Mt. Joy 1st to test state’s nutrient-trading program
Borough sewer authority, Brubaker Farms team up in conservation effort aimed at cleaning up local waterways and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay.
Discussing what would be the state's first nutrient-trading project, on Brubaker Farms near Mount Joy are (from left) Mount Joy Authority members Jim Harnatus and Ken Garner, Mike and Luke Brubaker of Brubaker Farms, authority member John Weidman, and Terry Kauffman, borough manager.
By Ad Crable
Published Apr 25, 2006 14:29
Brubaker Farms, operated by a Mount Joy family, and Mount Joy Borough’s sewer authority are willing to take a chance on the nutrient-trading initiative that Gov. Ed Rendell began pushing last fall.
And, a Manheim Township-based ag-consulting company has set up shop in hopes of making Lancaster County the hub of other farmer-private sector hookups.
Under the new program, farmers and others are encouraged to install conservation measures beyond what is required, earning credits that they can then sell on the open market.
The buyers of the credits would be sewage-plant operators facing tougher caps on nutrient discharges, industries and developers facing water-quality hurdles. They can purchase the credits in lieu of undertaking required water-quality upgrades to their facilities.
The program seeks to provide a financial boost to farmers while cleaning local waterways and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay by keeping nutrients from manure, fertilizer and soil out of streams.
Pennsylvania pledged in 2000 to drastically reduce the amount of nutrients flowing into the bay by 2010, but has struggled to meet the promise.
“We are putting state resources to work for our communities, giving them the tools they need to make improvements now and meet the water-quality challenges of the future,” Rendell said last week in a press release announcing $1.8 million in start-up funds for the nutrient-trading program.
The state’s first credit-trading arrangement between the Mount Joy Authority and nearby Brubaker Farms is awaiting approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The Lancaster County Conservation District is helping package the arrangement.
“I just think this can work,” says Terry Kauffman, Mount Joy’s borough manager. “It will support the ag community, the stream retention and water quality, and we work with private industry to manage and do improvements to our existing stormwater infiltration system.
“It would be a win-win situation for everybody,” agrees Luke Brubaker of the large dairy and poultry operation on Union School Road that borders the borough on three sides.
Under the plan, the authority would pay Brubaker Farms for such conservation measures as placing soil-sealing cover crops on top of existing no-tilled fields, managing and storing manure, and possibly widening an existing stream buffer from 35 to 100 feet.
The conservation measures would go beyond what is already required by the state.
“Brubaker Farms is already cutting edge,” Kauffman says.
When it is determined what quantity of nutrients would be kept out of streams each year by the on-farm measures, nutrition-reduction credits would be awarded to Brubaker Farms.
The authority would then negotiate with the Brubakers on a price.
Using a complicated formula that is still being worked out, the amount of nutrients coming off a farm would be estimated by the local conservation district. The amount of nutrients that would be reduced by additional conservation measures would be calculated and credits awarded based on that amount.
Mount Joy officials say that financing the conservation measures in their community would be cheaper and just as effective as upgrades to the authority’s waste-treatment plant.
To nurture other such arrangements around the county, the state is giving the Lancaster County Conservation District $150,000 to shop similar nutrient-trading projects among farmers, developers, treatment plants and others, possibly including citizen watershed groups.
“We will try to be the local eyes and ears,” says Don McNutt, the LCCD’s chief administrator.
Meanwhile, the private sector is already responding to join the action.
In January, an ag-consulting group, Red Barn Consulting, formed a new arm, Red Barn Trading, to try to broker such partnerships.
“We can go to farms and investigate what kinds of practices could be traded,” says Peter Hughes, who owns the business with his wife, Molly.
“Then we would take those credits to the state Department of Environmental Protection for certification. Then, we would take them to the open market. It’s not high risk for the farmer.”
Red Barn has already submitted four proposed farm projects to DEP for certification. Two of the projects are in Lancaster County.
Hughes thinks that in Lancaster County, developers will be the most likely to tap the nutrient trading concept.
One key to the idea catching on here is for farmers to be convinced that nutrient trading is a new opportunity, not another regulatory burden, Hughes says.
He thinks the potential exists for Plain Sect farmers to become big players.
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