The EPA and Dept. of Agriculture are teaming up to create market incentives for better water quality. Secretary Mark Rey of the USDA Office of Natural Resources and the Environment, and Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Water, recently 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,” said Rey. “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,” said Grumbles. “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.

The pilot program will seek to allay environmental and community groups' concerns that the market-based plan could lead to more pollution in water systems near those facilities trading for credits.

More information is available on the NRCS strategic plan at www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/strategicplan. Also visit www.epa.gov/waterqualitytrading for information more about the water quality trading agreement.