The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) is gathering stakeholder feedback on its Water Quality Trading (WQT) Plan — an innovative, market-based, cost-effective mechanism to help achieve local water quality improvements. Under the WQT, sources with high costs of reducing pollution can purchase equal or greater pollution reductions from sources with lower costs.
The LDEQ Office of Environmental Assessment’s Water Planning and Assessment Division has convened a series of stakeholder meetings. Participants represented parish water quality offices, private environmental groups, oil and chemical industry associations, governmental partners, and other groups. Discussions covered basic oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, and temperature as trading parameters and sought to define a credit unit.
For more information on Louisiana’s WQT plan, click here.
