Idaho DEQ proposes revisions to water quality trading guidance

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) recently proposed revising the statewide water quality trading guidance to update the material, ensuring it is timely, and answer common stakeholder questions.

The DEQ’s water quality trading guidance is an outline that shows the DEQ’s considerations when it reviews water quality trading frameworks and trading plans. Water quality trading allows organizations and businesses to contractually agree to exchanges in water pollution reduction. The DEQ allows for water quality trading when it promotes water quality standards compliance in specific water bodies. Trading plans can allow organizations to address the problems that pollutant discharges can cause on a local level, using cost-effective methods.

The DEQ based its proposed revisions on ideas generated by its own water quality agencies in cooperation with Oregon’s and Washington’s. The Willamette Partnership and the Freshwater Trust facilitated the concepts, and the Environmental Protection Agency reviewed them.

The document is available for public review on the DEQ’s website and in the DEQ’s state office in Boise, and those interested in submitting comments on the proposed revisions can do so on the website and through mail and email until April 29.