Marcellus Shale drilling may take huge chunks out of PA forests
www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=4246
By Karl Blankenship
Loss could heavily impact wildlife habitat, state’s ability to meet TMDL goal
Gas drilling requires miles of roads as well as impervious surface around the well sites. All of that breaks up large tracts of forests, removing crucial bird and reptile habitats. Here, a gas company works a well site in Beech Creek Township near Bald Eagle State Park. (Credit: Dick Martin / Pennsylvania Forest Project)
During the coming two decades, Pennsylvania could lose enough forest land to build a couple of large cities. The forest won’t be lost in a single large chunk, but as thousands of small sites that are cleared to drill natural gas wells and connected with hundreds of miles of new pipelines.
While those impacts will be scattered across the landscape, their cumulative impact on forest habitats could be severe, and it could also complicate the state’s efforts to meet its nutrient and sediment reduction obligations under the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, or pollution diet.
“It’s not so much that people know it would keep the TMDL from being met,” said Nels Johnson, director of conservation programs with The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania. “It’s that no one knows whether or not this really threatens the state’s efforts to meet the TMDL.”
Much of the concern about environmental impacts related to the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom has been related to the water quality impacts of hydraulic fracking, the process of injecting huge amounts of water and chemicals under high pressure deep into the ground to break apart rock and access gas.
Johnson led a team that tackled a different question – how the drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation could affect land use and, ultimately, wildlife habitats in Pennsylvania.
By using information about the depth and thickness of the Marcellus formation in different areas and a variety of other variables, they developed a model to project where the 60,000 wells expected to be drilled in the next two decades will go.
The analysis projects that about 60 percent of the wells will be drilled on forest land – the dominant land cover over much of the Marcellus Shale in the state.
A key factor that affects how much forest will be directly affected by drilling is the number of wells drilled on each drilling pad. A typical pad is about 3 acres but requires about six additional acres for roads and other related infrastructure. Right now, the average is less than two wells per pad, Johnson said, but he expects that to increase to between 4 and 10 wells per pad over time.
While scattered pads may not seem to have great impact, the analysis estimates that, across Pennsylvania, 38,000-90,000 acres of forest may ultimately be cleared for wells seeking to tap the Marcellus Shale formation, which underlies the western and northern portions of the state. Another 60,000-150,000 acres of forest could be lost for new pipelines.
“It’s a cumulative impact,” Johnson said. “Ultimately, that’s why we did this – because we wanted to have a better understanding of the cumulative impact, and how worried we should be about this.”
Pennsylvania’s large tracts of intact forests are important for an array of wildlife, from brook trout to forest interior birds. Forest birds such as the scarlet tanager, which have declined in many areas, have generally held their own in Pennsylvania’s large forests.
That could change as forests are chopped up for wells and pipelines. Many predators, from blue jays to raccoons, thrive along forest edges, from which they forage into the woods, picking off birds or the eggs of wood thrush, ovenbirds and other species that normally rely on large forests for refuge. Not only will forests be directly lost to drill pads and pipelines, but forests near those opening will be rendered uninhabitable for many species.
But the analysis also raises a concern for Chesapeake cleanup efforts. The conservancy estimates that about 46 percent of the drilling would take place within the Bay watershed. That suggests the forest loss within the watershed portion of Pennsylvania could be between 45,000-110,000 acres.
For comparison, that’s enough land to build between 1 to 2.5 District of Columbias.
Because forests absorb more nutrients and retain more sediment than other land uses, their loss could result in more of those pollutants reaching local streams.
Assuming those forests are converted to meadow, and applying loading rates derived from the Bay Program model, rough estimates suggest it could increase the amount of nitrogen runoff reaching local streams between 30,000-80,000 pounds a year; while phosphorus could increase between 15,000-40,000 pounds; and sediment could increase between 18 million to 45 million pounds. The variation depends on whether the amount of forest lost was at the low, or high end of the conservancy’s estimates.
Right now, the land use changes are not included in the state’s watershed implementation plan, which shows how it plans to meet nutrient and sediment limits set in the TMDL.
