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Conjoint Analysis This project will use a conjoint analysis to determine the value of cleanup and containment of the Love Canal toxic waste site to the residents of the Love Canal Area. Residents will be asked for demographic information as well as questions regarding their knowledge of the history and contents of the Love Canal site. They will then be asked to determine their comfort level in raising children and living in the Love Canal area, and how much they may be willing to pay for further cleanup and containment of the site. The environmental issue being analyzed in this project involves the surrounding population of the Love Canal site. As a result, we have targeted this geographic area for the distribution of our questionnaire. The analysis begins with demographic information the purpose of these questions is to determine the status of the people living in the area. We’ve asked the families how many children are involved and the marital status of the parents, in order to determine who is being affected by the resulting pollution. Households have also been asked their education levels which will give us an idea of their knowledge of environmental hazards. The family incomes of the residents will help us to determine the amount of financial aid that can be provided by the community. The second part of the conjoint analysis asks the level of background information about the Love Canal’s history known by the Niagara residents. Their historical knowledge of the area’s external effects is important to the analysis because a community ignorant to the situation would significantly skew the results. Families must be aware of how the area was polluted and to what extent the area was environmentally damaged. In this section, we also tried to determine their cognizance of the possible birth defects and other health impacts associated with the Love Canal area. The scenario section of the questionnaire will evaluate the respondent’s willingness to pay for the level of remediation he/she desires. The first question in the scenario deals with how comfortable the respondent is in raising a child in the Love Canal area. This helps to measure awareness and concern about the safety of his/her children in an environmentally hazardous area. The second question will concentrate on the desired level of removal. There will be three options for this question: no removal, further containment, or total removal. These options are explained on the questionnaire to avoid any ambiguity. This question indicates how concerned individuals are about the current and future levels of contamination.
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