US EPA backs trading of water pollution credits
Date: 15-Jan-03
Country: USA
Author: Charles Abbott
EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman said the new policy would harness "the power of the market" to reduce water pollution. She likened it to a similar longtime program that has curtailed acid rain.
State and local officials would oversee trading of credits within individual watersheds, aimed primarily at reducing the amount of nutrients and sediment entering waterways. A dozen states are experimenting with credits, EPA officials said.
"There is no doubt in my mind," Whitman said, that trading in water pollution credits will mean "cleaner water at lower cost in less time."
Environmental groups were skeptical.
The Natural Resources Defense Council called the plan illegal.
"Under this policy, our waterways are for sale," said Nancy Stoner of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Only corporate polluters will benefit."
Tim Searchinger of Environmental Defense said the plan could be undercut as well by a Bush administration decision last week to reconsider which U.S. waterways are covered by the Clean Water Act.
Environmental Defense said the EPA did not include tough enough rules, such as a cap on total release of pollutants, to assure that pollution decreased overall.
An Agriculture Department official said farmers might benefit financially from the new plan. They could be paid for conservation work that went beyond current water purity rules.
"We could really jump-start buffer strips," said Bruce Knight, head of the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. He was referring to a program that pays growers to plant grasses along streambanks to trap soil, manure and chemical runoff from fields.
"We're going to unleash creativity," Knight said.
The government will ask for suggestions on how to mesh trading programs with a retooled program that shares the cost with producers for controlling farm run-off, he added. The USDA soon will unveil its proposed regulation for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.
The EPA said trading water pollution credits could save hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions of dollars, a year in costs for complying with water pollution standards.
Despite progress under pollution control laws, many U.S. lakes, rivers and streams continue to be threatened by pollution. Nutrient and sediment runoff from farms and storm water were significant contributors to problems such as hypoxia - oxygen-depleted water - in the Gulf of Mexico and decreased fish numbers in the Chesapeake Bay, EPA said.
Under the EPA plan, credits could be traded among "nonpoint" sources of pollution, such as runoff from fields, and "point" sources, such as factories or water treatment plants.
A number of state and local officials welcomed the EPA plan, saying it would give them flexibility in cleaning up water.
"Trading can be a cheaper answer to solving water quality problems in the United States and around the world," said Paul Faeth, managing director of World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank.
