Using Water Quality Trading Credits to Achieve a Win-Win Situation

Frank Suttles, Jr., raises cattle on his farm in Grayson, Kentucky.

In 2012, AFT joined the Electric Power Research Institute and other partners to launch the Ohio River Basin Trading Program, the nation’s first interstate water quality trading market. The program enables industries to purchase water quality “credits” from farmers, and the farmers can then use the money they receive to pay for conservation practices that reduce the amount of fertilizer running off their fields and barnyards.

Suttles used funding from the trading project to make improvements to his pasture and feeding areas. He also installed fencing to help protect a nearby river.

The improvements he has made have benefited the environment and his cattle.

“I can tell a lot of difference in the riverbank myself, how much it’s healed up on its own,” Suttles says. “It’s perfect. It’s just a win-win situation for me.”