Contingent Valuation of the Western Lake Pontchartrain Basin Ecosystem

J. Johnson

Project Overview

How much would the residents of southeast Louisiana be willing to pay to restore the swamps and marshes around Lake Pontchartrain? Benefits such as hunting, fishing, and hurricane protection are not only delivered to the owners of land, but to public users as well; and because we do not pay for these quality-of-life amenities, it can be hard to attribute a price for them.

A more accurate price—the value we place on our wetlands—can be useful when choosing restoration projects based on cost-to-benefit ratios, among other things. This study set out to determine a hypothetical price called a willingness-to-pay, or WTP, for restoration of marsh and swamplands via telephone survey. In our survey, we asked about a particular wetlands area in order to create the hypothetical market:  the river diversion project through the Maurepas Swamp and Wildlife Management Area (WMA) defined as Restoration Project PO-29 under the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA). This area is a prime example of wetlands loss due to earlier projects to levee the Mississippi River.  404 respondents were questioned over twelve days, and sampled randomly 16 southeast Louisiana parishes.

We used the estimated WTP to conservatively calculate an aggregated value of $35,456,095 for the Maurepas wetlands for purely the public good, setting aside private benefits and other possible issues; this covers the majority of the $50 million restoration project. Our aggregate value based estimated WTP can be used to calculate an average of $985 per acre for the approximately 36,000 acres affected by the Maurepas river diversion project. 

We also found that the relationship between home value and hurricane and storm protection is high; for those who view storm protection as an important aspect of wetlands restoration, the higher value of their home meant a greater value of WTP for restoration. Of the respondents that answered a question on a tax for restoration, 84.4% said that they would be willing on some level to pay via income tax for restoration efforts.