Local Secondary Effects of Watershed Projects: A Case Study of Roger Mills County, Oklahoma

Excerpts from the report Summary: Local economic benefits of watershed projects arise from two major sources: (1) net primary income, or increases in net incomes of the direct recipients of products and services from the projects, and (2) net secondary income, or increases in net incomes of other local people through multiplier effects of the primary income. Local primary income has been estimated by the Soil Conservation Service in the process of project planning. Practical methods for making reliable estimates of local secondary income in the planning process are yet to be developed. This study represents an initial step in research to devise these methods. Emphasis in the study is on increasing understanding of the economic processes which generate local secondary income and on estimating ratios of secondary to primary income for one local area. This study was conducted in Roger Mills County, Okla., where 90 of the 130 planned structures for upstream flood protection were complete by January 1963. For purposes of this study, net primary and net secondary incomes from watershed projects were expressed in terms of disposable income to recipients. The study excluded estimation of primary benefits, which were unnecessary for ascertaining the ratios of secondary to primary income. Instead, the procedure was to determine the interdependent relations among sectors of the local economy; then, the income ratios could be estimated directly. The indirect effects of agricultural and of recreational income from the projects in Roger Mills County were compared.