Kevin Sunday, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said sediment and erosion control guidelines would require best management practices to control runoff and well sites would need to be re-vegetated.
Johnson said that, as a practical matter, it is difficult to reforest areas disturbed for drilling as companies need to maintain access to wells and pipelines. Further, a recent study showed that reforestation generally wasn’t taking place at drilling sites, he said.
Katherine Antos, water quality team leader with the EPA’s Bay Program Office in Annapolis, said state pollution limits set in the TMDL were based on land uses in place in 2010. “If there are any changes to that, any increased loads or new sources, states have to be able to offset those increases,” she said.
Antos said the EPA is currently reviewing offset programs for all states in the watershed.
Harry Campbell, a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said concerns about the impacts related to drilling activities on the Bay TMDL were among the reasons that it and several other organizations petitioned the federal government last year seeking the development of an Environmental Impact Statement to examine the full range of Marcellus drilling impacts in the state.
“We just don’t know enough about all this to get a handle on what the potential impacts are,” he said. “If we don’t have that, then we are flying blind.”
That petition is still pending.
Meanwhile, Johnson said the conservancy has been using its analyses to work with drilling companies to encourage drilling more wells at existing pads to reduce forest loss. It’s also integrating more habitat data into its model to help steer drilling away from sensitive areas. Companies have been “pretty interested,” he said. “We’re pretty confident it is going to help, but we know it is not going to eliminate impacts.”
Electronics Certified Recycling Facilities
Contact: Donna Heron 215-814-5113 or heron.donna@epa.gov
EPA and GSA Recognize the Newest Electronics Certified Recycling Facility
America Recycles Day encourages recommitment to reducing, recycling, and reusing
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (November 15, 2011) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. General Services Administration recognized AERC/Com-Cycle at an event today for becoming the region’s newest electronics Certified Responsible Recycler (R2) facility.
Today’s America Recycles event at AERC/Com-Cycle’s Allentown facility highlights EPA’s partnership with industry aimed at promoting environmentally-sound management of used electronics, and encouraging businesses and consumers to recycle their electronics with certified recyclers. As an R2 certified electronics recycler, AERC/Com-Cycle operates all its facilities in accordance with the most stringent certification standard in the electronics recycling industry.
See Read More.
There are two existing domestic third-party electronics recycling certification standards, R2 and E-Stewards.
For more information on the EPA and industry collaboration go to: http://www.epa.gov/electronicsstrategy
For more information on GSA’s electronic stewardship goals and promoting federal agencies’ purchasing Environmentally Preferable Products go to: http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/234565
For more information on where you and how to recycle go to: http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/recycle.htm or www.earth911.com
To locate a list of Responsible Recycling (R2) Certified Electronics Recyclers go to: http://www.r2solutions.org/index.php?submenu=Recyclers&src=gendocs&ref=R2CertifiedRecyclers&category=Main
To locate a list of e-Stewards Certified Electronics Recyclers go to:
http://e-stewards.org/find-a-recycler/
Citizens Unite – Compile Your Water Quality Data
(Note: Brian Oram is a charter member of the Carbon County Groundwater Guardians.)
Citizens – there are more private wells than public water supplies in Pennsylvania. In many regions, the natural gas companies have conducted baseline testing and have returned the data to you. The problem is that the industry has the data and can easily compile, but for citizens they are lacking an explanation of the data and it is not being compiled. We need to work together to protect our groundwater data.
To help – send NO Money – All that is being asked is as follows:
1. Send a copy of your water quality data or host a community meeting where the water quality data could be compiled.
To request a community meeting or presentation on “Getting the Waters Tested- The Marcellus Shale Factor” or the “Community Groundwater / Surfacewater Database” – email brian.oram@wilkes.edu or bfenviro@ptd.net. Please put Citizen Database in Subject.
2. Release the data to the Citizens Groundwater / Surfacewater Database. Here is the information sheet. The database will only include the data and No personal information.
3. Email the information to the addresses above or send a hardcopy to
Mr. Brian Oram, PG
Citizen Outreach Program
15 Hillcrest Drive
Dallas, PA 18612
4. You get a review of your data for free and you can be sure your data will help track water quality change in the region.
