Ohio River Basin Trading Project
Water quality trading is an innovative market-based
approach to achieving water quality standards through programs that allow
emitters to purchase pollution reductions from another source. Control costs
for any one pollutant can differ from one emitter to another, and water quality
trading provides an option for meeting pollution permit targets in a cost-effective
manner. Properly designed and deployed, the proposed trading program in the Ohio River Basin
will produce water quality credits for nitrogen and phosphorus aimed at protecting watersheds
at lower overall costs. The program may also benefit
receiving water bodies as far away as the Gulf of Mexico now threatened by
nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. This will be a first-of-its-kind interstate
trading project and represents a comprehensive approach to designing and developing
credit markets for nitrogen and phosphorus.
Participants
EPRI’s Jessica
Fox (PDF
34KB) leads this effort with support from a number of electric power companies and other organizations.
A utility-sponsored program for the study of fish and aquatic invertebrates
near generating facilities along the Ohio River provides key long-term data. 
