Recreational damages from reservoir storage level changes

Several extreme events affecting recreation have occurred in the Humboldt R iver Basin of northern Nevada. In 1992, agricultural users completely drain ed Rye Patch Reservoir killing millions of fish. Additionally, since 1990 g old mines located in the basin have pumped and discharged water into the Hu mboldt River; in recent years, discharges have equaled approximately 60% of the river's annual flow. In this paper we develop and estimate a joint mod el of fish catch and recreation demand, both of which depend on water level s, to assess the losses and gains from water level changes tied to events i n the basin.