5. Private Well Owner Survey – Funded by Mr. Brian Oram. Please participate – the survey results in be published in the New Free Guidebook for Private Well Owners
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NMG6RQ3
This survey is part of the efforts of Mr. Brian Oram, Professional Geologist, and owner of B.F. Environmental Consultants Inc to help educate and inform the community. The survey will not be published and all information is confidential. Part of this survey will be used to create a new booklet that helps educate private well owners and policy makers in our community. This survey is not funded by any outside company or organization and solely funded by Mr. Brian Oram.
Please act now.
Thanks for your consideration
Brian Oram, Professional Geologist, Soils Scientist, Licensed Well Driller
My Blog Site – http://pennsylvania-solutions.blogspot.com
Free Outreach to Private Well Owners – http://www.water-research.net
Tamaqua properties illegally discharging into Wabash Creek
http://www.tnonline.com/node/197237
Reported on Friday, May 20, 2011
By LIZ PINKEY tneditor@tnonline.com
Fifty six properties in the borough of Tamaqua have been identified as having active or once active illegal sewer connections to the Wabash Creek.
Those that were once active may need further investigation to determine if they will need to be addressed. Council president Micah Gursky announced the findings of a recent study at this week’s borough council meeting, stating that property owners have already been notified by certified mail.
“As sad as it is that we have illegal discharge, it’s nice to see a list finally verifying who is illegally connected,” said Gursky. “There have always been rumors.”
The list is now available to the general public and can be viewed at the borough building.
“This is just the beginning,” said Gursky. “There are a lot of folks who have to connect and a lot of work to be done over the next several months to connect them.”
The majority of the properties are located along S. Lehigh, W. Broad, Rowe, S. Railroad and Nescopec streets. Gursky added that
The borough has until August to address the problems to avoid further issues with DEP, which has already cited the borough for the illegal discharge. Property owners have 60 days to connect to the sewage system.
Borough manager Kevin Steigerwalt asked borough residents for their continued cooperation in the matter.
“So far, the people have have contacted us with questions have been very cooperative. We appreciate that,” he said.
The borough does have a revolving loan program that could be available to property owners who need financial assistance to have the work completed. More information on that program is available from the borough.
Hawk Mountain to host annual Native Plant Sale May 21-22
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mary Linkevich
Director of Communication & Grants
linkevich@hawkmountain.org
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
1700 Hawk Mountain Road, Kempton, PA 19529
610-756-6961 http://www.hawkmountain.org/
Visit Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Kempton on May 21 and 22 between 10 am and 4 pm and select from 225 species of native plants, flowers, ferns, vines, ground cover, shrubs and trees during the Sanctuary’s annual two-day Native Plant Sale. All proceeds benefit Hawk Mountain conservation programs, and the event features a strong educational component with friendly service by the Sanctuary’s native plant volunteers.
Children’s activities will be held both days: a Noon program to learn about butterflies and host plants, and a 2 pm Praying Mantis Hunt. Other Saturday programs for visitors of all ages include an 11 am Butterfly Walk, a 1 pm Fern Walk and a 3 pm How Natives Benefit Wildlife Walk. On Sunday, the Wildlife Benefits Walk will be held at 11, Flower Photography Tips at 1, and a 3 pm guided Fern Walk.
Both days also will feature live raptor programs at 11 am and 2 pm, and as always, the trails and scenic overlooks are open to all for a modest trail fee. Indoors, a selection of native plant gardening books will be available for sale, as well as the Mountain Bookstore’s usual selection of field guides on butterflies, birds and amphibians.
The message during the sale is simple but direct: Native plants benefit wildlife. That means even if you’re not a gardener, you can still drop by and learn how anyone can help save Pennsylvania’s native ecosystems just by introducing the right kind of plants—those native to our area. Native plants require little maintenance, attract bird and butterflies, and don’t require dangerous pesticides … So why not check it out and go native?
