New Report: Putting Watershed Approaches into EPA Regulations
Various states and the EPA have been supportive of watershed approaches since the 1990s. These are strategies to deal with water pollution that involve improved treatment of wastewater point sources and distributed projects across a watershed that might be managed by a utility or city itself or purchased from a third party (e.g. trading or procurement approaches). A watershed approach enables permittees and political jurisdictions to incorporate point source treatment and watershed projects into a more cost-effective plan that also creates many environmental co-benefits and expands investment in rural communities and infrastructure.
While much of the progress in watershed approaches has been at the initiative of various states, there are also a set of EPA guidance and instructional documents that have helped accelerate progress. We believe EPA should also issue regulations to expand the use of these approaches by local governments and private investors. Our new report focuses on ten areas that we believe should be part of a nationwide regulation that supports and encourages watershed approaches. They are:
Develop accurate terminology. “Market-based” terminology is too narrow to capture what is really happening across the country. The term “watershed-based approaches” and related terminology changes can still include markets and credits but also the diversity of other arrangements that many jurisdictions are using involving third party projects or land on which projects are located.
Define and establish the universe of permitting programs and planning areas to which watershed-based credits could be applied, including TMDL, MS4, and other permit and planning contexts under the Clean Water Act.
Provide regulatory certainty for cities and towns. Provide regulatory language that explicitly recognizes the role of watershed-based credits in Water Quality Management plans to make it clearer to regulated sources that funding they invest in the watershed will fairly be credited toward permit goals. Without this, investment won’t happen.
Don’t strand environmental assets. Conservation projects that have quantified water quality benefits but are as yet unused should always be allowed to carry benefits forward for use in succeeding years. Regulators who require that the value of older outcomes be discounted or zeroed out—even when the projects don’t have diminished pollution control benefits—undercut important conservation and discourage early adoption of water quality benefitting work.
Improve going forward but don’t hurt early programs. Grandfather existing state watershed-based programs under any new regulations.
Encourage quantification tools. These tools are critical to evaluating water pollution reduction benefits. Encourage states to use and improve regional models for credit and debit calculation. This is a crucial prerequisite for performance-based approaches. A good example is the Chesapeake Assessment Scenario Tool used by all Chesapeake Bay states.
Ratios aren’t science. Most quantification tools already include many conservative assumptions. When regulators add additional ratios to watershed credits, doing so is rarely a logical or science-based approach unless a state or EPA first evaluates conservatism built into crediting models and explains why a specific ratio is needed. Without that, it’s just an arbitrary punishment for watershed work.
Consider life-cycle costs in watershed-based approaches. Embed the life cycle cost of the practice design, permitting, and implementation; land stewardship; and monitoring and maintenance into point source treatment projects and watershed-based approaches in order to estimate the true costs of a unit of pollution reduction.
Make liability transfer a new option (but never a requirement). Allowing a third party to take on permanent responsibility for defined amounts of water pollution reduction won’t make sense for all watershed project supplies but it will for some - for example the creation of permanent wetlands or forests. Regulations should create a path for them to take on that responsibility—effectively assigning them a load allocation and removing that allocation from the current permittee.
Allow broad service areas for watershed-based programs to allow practitioners to find ways to maximize co-benefits of projects, including for disadvantaged communities.
The current administration understands the importance of clean water, especially for underserved communities, and has committed to improving water quality across the country. Our recommendations can be instrumental in facilitating ways for nonpoint source pollution reductions to contribute to permit program goals while directing economic, ecological, and social benefits to neglected rural communities and disadvantaged urban neighborhoods alike. Find the full report here.