I came to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) just over three years ago to focus on the environmental issues, as well as the challenges and opportunities, that exist for the nation’s milk producers. One opportunity that caught my attention early on was water quality trading (WQT). To this day, I am still enamored with the concept.
At its most basic, WQT is a deal between two parties to remove a nutrient or pollutant from a watershed. The party that can do it for the lowest cost is paid by the party who would have to do it at a higher cost — typically to be compliant with a permit. However, despite decades of attempts, WQT has yet to manifest itself in the way I envisioned. But a lot of folks are still pushing the idea, or variants of it.