Two New Videos on Templates for State Water Quality Trading Programs

By Kristiana Teige Witherill, of Willamette Partnership, and Mark Patrick McGuire with the Association of Clean Water Administrators

The newly released videos cover how states can use the five templates within the Water Quality Trading Toolkit to design transparent and accountable trading programs faster and easier. The five templates work in concert with each other– state guidance, watershed framework, state rule, NPDES permit, and program annual report–and can be used as a starting point, a checklist of important considerations, or customizable sample language. Graphic / Willamette Partnership

Willamette Partnership and the Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA) have teamed up to produce a series of videos that walk users through the Water Quality Trading Toolkit. The Toolkit provides templates to make it faster and easier to develop transparent and accountable water quality trading programs that drive meaningful investment toward achieving clean water goals. The templates go along with the National Network on Water Quality Trading publication, Building a Water Quality Trading Program: Options and Considerations, which provides a blueprint for states and organizations seeking to create a water quality trading program.

ACWA provides guidance, advice, and assistance filling in the Toolkit templates based on the context and trading objectives of particular states and organizations. To help get users started, ACWA and Willamette Partnership are developing a series of videos to explain how to use the Toolkit’s templates. The first video is an introduction to the Toolkit, and the second video covers what’s in the templates. Check them out below!

Video 1: An Introduction to the Water Quality Trading Toolkit

Video 2: An Overview of the Water Quality Trading Toolkit – What’s inside each of the templates

To learn more about Willamette Partnership’s efforts behind the National Network on Water Quality Trading and the Toolkit, visit this National Network webpage. ACWA and Willamette would like to thank USDA and EPA for supporting this project, and all the state agency representatives and other stakeholders that helped review and refine the Toolkit. The videos were produced with support from USDA.