"First, do no harm."
-- Hippocratic oath
When we were kids, it was baseball cards or marbles. Now it's everything from food, TVs, clothes, lumber and oil to medicine, missiles, metals and even trash. We hear about trade agreements and pacts, trade restrictions, trade quotas, trade tariffs, free trade, trade wars, balance of trade, deficit trade, international trade, illicit trade, sex trade, trade negotiations, trade treaties, trade secrets and trade tensions. Even the darkest sin of this nation, which we will likely carry as long as our country survives, is, of course, the slave trade that built this nation's southern economic base on the lashed backs of chained human beings.
Likely most people do not realize parts of our environment are also parceled out in allotments, bid upon, paid for and traded like a kind of commodity. Currently the largest four cities in Northwest Arkansas are trying to find a way to clean up our water, which is carrying an overload of phosphorous and nitrogen. Nutrients can fertilize water so much that algae blooms choke the life out of waterways. These nutrients come from two main places: point sources like wastewater plants and industries (you can actually point to the discharge pipes/points) and non-point sources like run-off from farm fields or urban streets and yards, which flush excess nutrients downstream.
How to clean up water and keep it clean to meet the minimum standards set by Environmental Protection Agency and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality have long been major challenges in our rapidly growing region with stressed wastewater plants (Fayetteville has two), and numerous chicken and egg farms generating millions of gallons of liquid waste each year. The current stab at this problem in Northwest Arkansas is the development of the Arkansas Nutrient Water Quality Trading Regulation (No. 37). Think of it as, "Let's make a trade."
Say, for example, a farmer plants trees and grass buffers along streams, restores wetlands, protects habitat, carefully manages manure, fences cattle out of streams, etc. In basic terms, trading might work like this: The farmer can garner water protection credits for his efforts to control non-point pollution from their farms. In contrast, an industry or facility may want to lower its nutrient output, but without the high cost associated with new treatment systems. With nutrient trading, the industry/facility could buy credits from the farmer to offset its excess.
One would assume the farm actually has generated enough credits to also offset its own pollution, has credits to spare and sell, and that there's a way to measure and document water improvement from an established baseline.
Therein lies the crunch. Fayetteville city council member Teresa Turk has taken issue with the proposed regulation, saying that like the Ozarks' karst geology, it's as holey as Swiss cheese. She says definitions need to include where and how large a particular watershed is as well as how a water quality baseline should be established and measured; how many pounds of reduction would warrant a nutrient credit; and a number (numeric standard) should describe the limits of phosphorous and nitrogen in a water body. In short, if you're not measuring everything with accuracy, how effective can a trading system be?
Also, she points out that Department of Environmental Quality does not have the resources to monitor nutrient trading regularly, and there's no in-stream testing, data collection or verification required nor guidelines by which to judge the merits of a trade project. In addition, this regulation would, for some reason, apply statewide, but does not take into account the vast geologic differences across Arkansas nor specify the size and scale of the watershed where trade credits will be used. The proposal would also allow trades without significant safeguards to occur in the state's most sensitive watersheds designated as "extraordinary" or "ecologically sensitive" that might contain endangered species, as well as in our natural or scenic waterways like the Buffalo River.
Turk says, "There will be a public notice process, but there is no requirement to accept the public's comments and initiate changes or deny a trade request." It seems after battling for the life of the Buffalo River for over six years, matters involving the public's participation in their state shouldn't be so hard. And Turk's logical, rational concerns should not go unanswered.
The Fayetteville City Council will meet at 5:30 p.m. today.Turk intends to raise the issue to her fellow council members. The public needs to put in its 2 cents now when it can, so attend if possible and contact your council member.
This is about the water you drink.
Commentary on 08/06/2019