For more information, please contact info@hawkmountain.org, www.hawkmountain.org, or 610-756-6961
Electronic recycling event slated April 25, 26 in Carbon County
The Carbon County Department of Solid Waste has announced that it will hold its spring 2011 electronic recycling event on April 25 and 26 at the Lower Towamensing Township building.
The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., on April 25, and noon to 6 p.m. on April 26.
During the two-day event, Carbon officials and Advanced Green Solutions, will accept electronics at no charge to Carbon County residents. Acceptable materials include: VCRs, DVD players, radios, stereo equipment, computer towers, printers, scanners, keyboards, laptops, hard drives, mainframe and telecom equipment, application (OEM) equipment, circuit boards of any kind, fax machines, typewriters, and telephones. Computer monitors will be accepted by Advanced Green Solutions with a $7 charge; TVs and air conditioners will be accepted with a $20 charge.
There will also be collection boxes for old cell phones and printer ink jet cartridges. Household appliances will not be accepted.
For more information, contact the Department of Solid Waste at (610) 852-5111.
http://www.tnonline.com/node/179254
Reported on Saturday, March 5, 2011
Forum to Address Threats to Water Supplies in Delaware Basin
Forum to Address Threats to Water Supplies in Delaware Basin: Connecting Four States for Drinking Water Protection
Release date: 03/02/2011
Contact Information: David Sternberg 215-814-5548 sternberg.david@epa.gov
PHILADELPHIA (March 2, 2011) – Threats to sources of drinking water and public health for more than 15 million people in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York will be the focus of a high-level forum in Philadelphia and five satellite locations on March 10.
Government leaders and national water experts will highlight challenges to the quality and quantity of water fed from the Delaware River Basin, a 13,000-square-mile area that includes 838 municipalities in parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York.
The Delaware River Basin Forum will feature a central session at the WHYY Hamilton Public Media Commons on 150 North 6th St., Philadelphia, where speakers will describe current and emerging impacts on water resources basin-wide. The forum will feature state-of the-art interactive technology to link live to five satellite locations, in four states outlining local drinking water concerns.
At the WHYY venue, Tufts University Professor Jeffrey K. Griffiths, one of the nation’s leading experts on waterborne disease and public health, will make the keynote presentation on “Drinking Water: Fact, Fears and the Future” at 12:15 p.m. Morning presentations will include the impacts to public health in the Delaware River Basin from water use, population growth and climate change, and will feature model water protection efforts in Philadelphia, New York City and Washington Township, NJ. EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin will provide opening remarks at 8:15 a.m.
The satellite locations are in Newark, DE; Reading and Stroudsburg, PA; Bordentown, NJ; and Loch Sheldrake, NY.
Information on the forum, including a full lineup of speakers at the Philadelphia location, agendas and directions for each satellite location and background on issues facing the Delaware River Basin is available at http://www.delawarebasindrinkingwater.org/
Nearly 1,000 community water systems depend on water resources in the Delaware Basin, and the water is used extensively for recreation, fisheries and wildlife, energy, industry and navigation.
The Delaware River Basin begins in the Catskill Mountains in New York State and courses through 13,500 square miles of rural and urban landscapes to the Atlantic Ocean.
The forum is sponsored by the Source Water Collaborative, a coalition of 23 national organizations and agencies united to protect sources of drinking water. Local hosts for the forum include the US EPA (Region II and Region III), state environmental and health agencies of Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, and the Delaware River Basin Commission.
Earth Day Poster Contest
Contact: Roy Seneca seneca.roy@epa.gov 215-814-5567
EPA wants students to participate in Earth Day Poster Contest
(PHILADELPHIA – March 1, 2011) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is co-sponsoring an Earth Day Poster Contest for students in kindergarten through grade 12 in EPA’s mid-Atlantic region, which includes Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Students are invited to submit hand-created drawings on plain letter-sized paper using markers, colored pencils, crayons, pens and/or paint. Computer-generated images will not be accepted. Students can choose one of the four themes:
1) Protect Habitats, Endangered Species
2) Help Protect the Earth from Climate Change
3) The Meaning of Earth Day
4) Bays, Estuaries, Oceans and Coasts
Entries will be divided into four categories: K-2nd grade; grades 3-5; grades 6-8; and grades 9-12. The top three winners in each category will receive prize packages. Winning entries and others will be displayed at various locations throughout the region including EPA’s Public Information Office. Posters will also be posted on EPA’s website. Entries must be postmarked no later than Earth Day, April 22 and mailed to:
Earth Day Poster Contest (3PA00)
U.S. EPA Region 3
1650 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
The back of the poster should include the competition theme, name, age, school name, grade, parent/guardian’s name, address, telephone number and email.
