How Lessons Learned from Compensatory Mitigation Can Help Advance Water Quality Trading

Despite strong support by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and success in states that have used trading, trading is only used in a few states and generally is only in the form of point source to point source trading. This minimal use of an effective tool raises the question of why its use is so limited and how using lessons learned in other regulatory programs such as compensatory mitigation might change that. The presentation and paper will review the requirements associated with CWA section 402 and section 404 permitting. It will discuss the areas of overlap and approaches used in different states to manage the requirements of the two programs. It will also discuss how lessons learned in the compensatory mitigation program may be applied to make implementation of trading more successful by including a specific set of options and practices similar to what is done to meet 404 permit requirements.