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Nutrient Banking / Credit Exchange: A Local Perspective. Keith White December 4, 2012 Virginia Association of Soil & Water Conservation Districts 2012 Annual Meeting. Nutrient Trading and the Local Process.
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Nutrient Banking / Credit Exchange: A Local Perspective Keith White December 4, 2012 Virginia Association of Soil & Water Conservation Districts 2012 Annual Meeting
Nutrient Trading and the Local Process • Developers can use nutrient trading to meet the nutrient reduction requirements of the Virginia Stormwater Management Program regulations • Localities can use nutrient trading to meet nutrient reduction requirements of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay TMDL Watershed Implementation Plan • Localities can be “bankers” and develop nutrient credits for sale and use by others to satisfy nutrient reduction requirements
Showing Compliance with the Stormwater Management Program Regulations • Localities must permit use of nutrient trading to satisfy the stormwater quality requirements • Nutrient trading can’t be used to address stormwater quantity requirements • Compliance with the new stormwater quantity requirements may result in limited use of nutrient trading • Nutrient trading will be used to address the portion of the required nutrient reduction that isn’t or can’t be achieved by on-site measures
Showing Compliance with the Chesapeake Bay TMDL WIP • Required reductions are significant and costly • Citizens ultimately pay for compliance – whether nutrient trading and/or retrofit projects are used • How you quantify the benefits of retrofit projects and demonstrate compliance is still an unknown • Citizens and County management will insist on evaluating “low hanging fruit” and most beneficial projects first • Local improvement projects or enhancements may be determined to be the most “beneficial” even if nutrient trading is cheaper
Developing Nutrient Trading Credits • Authority for localities to become nutrient traders exists • It’s unlikely that MS4 localities will generate excess credits that would be used in a nutrient trading program • Non-MS4 localities have no reduction “requirement” and most probably won’t join in the “fun” • And until the effectiveness of potential retrofit projects can be quantified and the “baseline” concept is clarified, available credits that could be traded can’t be determined