The Florida Times-Union

City considers water-quality credit buys

May 9, 2008

By Steve Patterson,

Water polluters in Northeast Florida will be able to buy and sell "water-quality credits" to compensate for some kinds of environmental damage, the head of the Florida environmental agency said Thursday.

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A credit system was approved last week by the Florida Legislature - but only for the lower St. Johns River.

Jacksonville City Hall is exploring buying credits to offset problems caused by dirty stormwater.

That could result in millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on credits to avoid or delay spending many millions more repairing defects in the city's stormwater runoff systems.

It reflects a growing use of credit purchases to find new ways to deal with pollution, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole said.

"We see the market coming to bear to help resolve these environmental challenges," Sole told members of the National Mitigation Banking Association during a conference in Jacksonville. "The Florida philosophy is acknowledging that the market is the place to go."

In that market, buyers and sellers will negotiate the price of each credit. But that bargaining could easily involve companies or towns trying to avoid spending many millions of dollars on additional water cleanup projects.

Credit systems let businesses put a dollar value on actions that improve water, air or land. Each improvement is worth a certain number of credits that polluters can buy, once environmental agencies set up rules for carrying out those deals.

For example, developers who pave over wetlands often buy wetlands credits from mitigation banks that own property where wetlands are improved and permanently protected.

Water-quality credits have been used in other states but weren't legal in Florida until now.

The new legislation gives the state until Sept. 1 to begin setting rules for credit-trading. The trading system is considered a pilot program and will only be allowed around the lower basin of the St. Johns, from the river's mouth at Mayport south into part of Volusia County.

Sole told mitigation bankers the new water credit system could become more important as the state implements federal rules that set quotas on how much each business or town can pollute waterways each day.

Jacksonville could be one of the first credit buyers. Stormwater that runs off roads and sidewalks and into creeks carries much more pollution than the city can correct immediately.

To balance for that, the city is considering buying credits from JEA, which has been upgrading sewage-treatment plants to release water cleaner than state law demands, said Susie Wiles, an aide to Mayor John Peyton.

The credit would be for the amount of water-cleaning that was above the state's standards for sewage treatment plants.

Discussions about the credit sales are in early stages with very little detail worked out, she said.

steve.patterson@jacksonville. com, (904) 359-4263