The Clean Water Action Plan, a presidential initiative released in 1998, directed US EPA to develop numeric nutrient criteria for the nations waters.  Numeric criteria will drive water quality assessments and management.  Perhaps most importantly, they will create state- and community-developed environmental baselines that allow us to manage more effectively, measure progress, and support broader partnerships based on nutrient trading, Best Management Practices (BMPs), land stewardship, wetlands protection, voluntary collaboration, and urban storm water runoff control strategies.

ORSANCO began collecting data in 1999 with the goal of developing numeric nutrient criteria for the mainstem of the Ohio River.

A hypoxic (low oxygen) zone develops in the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi River every summer.  It is caused by excess nutrients coming from the Mississippi River which feeds large algae blooms in the Gulf.  These algae blooms are eventually decomposed by bacteria which consume oxygen in the process.  The resulting area of low dissolved oxygen has been measured in excess of 20,000 km/sq (about the size of the state of Massachusetts).   The Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force was formed to address this issue.

The Ohio River Sub Basin Committee (which was convened by ORSANCO) is continuing to work with representatives from state agricultural, environmental, and natural resource agencies on implementing strategies to reduce nutrients in the Ohio River basin.

Click here to learn more about this project and the State partnerships that make this possible

Water quality trading is an innovative approach to achieve water quality goals more efficiently. Trading is based on the fact that sources in a watershed can face very different costs to control the same pollutant. Trading programs allow facilities facing higher pollution control costs to meet their regulatory obligations by purchasing environmentally equivalent (or superior) pollution reductions from another source at lower cost, thus achieving the same water quality improvement at lower overall cost.

ORSANCO is a project partner with the Electric Power Research Institute to develop a nutrient trading program in the Ohio Basin.