Nutrient ‘trading’ negates point of water standards

The whole idea of allowing wastewater treatment plants to forego their obligations via “nutrient trading” is a farce that is meant only to subvert the entire intention of having water quality standards in the first place. Just because one treatment facility exceeds the current water quality requirements of some nutrients doesn’t mean that another plant should be able to buy this “surplus” instead of bringing their own plant up to quality standards — standards that affect the health of every person in northwest Arkansas who drinks water.

In two recent articles in the paper I have read this analogy to explain why they should be allowed to do this: “Suppose two homeowners have the same size garbage can. One homeowner, Jones, often has more bags of trash than will fit, while Smith rarely fills his up. So Smith lets Jones toss his extra trash in his container for a small price.”

This analogy isn’t news — this is propaganda. It sounds like it was spoon-fed to your reporter by the people who are trying to circumvent our clean water rules. How about if I write my own analogies like this? “Ten other drivers on Interstate 49 are going 5 miles per hour below the speed limit, so I should be able to go 50 miles per hour over the speed limit, using their surplus.”

This credit trading is nonsense and is only going to prevent us from achieving the water quality standards that we so badly need in this area. TROY JUZELER Bentonville