Fish population threatened by water levels, use
As part of USU’s Water Initiative Seminar series, Texas A&M University professor Douglass Shaw spoke to USU students Wednesday about water flows, endangered species and the theory of uncertainty. In his lecture, Shaw said he is working to create effective modeling using both biology and economics to allow businesses to access bodies of water without threatening the local species of fish, he said. “It’s perfectly legal in the U.S. to run a river perfectly dry, and they do it,” Shaw said.
Shaw said he got his start in bioeconomics four years ago. He said a consultant asked him to be part of the Columbia River Litigation for Washington. A group in Washington wanted permits for using the river’s water, Shaw said, but Washington was concerned about the repercussions of activity on the local fish stock.
“One side filed a suit saying, ‘We have an enormous economic value in this river if you’ll give it to us,'” Shaw said. “Washington wanted to leave the water in the river.” Because there wasn’t any evidence that using the river’s water would never affect the fish stock in the future, Shaw said, the judge ruled in favor of Washington, and the permits were not granted.
Shaw said economists constantly debate the cost of units of water. He also said some economists try to set unified prices so all units of water cost the same. “Is there just one price on water?” Shaw said. “No. It’s just a fantasy utopian way economists look at it.”
When a user buys water, it’s not the only thing they’re paying for, he said. “A water manager might ask, ‘Is the cost I’m paying for the value of the water or protecting the silver minnow?'” Shaw said. “You can’t separate the two. There isn’t a difference.”
Shaw said biologists are increasingly concerned about the impact of water use on fish populations. He said if water flow is too high, it can have harmful effects on the fish stock because the fish can’t find each other and the population gradually dies out. However, he said high water flow isn’t the only concern. “If the water flow is too low,” he said, “it starts to destroy the habitat by things like corrosion.” Shaw said existence value plays a factor in how far conservation groups will go to save a species of fish. Existence value is the amount citizens are willing to pay to in order to keep a species alive, he said.
“Society is willing to pay money to keep the fish around just to know they exist,” Shaw said. “Citizens think, ‘I don’t want to catch the fish or use them, I just want to know they’re there.’ Existence value only exists if the species is close to extinction.”
Shaw said although biologists and economists can try to reach a middle ground to use the water efficiently as well as protect the fish, there will always be a level of uncertainty concerning the future of fish stocks. He said it isn’t possible to predict everything that could happen to the stock.
“You have to assume nature is playing a game against you and you’re going to lose,” he said. “You have to fight nature’s adverse game on you. You have to design, simulate, and predict what nature will throw at you next.”
Shaw said he would like to see this model project continue, and he invited interested USU students to join in the research. “One thing we’d like to do is collect data,” Shaw said. “It’d be cool to get real data from rivers and stocks of fish.” The Water Initiative is a program aimed at interdisciplinary work between USU’s varying colleges and the water science program, according USU’s Web site. The Water Initiative Seminar brings a different speaker every Wednesday at 4 p.m. to the Biology Natural Resources building Room 102. It is free and open to the public.-rac.ch@aggiemail.usu.edu