Fact Sheet: How Nutrient Trading Can Help Restore the Chesapeake Bay
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A new Fact Sheet on nutrient trading in the Chesapeake Bay region covers issues such as potential costs and revenues, and how farmers and other stakeholders can benefit.
Note: This fact sheet has been updated as a working paper, available here.
Congress is considering proposals to revise and strengthen the Clean Water Act for the Chesapeake Bay region and improve the health of the region’s streams, rivers, and wetlands. Senator Cardin’s and Representative Cummings’s proposed legislation, The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009, provides significant new resources and tools to help restore the Bay. Water quality trading for nutrients, or “nutrient trading”, is one such tool. It could make it possible to achieve Bay restoration goals faster and at lower cost. It also could create an additional source of revenue for farmers.