I find it distressing in our society that the only way we have of ascribing value to anything is by placing dollar signs in front of it. This is particularly disturbing with regards to our natural environment. The idea that recycling is only worthwhile as long as someone makes a profit from it, or that solar or other less invasive forms of energy production are only worth pursuing as long as they are as cost effective as fossil fuels or nuclear power production, from my perspective, misses the point.

Clean air, clean water, a healthy environment, a trail you can hike through the wilderness for six months, or a two-mile dirt path around a lake where you can go to reconnect - all have an intrinsic value that can never be measured by dollar signs.

Yet dollar signs are what get the attention of politicians and the profit-driven engine that shapes our society. While I, personally, think it’s a slippery slope, there are many in the conservation and environmental arena who feel the only way they can communicate in these times is to devise a way of attributing dollar values to the many facets of our natural environment.

The Trust for Public Land has compiled an extensive report detailing the economic benefits of preserving wilderness, green spaces and open areas. The report is available on their website www.tpl.org, click on Research Room then Economic Benefits and you will find the report in pdf format and text version. Some of the highlights from the report include:

° Property values - Land adjacent to a greenway in Salem, Ore., sold for an average of $1,200 more per acre than property only a 1,000 feet away. Chattanooga, Tenn., has undertaken an ambitious greenway project, turning an old warehouse district along the Tennessee River into an eight-mile greenway. Property values along the greenway have increased more than 100 percent.

° Tourism - Travel and tourism is a $500 billion industry in this country. In 1996, sport fishing accounted for more than $108 billion of the US economy. Wildlife viewing, including bird-watching, generates more than $85 billion annually.

° Environment - Preservation of open areas is the most cost effective way of providing clean air and water. New York City recently spent $1.5 billion purchasing 80,000 acres to protect its watershed. The other option for the Big Apple would have been to spend $8 billion to build a water filtration plant that would cost $300 million a year to operate. Buffers along streams and rivers help filter pollutants and retain stormwater. One forestry organization, American Forests, estimates the value of stormwater retention from trees in metropolitan areas across the country to be $400 billion.

In a study done closer to home, “An Analysis of the Fiscal Impact of Alternative Land Uses in Macon County, North Carolina” by Jeremy L. Jones and Susan B. Kask of Western Carolina University, the authors looked at the effect of land use on the Macon County budget.

The study sampled 1,592 tax parcels using tax data from fiscal year 2000. Property tax revenues and average costs of property tax supported services were estimated for three land-use categories in the county: residential, commercial and farmland/open-space.

Results from the study showed residential and commercial properties demanded more in services than they contributed in property tax revenues. The farmland/open-space category contributed more in tax revenue than it required in services.

One model in the report studied the impact of a 30-acre parcel of farmland/open-space. The study concluded the county would gain $290 in revenue if the parcel remained undeveloped, while losing a net $532 if the parcel was developed in 10, 3-acre lots with homes.

I can only hope these studies and similar studies from across the country will serve to translate the value of wilderness, open spaces and greenways, into a language our society can understand. For me, a dollar sign and all the digits one could imagine have no bearing on the worth of one sunset from Waterrock Knob.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)

 

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