Robin Jenkins & Heather KlemickEPA National Center for Environmental Economics

Peter MeyerThe E.P. Systems Group, Inc.

June 22, 2012

EPA’s New Handbook on the Benefits, Costs, and Impacts of Land

Cleanup and Reuse

Hosted by

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Land Reuse Handbook

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Land Reuse Handbook

• What is the Handbook?– Summary of economic theory and methods for

analysis of land cleanup and reuse projects & policies

• What is the Handbook not?– Spreadsheet model or “toolkit”

• Whom is it for?– Federal, state, and local analysts

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Economic Analysis at EPA• Analysis of economically significant new

regulations• Retrospective analysis of major programs

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Measuring Economic Consequences• Benefit-cost analysis (BCA)– Is the aggregate well-being of the nation/state/city higher or

lower with the action?– Some individuals might be worse off with the action, but could

those who are better off potentially compensate those who are worse off?

• Economic impact analysis (EIA)– Miscellaneous set of economic effects resulting from the action.– How will the allocation of resources across industries, regions,

or other sub-groups change?

Note: Chapter 3 of Handbook covers BCA vs EIA.

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For BCA and EIA

• Key question: What is the relevant geographic scale for the analysis?– For most EPA regulations, national– For other projects, could be regional, state, or local

• Key distinction: Gross vs. net impacts at the chosen scale

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EIA of Land Cleanup and Reuse • What types of impacts are measured?– Employment & income– Business openings & output, agglomeration– Taxes & government impacts– Household and residential impacts– Equity & environmental justice, gentrification

Note: Chapter 8 of Handbook covers EIA.National Center for Environmental Economics

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BCA of Land Cleanup & Reuse

• Value all social benefits and costs in $ terms• If can’t monetize, quantify• If can’t quantify, consider qualitatively• Costs usually easier to measure than benefits

Note: Chapters 6 (benefits) and 7 (costs) cover BCA.

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• Many benefits are “intangibles” • Potential categories:– Human health – Ecological – Aesthetics– Materials– Increased land productivity

• Relevant categories depend on type of site/context

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Social Benefits of Land Cleanup & Reuse

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Methods for Measuring Social Benefits• Risk Assessment – quantify direct health impacts• Economic valuation– Cost-of-illness and value of micro-risk reductions– Property value models– Stated preference

• Cannot usually add up results across methods

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Methods for Measuring Social Benefits• Benefit transfer– Use estimates from one or more existing studies– Key question: how similar is the study site to the

new site? • Affected population/neighborhood • Contaminants and affected media (soil, groundwater,

other)• Size of site, types of land use

– Large variations across contaminated sites make this difficult!

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Appendix: Data Sources by Cleanup Program

• General– Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures Survey (PACE)

http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/webpages/pace2005.html– Cleanups in My Community http://iaspub.epa.gov/Cleanups/

• RCRA Corrective Action Program– RCRAInfo http://www.epa.gov/enviro/html/rcris/index.html– Envirofacts http://www.epa.gov/enviro/index.html

• Superfund Removals & Remedial Programs– CERCLIS http://cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/srchsites.cfm

• UST Program– UST Corrective Action Program State Policy Database

http://www.gsi-net.com/USTPolicyDatabase/start.htm• Brownfields Program

– ACRES http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/pubs/acres/acresinfo.htm

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Handbook Location

• The Handbook is publicly available for download in a single PDF file at http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/webpages/LandHandbook.html

Robin JenkinsNational Center for Environmental Economics

US Environmental Protection Agency(202)566-2292 PHONE

(202)566-2338 FAXjenkins.robin@epa.gov

Heather KlemickNational Center for Environmental Economics

US Environmental Protection Agency(202)566-2522 PHONE

(202)566-2338 FAXklemick.heather@epa.gov

National Center for Environmental Economics