Event Marks World’s First Interstate Water Quality Trading Project

The Ohio River Basin Trading Project is the world’s first interstate water quality trading program and on  March 11, the Electric Power Research Institute, which created the initiative, will host an event to showcase the project’s first water nutrient credits. 

The Ohio River Basin Trading Project is the world’s first interstate water quality trading program and on March 11, the Electric Power Research Institute, which created the initiative, will host an event to showcase the project’s first water nutrient credits.

3 March 2014 | Three states in the Ohio River Basin are moving forward with the first interstate water quality credit trade this month. Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana make up the water quality trading program that, if successful, will reduce nutrient pollution flowing into the Ohio River by over 90,000 pounds.

Established by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit organization focused on electricity, the trading system operates using 30 farms in the three states that generate credits by keeping nutrients-nitrogen and phosphorus-from reaching the waterway. The credits are then sold to power plants, sewage facilities and other utilities that cause nutrients to enter the river.

This water quality trading (WQT) project will officially launch on March 11. EPRI will showcase the first voluntary, verified, and quantified stewardship credits for water nutrients in the project.

The event will take place in Cincinnati from 9 am – 4 pm EST time.

This event will mark a historic milestone for the only interstate water quality trading project in the world, EPRI says in a statement. It will officially transfer the credits, share perspectives from key federal and state agency staff, hear from farmers and credit buyers themselves, and provide an unmatched networking event.

Stakeholders in attendance at the event in Ohio will include participants from Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, US Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, farmers and others.

Visit the Ohio River Basin Trading Project website for more information.

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