[programs & services] [community planning and environmental management]
(Water Quality Trading Information Resources and Links)


K-State Water Quality Trading Research and Outreach Team:

Jeff Peterson
Kyle Mankin
John Leatherman
Craig Smith
Ming-chieh Lee
Aaron Lusby
Robert Wilson

Questions?: John Leatherman, 785-532-4492, jleather@agecon.ksu.edu

Organizations

EPA Water Quality Trading Website
Provides water quality trading information and initiative from the EPA

USDA Water Quality Trading Website
Provides WQT information from USDA. National Agricultural Library, Water Quality Information Center

Water Quality Trading and Environmental Trading Network
The Environmental Trading Network is an organization dedicated solely to the development and implementation of successful water quality trading programs and other market-based strategies for achieving healthy sustainable ecosystems. The ETN began in 1998 to support the Kalamazoo River (MI) Water Quality Trading Demonstration Project.

2nd National Water Quality Trading Conference - Presentations
This conference held in May, 2006, included a diverse group of presenters from across the nation. The presentations ranged from exploring opportunities and challenges of trading programs to including nonpoint sources in trading and measuring program success. This website includes links to all of the presentations.

Chesapeake Bay Program - Nutrient Trading
The Chesapeake Bay Program convened the Nutrient Trading Negotiation Team (Negotiation Team) in June 1999 for the purpose of exploring the feasibility of nutrient trading for point and nonpoint sources in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and develops nutrient trading guidelines for the Bay-area jurisdictions to use on a voluntary basis. Their goal is delisting the Bay from the impaired water bodies list for nutrients and sediments by 2010.

Nutrient Net
NutrientNet is a trading website that it can help to resolve some of the transaction costs and credits estimating concern by providing a simple way for buyers and sellers to connect, making it relatively easy for both point sources and nonpoint sources to estimate their remediation costs using standard, consistent methods, and by making the record of trade readily accessible.

CASE Studies

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance (Case Study)
The Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance is an independent, non-profit organization that identifies issues and advocates effective policies and actions to protect, restore and sustain the water resources of Wisconsin's Fox-Wolf River Basin.

Summary information on current trading efforts in the U.S.
Lists project names, organizations, locations and brief descriptions of current trading efforts in the United States.

Water Quality Pollutant Trading in Idaho: A Step-by-Step Agricultural Community Guide
In 2001, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) developed the Lower Boise River pollutant trading marketplace in anticipation of the likely need to reduce phosphorus discharges in response to water quality concerns. This website provides detailed guidance on how to execute a Water Quality Pollutant trade for agricultural operators in a watershed with an established market.

Water Quality Credit Trading, Oregon DEQ
This Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Website provides the Water Quality Trading Policy and other information resources of the State of Oregon.

Framework for trading phosphorus credits
Describes a project to develop a framework for trading phosphorus (P) credits between point and nonpoint sources in the Lake Allatoona watershed in north Georgia. (University of Georgia)

Kieser & Associates - Environmental Science and Engineering
KIESER & ASSOCIATES served as the technical consultant for Watershed Management Plan. They are actively involved in WQT projects at Michigan and Ohio.

Passaic Water Quality Trading Project
The Water Quality Trading Program for the Non-Tidal Passaic River Watershed, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Can Water Quality Trading Help to Address Agricultural Sources of Pollution in Canada?
Examines the potential for reducing agricultural sources of water pollution using Water Quality Trading in Canada.

Literature

Water Quality Trading Assessment Handbook
This handbook provides a means for assessing the potential to effectively use WQT to address the water quality problem(s) in watersheds. Specifically, the handbook assesses the likely viability of watershed-scale trading conducted in the context of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) or equivalent framework.

A Summary of U.S. Effluent Trading and Offset Projects, November 1999
The report was produced by Environomics for the EPA in 1990. The report briefly summarizes 37 effluent trading and offset activities that were occurring or had occurred around the United States since the 1980s.

Water Quality Trading and Offset Initiatives in the U.S. A Comprehensive Survey
This document summarizes water quality trading and offset initiatives in the United States, including state-wide policies and recent proposals as of 2004. This research was supported by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College and finished by Dartmouth College, Hanover New Hampshire.

Water Quality Trading in the United States
This paper provides a systematic overview of water quality trading in the U.S. The primary source of information for this overview is a detailed database, collected and compiled by a team of researchers at Dartmouth College.

Fertile ground: Nutrient trading's potential to cost-effectively improve water quality
Fertile Ground documents case studies in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota undertaken to explore the cost-effectiveness and environmental performance of various strategies to reduce phosphorus loads in nutrient-impaired waterways.

Data and Modeling for Environmental Credit Trading
A Conservation Effects Assessment Bibliography (Special Reference Briefs Series no. SRB 2004-03)

Water Quality Trading Guide
Getting Paid for Stewardship: An Agricultural Community Water Quality Trading Guide.
CTIC (Conservation Technology Information Center), under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has developed a new guide to help the agricultural advisors understand why producers may want to participate in water quality trading and how water quality trading works.

Report of the Conservation Innovations Task Force (CITF)
The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) cooperated to establish a Conservation Innovations Task Force to investigate new and innovative approaches to addressing emerging environmental issues (Nov. 2003, Washington DC).

Relevant Regulations

Clean Water Act (CWA)
The 1972 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (known as the Clean Water Act or CWA) provide the basic structure for regulating the discharge of pollutants to waters of the United States.

Clean Water Act Section 319
Congress amended the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1987 to establish the section 319 Nonpoint Source Management Program because it recognized the need for greater federal leadership to help focus state and local nonpoint source efforts. Under section 319, states, territories, and Native American tribes receive grant money to assess the success of specific nonpoint source implementation projects.

EPA National Water Quality Inventory Report to Congress (305(b) report)
The National Water Quality Inventory Report to Congress (305(b) report) is the primary vehicle for informing Congress and the public about general water quality conditions in the United States. This document characterizes our water quality, identifies widespread water quality problems of national significance, and describes various programs implemented to restore and protect our waters.

Water Quality Conditions reported to EPA by the states
The 305(b) report or the 2002 National Assessment Database summarizes electronic information submitted by the states to EPA. This represents the most recent electronically-available state water quality information.

Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs)
A TMDL or Total Maximum Daily Load is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standards, and an allocation of that amount to the pollutant's sources. This Website provides TMDL information and summaries of the TMDL program available for EPA Regions and the states.

BMPs

USDA NRCS Nutrient & Pest Management Technical Resources
Describes nutrient and pest management information, methods and tools.

National Conservation Practice Standards - NHCP
Lists the current national conservation practices in alphabetical order by practice name and provides the practice standard, a conservation practice information sheet, and the Conservation Practice Physical Effects (CPPE) worksheet for most practices.

Water Quality BMPs, Effectiveness, and Cost
Lists recommended best management practices (BMP) for conventional and no-till cropping systems and for land application of livestock waste. Shows effectiveness of BMP in reducing runoff. (Kansas State University MF2572)