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Costs of Maintaining Public Health Standards for Spray Irrigation of Municipal Waste Water Systems¹

ABSTRACT

Cost estimates of alternatives for controlling the spread of disease organisms in aerosols from municipal spray irrigation systems are compared to determine the conditions when a particular alternative is cost effective. A cost simulation model and previously published cost estimates are used to evaluate the cost effectiveness of the alternatives. The alternatives examined are assumed to provide a minimum level of disease prevention. Depending upon the circumstances, any of the alternatives evaluated may be cost effective. When chlorination provides a sufficient level of disinfection, it appears to be the least cost alternative. Two alternatives, substitution of surface for spray irrigation when surface terrain permits, and the use of buffer zones when land costs are low, are also likely to be cost effective. Buffer zones in excess of 500 m can be cost effective, depending upon initial land costs and whether or not the buffer area can be farmed.

Key Words: land treatment • costs • simulation • health constraints

¹ Contribution from the Natural Resource Economics Div., Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service, USDA, University Park, PA 16802.

² Agricultural Economist.

Received for publication February 15, 1979.