM) to assess their willingness to pay (WTP) to close the CAWS. Specifically, the objective of the study was to use CVM to assess the opinions of a key Great Lakes stakeholder group, charter captains, on closure of the CAWS to prevent the spread of Asian carp into the Great Lakes Basin. In selecting Extension to carry out the study, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers demonstrated a good deal of confidence in Extension's local knowledge, client connections, credibility, and competence in applying a sophisticated tool, CVM, to an urgent ecological problem. Indeed, CVM is not new to Extension (Blaine Smith, 2006) and it has emerged as one of the primary methods used to estimate values of a host of publically provided (nonmarket) goods and services, including the eradication and prevention of ANS (Carson, 2012; Garcia Llorente et al. 2011) Valuation of nonmarket goods and services has taken on a high profile in Extension in recent years (Allen, Bowker, Stamper, Owusu Amankwah, Davis, 2014; Haskell Morse, 2015) CVM has been adopted as an important tool in assisting Extension agents, educators, and specialists in valuing a variety of program development and outreach projects (Lawrence Mandal, 2016) This article provides extensive detail on how to obtain WTP measures from survey data and, therefore, models best practices for Extension professionals and others seeking to obtain measures of nonmarket, or public, value via CVM. The Survey The Great Lakes Sea Grant Network obtained lists of Great Lakes charter captains, and stratified sampling produced a set of 1,200 Great Lakes charter captains to receive surveys. A total of 52 surveys were returned as not deliverable. Using a modified Dillman (1978, 2000) approach, we made up to four contacts by mail in an effort to increase the response rate. This strategy resulted in a set of early respondents and a set of late respondents, enabling us to test for nonresponse bias. The data were entered in an Excel database and imported into IBM SPSS and STATA software. Feature Factors Affecting Stakeholders' Willingness to Pay to Prevent the Spread of Aquatic Nuisance Species JOE 54(6) (c) 2016 Extension Journal Inc. 1 The survey included a series of questions pertaining to basin separation and respondents' expectations for the future. (See the appendix for select survey items. We asked respondents whether they used the CAWS in a typical year and whether they supported or opposed basin separation. We also asked about respondents' WTP related to their support of basin separation or lack thereof. Annual offer amounts (also called "bids" were listed on a "payment card" presented to respondents. Bid options were established by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers economists on the basis of previous work they had done with payment cards. Respondents also were asked whether they had enough information to make a sound decision about their WTP. We then asked respondents whether they thought ANS would affect their businesses in the subsequent 5 years. We also included questions about respondents' plans for the future. The questionnaire allowed respondents to indicate their plans for the subsequent 5 years, including by selecting from nine ways in which they might expand their businesses. A key conceptual issue addressed by critics of CVM has been whether respondents reveal their true WTP on surveys or instead engage in "strategic behavior" (Carson, 2000) Strategic behavior refers to a respondent's giving a value that does not reflect his or her true preference because of a wish to influence survey results for some purpose. To overcome this problem, researchers should design CVM survey instruments that are "incentive compatible" (Champ, Flores, Brown, Chivers, 2002) where respondents have an incentive to provide responses that represent their true preferences. One way of achieving incentive compatibility involves providing respondents with the opportunity to explain the WTP options they choose. In a list of possible reasons behind respondents' WTP bid selections, we included two options respondents could select that might account for strategic behavior: "that's what it is worth to me" and "I object to paying." Inclusion of these two variables is important because they can help account for "protest bids," where respondents answer a CVM survey with values that do not reflect their real preferences because they do not accept the premise of the survey. Respondents may be in protest because of a philosophical orientation around the idea that someone else should have to pay for the project (e.g. those who introduced a nuisance species in the first place, the government) The inclusion of these two variables in surveys on WTP can be seen as a kind of quality control mechanism. An extensive literature has emerged on the issue of protest bids in CVM and how they, along with ad hoc measures used by economists to deal with them, can produce biased valuation estimates. These variables allow respondents the opportunity to express a protest without discarding the survey or distorting their responses related to WTP (Garcia Llorente, Martin Lopez, Montes, 2011; Halstead, Luloff, Stevens, 1992; Meyerhoff Liebe, 2006) Theory/Calculations Estimating mean WTP values from payment card data is not as straightforward as one might initially think (Vaughan, Russell, Rodrigues, Darling, 1999) This is because it is not known how specific WTP amounts might be distributed within the bid categories that have been chosen for the survey. The alternative to using categories is allowing an open ended response. But the open ended