USDA and EPA Sign Water Quality Credit Trading Agreement

Oct. 16, 2006

The USDA Natural Resources and Environment under Secretary Mark Rey and Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator of the U.S. EPA’s Office of Water, signed a partnership agreement to establish and promote water quality credit trading markets through cooperative conservation. The agreement features a pilot project within the Chesapeake Bay basin to showcase the effectiveness of environmental markets.

“Water quality credit trading is a flexible, cost-effective approach for implementing conservation practices that reduce runoff, help producers meet water quality standards and pursue water quality improvement goals in watersheds,” Rey said. “We believe that voluntary, incentive-based approaches are the most effective way to achieve sound resource management and conservation on private lands.”

“Trading for upgrading water quality is the wave of the future,” Grumbles said. “We are committed to giving good stewards credit and partnering with agriculture to accelerate restoration and protection. This agreement is a big step forward.”

Water quality credit trading uses a market-based approach that offers incentives to farmers and ranchers who implement conservation practices that improve water quality. While reducing pollution, they can earn credits they can trade with industrial or municipal facilities that are required by the Clean Water Act and other laws to reduce the amounts of pollution in wastewater.

Allowing the market to determine the price per credit by using the principle of supply and demand offers incentives that generate interests among a greater number of participants, which will expand conservation practices to more acres of agricultural lands. Private-sector water quality markets complement existing federally supported conservation efforts by creating additional revenue streams for water quality improvement.

Source: EPA

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