Potential Economic and Environmental Impacts of Alternative Sediment Control Policies

Extract: The objectives of the study are two-fold: The first objective is to quantitatively simulate future national and regional changes in soil loss, agricultural production, and costs under projected "low" and "high" levels of agricultural exports. The second objective is to investigate the impact on sedimentation of two policies aimed at reducing sediment in the nation's waterways. The two policies are: (a) the 5 Ton Limit which restricts sediment through a physical regulation on crop production requiring activities with no greater than five tons of gross soil loss per acre annually, and (b) the "Tax" policy which uses a cost (tax) on sediment actually reaching the main river basins to generate the same national sediment standard as the 5 Ton Limit.