PALO ALTO, Calif. — The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has $2 million in private and public funding that will expand the scope of the Ohio River Basin Water Quality Trading Project (WQT) in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities committed $1.5 million to integrate forestry projects as a best management practice (BMP) for reducing nutrient runoff, said Jessica Fox, EPRI project manager. USDA awarded a $300,000 grant to develop “credit stacking” of nutrient and greenhouse gas emission reductions. EPRI is contributing $200,000.

EPRI initiated the Ohio River Basin Water Quality Trading Project (WQT) in 2009 to test the viability of market-based approaches to achieving water quality goals for nutrient reductions, said Fox. WQT is a system in which a farmer can install a conservation project that has benefits to the watershed – typically the benefits are for nutrients, but could also be for temperature or sediment.

That benefit is quantified into a credit. A public, private or nonprofit organization or an EPRI-approved individual can buy that credit and use it to meet a permit limit, a regulatory requirement or sustainability goal.

To date, 98,314 pounds of nitrogen and 28,699 pounds of phosphorous have been offset from the watershed because of the project, with much more anticipated for this next project phase, Fox explained.

“The new funding from Forestry Endowment will add forestry projects to the set of BMPs that we fund,” she said. “So, forest buffers, planting forests on land that has lower yields and combining forests to a larger set of BMPs that can reduce nutrient loading to waterways.”

The American Farmland Trust (AFT) coordinates between EPRI, the stakeholder committee that is made up of soils and water conservations districts and other agriculture groups, and the on-the-ground activities.

EPRI has helped the water situation in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, said Brian Brandt, AFT’s director of the Agricultural Conservation Innovations Program, located in Columbus, Ohio. More than 30 projects have been implemented – cover crop practices, feedlot improvements and more. The forestry endowment will allow tree plantings in sensitive and marginal areas that are possibly in crops now.

“We are hoping to get multiple environmental benefits from the practices and the wildlife habitat benefits,” he said. “It is a little broader than we would consider some of the farming practices.”

Kentucky has installed 11 projects as a result of the WQT project – mostly heavy-use areas for animal feeding operations, according to Tony Nott, Natural Resource Conservation Service assistant state conservationist, who welcomes the forestry endowment.

“Forestry is a great benefit for us because we’ve got a lot of forested lands,” Nott said. “It will give us an opportunity to use those corridors to connect our already forested lands using riparian buffers, some tree plantings. It will be an opportunity for us to do some wildlife activities, as well.”

In Indiana Tara Wesseler-Henry, state Department of Agriculture district support specialist, said the EPRI WQT project had been a help in getting conservation projects funded for landowners, and producers and she look forward to the added benefits of the forestry endowment.

“It is going to be another resource for getting trees planted, and that will help hold the soil, help air quality and be aesthetically pleasing,” she pointed out.