EPA Water Quality Trading Evaluation -- Final Report, October 2008

EPA Water Quality Trading Evaluation: Final Report

Water Quality Trading in Integrated Hydrologic Framework

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been pressing for this type of approach since the promulgation of its Water Quality Trading Policy in 2003, the intent of which is “to encourage voluntary trading programs that facilitate implementation of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), reduce the costs of compliance with Clean Water Act regulations, establish incentives for voluntary reduc...

Application of an environmental decision support system to a water quality trading program affected by surface water diversions.

Environmental decision support systems (EDSSs) are an emerging tool used to integrate the evaluation of highly complex and interrelated physicochemical, biological, hydrological, social, and economic aspects of environmental problems. An EDSS approach is developed to address hot-spot concerns for a water quality trading program intended to implement the total maximum daily load (TMDL) for phosp...

Management Areas and Fixed Costs in the Economics of Water Quality Trading

Hung and Shaw’s (2005) trading-ratio system is modified to accommodate a management area approach wherein emissions sources are organized by impacts on identified “hot spots” and trading accounts for fixed as well as variable costs. An empirical example of phosphorus trading in a watershed with 22 potential traders demonstrates that marginal cost trading using a trading-ratio system yield nomin...

Crunch Time for Water Quality Trading

Economists have been promoting water quality (WQ) trading for decades. Over the past few years, many political leaders and upper-level government officials have been joining them. Money has even started to flow from Wash-ington to local trading organizations to help make WQ trading work. However, enthusiasm about WQ trading is based mostly on conceptual arguments about its potential to generate...