Water Quality Trading: A Guide for the Perplexed

• Author: G. Tracy Mehan III
• Pages: 22-26

22 Best of the Books: Ref‌lections on Recent Literature

Water Quality Trading:

A Guide for the Perplexed

By G. Tracy Mehan III

Water Quality Trading: A G uide for the Wastewater Communi ty,

by Cy Jones, Lisa Bacon, Mark S . Kieser, and David Sheridan. McGraw-

Hill/W EF Press. 329 pages.

National Forum on Syner gies Between Water Quality Trading and

Wetland Mitigation B anking, by the

Environmental Law Institu te. 64 pages.

From the May/ June 2006 issue of The

Environmental For um.

In the spring of 2003, this publication

featured a roundtable discussion on

EPA’s newly released Water Quality

Trading Policy (T F: “Emissions

Trading Moves To Water, But It’s Not As

Simple,” March/April 2003). A s a repre-

sentative for the agency at the time, this

reviewer was, and is, a f ull-throated advo-

cate for the extension of this technique to

the realm of water quality management,

oering the view that “water quality trad-

ing is an idea whose time has come.”

While none of the other contributors

slammed the idea entirely, there were reser-

vations expressed all around. e represen-

tative for the wastewater community was

concerned that the policy did not transfer

liability from point source dischargers (the

big pipes in the water) to nonpoint sources

(generators of diuse runo such as agri-

cultural producers) when t rading credits