ABSTRACT
In terms of applying a market solution to environmental problems, few areas are more troublesome than water pollution. State and federal agencies use elaborate models to determine pollution policy, but it is far easier to conceptualize an optimal level of pollution than it is to actually achieve it. The study examined four pollution control policies: least cost, uniform treatment, single effluent charge, and zone effluent charge. The low-cost firm would then reduce the pollution level it had previously been allowed to discharge and still make a profit from the sale of the permit. Pollution has also reduced aesthetic and recreational values in United States coastal waters, where recreational areas are frequently closed for swimming, fish are banned for human consumption, and beaches are cluttered with garbage and petroleum. These problems were graphically illustrated in the summer of 1988 when a nauseating array of medical wastes dumped at sea washed up on beaches from northern New Jersey to Long Island.
