The Altoona (Pa.) Mirror newspaper reports that the Altoona Water Authority earned $107,500 by selling nutrient credits accumulated in the past year by its newly renovated Westerly Sewer Treatment Plant.
“The authority sold credits for nitrogen and phosphorus to the Clearfield Municipal Authority, the Lackawanna River Basin Sewer Authority, Bedford Borough Water Authority and Karthaus Burnside Joint Sewer Authority,” according to the news story.
“The authority generated the credits because the plant now discharges less nitrogen and phosphorus than the load limits imposed by new regulations designed to protect Chesapeake Bay from algae blooms that kill shellfish.”
The sale of credits is designed to reward organizations that perform better than their discharge permits require and penalize those that do less well.
Altoona’s sales actually brought in more than $100,000, but the water authority had to give about half the total to PennVEST, and entity that provided half the funding for the plant renovation. The credits had to be certified by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The credits sold were for 57,000 pounds of nitrogen and 4,800 pounds of phosphorus.
The newspaper reported that the authority still has credits for 25,000 pounds of nitrogen left to sell from the 2011-2012 fiscal year and expects to have more than twice as many credits to sell after next year. Future sales of credits are questionable because more communities are bringing renovated treatment plants on line, adding more credits to the market and removing the need for those communities to buy credits. On the other hand, farmers and other producers of nonpoint source pollution may seek to buy credits.
Read more at http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/565324/Water-authority-earns--107-500.html?nav=742.
