Advancing water-quality credit trading

摘要

Expanding its support for market-based trading programs, the U.S. EPA recently issued a permitting "toolkit" to help state regulators and water polluters develop a nutrient credit trading scheme. The toolkit provides ideas for controlling nonpoint-source pollution and for reducing the nitrogen and phosphorus that flow freely into waterways.rnAt a press conference last July, Benjamin Grumbles, EPA assistant administrator for water, pointed to the success of the trading scheme between stationary, "point-source" water treatment plants on Long Island Sound, established in 2002. That program involves pollution credit trades, similar to carbon trades for air polluters, designed to reduce nutrient pollution of waterways. The trading plan has saved these treatment plants $200 million in projected infrastructure investments, Grumbles said. Nonpoint-source pollution, or diffuse surface runoff from sources such as urban streets, suburban lawns, and farm fields, however, remains difficult for the U.S. to control, he added.