The contest is co-sponsored by EPA, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Philadelphia Zoo and the National Aquarium at Baltimore. For more information, call (215) 814-5100 or email EarthDay@epa.gov .
Note: If a link above doesn’t work, please copy and paste the URL into a browser.
Company makes diesel with sun, water, CO2
Massachusetts biotech firm promises ‘energy independence.’
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Massachusetts biotechnology company says it can produce the fuel that runs Jaguars and jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.
Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.
What can it mean? No less than “energy independence,” Joule’s web site tells the world, even if the world’s not quite convinced.
“We make some lofty claims, all of which we believe, all which we’ve validated, all of which we’ve shown to investors,” said Joule chief executive Bill Sims.
“If we’re half right, this revolutionizes the world’s largest industry, which is the oil and gas industry,” he said. “And if we’re right, there’s no reason why this technology can’t change the world.”
The doing, though, isn’t quite done, and there’s skepticism Joule can live up to its promises.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientist Philip Pienkos said Joule’s technology is exciting but unproven, and their claims of efficiency are undercut by difficulties they could have just collecting the fuel their organism is producing.
Timothy Donohue, director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says Joule must demonstrate its technology on a broad scale.
Perhaps it can work, but “the four letter word that’s the biggest stumbling block is whether it ‘will’ work,” Donohue said. “There are really good ideas that fail during scale up.”
Sims said he knows “there’s always skeptics for breakthrough technologies.”
“And they can ride home on their horse and use their abacus to calculate their checkbook balance,” he said.
Joule was founded in 2007. In the last year, it’s roughly doubled its employees to 70, closed a $30 million second round of private funding in April and added John Podesta, former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, to its board of directors.
Work to create fuel from solar energy has been done for decades, such as by making ethanol from corn or extracting fuel from algae. But Joule says they’ve eliminated the middleman that’s makes producing biofuels on a large scale so costly.
That middleman is the “biomass,” such as the untold tons of corn or algae that must be grown, harvested and destroyed to extract a fuel that still must be treated and refined to be used. Joule says its organisms secrete a completed product, already identical to ethanol and the components of diesel fuel, then live on to keep producing it at remarkable rates.
Joule claims, for instance, that its cyanobacterium can produce 15,000 gallons of diesel full per acre annually, over four times more than the most efficient algal process for making fuel. And they say they can do it at $30 a barrel.
JAY LINDSAY Associated Press
February 28, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Company_makes_diesel_with_sun__water__CO2_02-27-2011.html
‘Water Footprinting’ to Deal With Demand for Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/business/energy-environment/29iht-RBOGFOOT.html
I.H.T. Special Report: Business of Green
‘Water Footprinting’ to Deal With Demand for Supplies
By TANAYA MACHEEL
Published: November 29, 2010
NEW YORK — A water-use report issued in September by Coca-Cola with the Nature Conservancy found that 518 liters of freshwater are required to produce just one liter of its Minute Maid orange juice, and 35 liters are needed to produce a half liter of Coca-Cola.
A growing awareness of just how much water it takes to produce everyday consumer goods is inspiring a rising interest in “water footprinting” — akin to carbon footprinting — as a tool to analyze and guide the development of new technologies, water infrastructure investment and policies aimed at coping with the world’s rising water demand.
Conceptually, the water footprint is similar to that of carbon — an impact indicator based on the total volume of direct and indirect freshwater used in producing a good or service. There is a difference, however. Unlike carbon in the atmosphere, fresh water resources are localized, not global.
