Webinar: Is a Water Quality Trading Program Right for Your Watershed?

Alex Johnson of The Freshwater Trust discusses how a water quality trading program might be the right solution for meeting your Clean Water Act compliance obligations.

Listen to the recorded webinar from September 11, 2014.

Water quality trading programs can bring together a watershed’s dischargers for a holistic approach to improving water quality, restoring habitat and applying public money in more cost-effective and ecologically appropriate ways.

This webinar covers:

• What is water quality trading and who can participate (regulated entities, farmers, landowners, others)
• How your local ecology as well as your projected future exceedance factor into the size and cost of a trading program
• When and why you should conduct a feasibility analysis and identify gaps
• How to determine if you should move ahead and develop a WQT program for your facility
• How to build an RFP and manage a WQT program to achieve compliance

Alex provides examples of successful water quality trading programs for wastewater utilities, including a temperature program for the City of Medford and a phosphorus trading project in the Klamath Basin. These examples use a “brokered transaction model” for developing credits and implementing water quality trading programs.

Who should listen:

• City and municipal managers
• Wastewater treatment/clean water managers and operators
• Consulting engineers
• Watershed group members
• Restoration professionals

Listen.

Alex Johnson has been closely involved in the analysis, development and implementation of some of the first water quality trading programs in the Pacific Northwest. He has deep experience working directly with private and public entities on regulatory issues to build natural compliance solutions. He leads The Freshwater Trust’s role as trading program broker to ensure regulatory compliance with the Clean Water Act and is intensely familiar with the logistics, costs and contracting necessary to achieve both trading project success and watershed restoration.