Maryland Policy for Nutrient Cap Management and Trading in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed
• This is phase I of the policy (PT to PT). Phase II is PT-NPS.
• Caps are Tributary Strategies nutrient limits (a concentration of TN or TP x a point source's design capacity/flow) & are written into NPDES permits
• Only allowed to buy credits to maintain cap… or if a new or expanded plant, to get offsets (& have to prove that you can get offsets for next 20 years)
• 3 trading regions: Potomac, Patuxent, Eastern/Western Shore Tributary Basins (including Susquehanna)
• Ways to get reductions: find reductions in your own plant, buy credits from other sewage treatment plants that are below their caps, pay for a little guy to upgrade their treatment, pay for a little guy to reduce their discharge to 0 (retire) or to connect all their discharge to a big plant, pay for septic system folks to connect to a treatment plant (but this only gets TN credits), spray poo (“land application of wastewater w/ pre-treatment & nutrient management controls”)
• A credit is a lb of N or P/yr delivered to the Chesapeake Bay
• Credits are valid for one calendar year & can’t be banked
• Major PT has to do Enhanced N Removal technology before they can trade, but this technology is paid for by MD taxpayers via “flush tax”
• Allows interstate trading
• MDE will initially maintain a database of credits generated & traded
• Appendix A has a nice list of all major PT sources, their design capacity (in MGD), their 06 flow – shows how close WWTPs are to their max capacity (@ which point, caps become a reality)
• MDE estimates use 9.5 lbs/yr TN/person and 0.23 lbs/yr TN/person
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