“Water is not carbon,” said Jason Morrison, program director at the Pacific Institute, a research organization in Oakland, California, that studies resource sustainability issues. “Whatever you might say about the validity of carbon credits, it will be extremely hard to have that amount of success in the water area because, volumetrically, one volume of water has a different meaning in one part of the world versus another.”
Still, in July, Veolia Water North America, a water and wastewater utility based in Chicago, and part of the French utility Veolia Environnement, presented its water impact index. The company said it was the first indicator to provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of human activity on water resources.
“Current water footprints focus almost exclusively on volume,” said Laurent Auguste, the company’s president and chief executive. Volume, he said, is “a good indicator to raise awareness, but not sufficient to represent the impact on a water resource.”
The volume of water needed to produce a carton of orange juice or a bottle of Coca-Cola, for example, may be fixed; but the actual effect on a freshwater resource, and the local environment, can vary tremendously — including the amount of energy and raw materials used and the chemical and other waste contaminants created in the process.
To give a fuller view, Veolia’s index integrates other variables, including resource stress, water quality and competing consumption needs with existing volume-based water measurement tools.
Some analysts, however, question the usefulness of that approach.
Claudia Ringler, a senior research fellow in Montreal with the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Washington, said water footprinting was a good concept in theory, but less so in practice. “It’s almost impossible to do a comprehensive analysis,” Ms. Ringler said. “One has to be very careful before drawing conclusions based on it.”
David Zetland, an economist and the author of a forthcoming book, “The End of Abundance: Your Guide to the New Economics of Water Scarcity,” said footprinting would serve little purpose unless, for a start, water was priced according to its value.
If water were appropriately priced, he said, the price of consumer products would reflect the amount of water used in making them. Since most consumers either would not understand footprinting, or would not care, Mr. Zetland said, they would almost always pay more attention to the price of what they bought than to a certificate on the label.
From the point of view of producing companies, he added, if water supplies were free, or nearly so, water footprinting and investments in water efficiency would remain superfluous. “Water footprinting has no operational, economic or social value to companies if the cost of labor and equipment to reduce water consumption exceeds the cost of the water saved,” Mr. Zetland said.
The basic problem, he said, is that the price of water rarely reflects its value or scarcity. “The price for most products combines value to consumers with the cost of production and delivery,” Mr. Zetland said. “Since the price of water only reflects the cost of delivery — the water itself is free — we don’t pay a price that reflects its value or scarcity.”
Still, not all experts are so dismissive. Even though water footprinting is still in its infancy, and there is no common agreement on what variables should be taken into account, tools like the Veolia index could help to map the relative risks associated with water use in specific locations, said Mr. Morrison, the Pacific Institute program director.
With water-related risk likely to become more pronounced over time, he said, “there is a lot of value to water footprinting, no matter how you define it.”
A recent report by the institute, prepared for the United Nations Environment Program, evaluated different water-accounting tools and found that many, though still evolving, would be essential to companies in their water risk and impact assessments and water management, Mr. Morrison added.
Water footprinting has also spawned interest in markets as a possible driver for smarter water use. Water markets are full of distortions, said Ms. Ringler, the International Food Policy research fellow, and it is almost impossible to create a real competitive international market. But there are examples of successful in-country water markets, she added, citing river basins in Australia and Chile.
Michael Van Patten is chief executive and founder of Mission Markets, a financial services company that operates Earth, a multi-environmental credit exchange regulated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in the United States. “We might be several years away, but the potential is huge,” he said. “The world knows we have a huge water problem, and no one knows how to solve it yet. This is one way to approach it.”
His idea is to develop tradable credits from the offsets of localized water projects. These could be bought by companies, countries or any community with a direct effect on the water supply. While there is no regulation in the United States to drive such a market, credit programs, if managed properly, could help to encourage environmental protection by reducing the costs involved, said Christian Holmes, a senior adviser for energy and environment at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Still, said Charles Iceland, an associate with the World Resources Institute, water is a highly political topic, and allocation decisions cannot be made on the basis of economic efficiency alone.
“Whatever management scheme you devise must have equity built into it,” Mr. Iceland said, “so that people have their human right to water.”