Water Quality Trading and Environmental Trading Network Home Page

Second National Water Quality Trading Conference
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 23-25, 2006
Co-hosted by: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, with the Environmental Trading Network (ETN) as one of the Cooperating Organizations. NEW! Conference agenda, presentations and biographies have been posted.

The workshop was used to study and discuss the challenges that arise when market-based mechanisms are used to encourage changes in practices on the land in order to achieve environmental goals. The primary focus was on carbon sequestration and nutrient run-off reductions, though lessons will be applicable to a wide range of environmental issues. For more information, click here.

Symposium on Servicing Development within the Lake Simcoe Watershed
April 6, 2006 - King City, Canada
The draft summary of the proceedings is now available. Mark S. Kieser presented: "Setting up effluent trading programs and case studies in the US" at the conference.

Brochure A conference entitled "Markets for the New Millenium - How can Water Quality Trading Work for You?" drew experts in market based trading from as far as Taiwan and Japan. Over one hundred people attended the first conference of the Great Lakes Trading Network where progress on current trading demonstration projects and new ideas in trading frameworks were presented. Also attending were officials from the Environmental Protection Agency. All attested to the success of current projects and the need for evaluating the future trading development of the federal agency in trading initiatives. Highlights of the conference included a presentation by Paul Faeth of the World Resources Institute author of "Fertile Ground: Nutrient Trading's Potential to Cost Effectively Improve Water Quality". His work at WRI has focused on the viability of trading as a means of cost-effectively improving water quality throughout the United States. "Conventional regulatory approaches to water quality management can work, but they can be very expensive, and often don't target the biggest sources of pollution" said Faeth, "Our report shows that trading could save a lot of money in the watersheds we studied. With 3,400 waterways impaired by nutrients in the U.S., we're going to need a cost-effective solution to this problem." States' Perspectives on Trading to Achieve Reductions Required by the Clean Water Act, Roberta H. Savage, The Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators. The Chespeake Bay Program's Nutrient Trading Activities, Cy Jones, Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission. Fox-Wolf Basin 2000's Role in Watershed-Based Trading, Bruce Johnson, Fox-Wolf Basin 2000. Effluent Trading and the Lower Boise River Demonstration Project (Paper or Presentation), David Mabe, Water Director for the State of Idaho. Nitrogen Credit Trading for the Long Island Sound Watershed, Robert E. Moore, Malcolm Pirnie. Find Another Way, Paul Kramer, Rahr Malting Company. Second Progress Report on the Trading of Water Pollution Credits (Executive Summary, Full Paper), Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Market-Based Incentives and Water Quality, Paul Faeth, World Resources Institute.

The Network hosts monthly conference calls. Conference calls are typically held the last Wednesday of each month from 11:00 am to noon, Eastern Time.

The phone number for the conference call is 630-536-0905, room #1232. The conference is limited to 25 participants. Therefore, if you wish to participate, be sure to phone promptly at 11:00 a.m. EST. Follow the links below for minutes from ETN calls.

A Growing Water Grant, funded by the Great Lakes Protection Fund, has been awarded to the ETN. Titled Restoring Flow Regimes through Growing Water Transactions: Basin-wide Case Studies, the project will examine market mechanisms for water conservation and examine four case studies. The project work plan will be posted here soon. Project Partners: Applied Ecological Services Environmental Banc and Exchange Kieser & Associates King and Associates Policy Solutions The Shaw Group Sixteenth Street Community Health Center

	On July 19, 2004 the USEPA announced its Targeted Watersheds under the 2004 program. Trading was featured in five of the fourteen targeted watersheds. These watersheds include the Lake Tahoe (CA/NV), Bear River (ID, UT, WY), Kalamazoo River (MI), Cape Fear (NC) and Passaic River (NJ).
Read a summary of each trading project (PDF). Link to the US EPA Targeted Watersheds page.	For more information, check out the Kalamazoo River 2004 EPA Targeted Watershed Grant website.

ETN, partnering with the World Resources Institute and Kieser & Associates, will assist the Kalamazoo River project leader, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi (The Gun Lake Tribe), in developing, testing and implementing “model ” tools and infrastructure necessary to enable functioning water quality trading markets. Funding will support agricultural BMPs to achieve load allocation goals in an EPA-approved Kalamazoo River phosphorus TMDL. Reductions will be used to test marketplace instruments and apply agricultural participation and credit banking schemes. Trading approaches will be instituted that allow for voluntary participation, insulate producers from NPDES permit liability and can be delivered consistently through traditional programs. Transferable marketplace and regulatory instruments developed here will: facilitate access to trading programs; minimize transaction and administrative costs;connect buyers and sellers; facilitate decision-making, and; quantify and track reductions. Tools will be integrated with existing regulatory programs to foster active markets. More information is available at http://www.envtn.org/kazoo/Home_page.htm. back to top