Conor here: I guess the oysters aren\u2019t going to save us.<\/p>\n
By Mykal Bailey, a senior at Howard University with reporting interests in environmental justice and agricultural science. Originally published at Undark<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Kevin McClarren, the general manager of Choptank Oyster Company, has been raising and selling oysters out of Dorchester County, Maryland, since 1999. Distinguished by its Choptank Sweet oysters, the company, McClarren says, is one of the oldest and largest of the more than 470 commercial shellfish operations working in state waters.<\/p>\n In Maryland, where the oyster population exceeds 12 billion<\/a>, the filter-feeding bivalves are known for their briny taste and distinct texture. But environmentalists have come to appreciate them for a different quality: their ability to remove nitrogen and phosphorous \u2014 nutrients that, in excess, can fuel harmful algae blooms, threaten aquatic ecosystems, and render waterways unsafe for swimming. A single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. For every million oysters growing in the watershed, it\u2019s estimated<\/a> that as much as 1,470 pounds of nitrogen and 154 pounds of phosphorous are sequestered from the region\u2019s waterways each year.<\/p>\n Years ago, the state of Maryland adopted a plan to capitalize on those environmental benefits. Under the Water Quality Trading Program, established in 2018, farms, sewage and wastewater treatment plants, and stormwater treatment facilities could earn credits by implementing certain management practices that reduced nitrogen, phosphorous, or sediment loads within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. They could then sell those credits on a state-run market to companies or municipalities looking to offset their own nutrient emissions to meet permit requirements or sustainability goals. For the oyster fisheries that later began participating in the program, this meant allowing them to claim and sell credits for the nitrogen and phosphorous they extracted from the watershed with each harvest.<\/p>\n The idea was to create opportunities for farmers like McClarren \u201cthrough market-based approaches\u201d to take advantage of their environmental assets, in order to \u201cunleash the full strength of markets,\u201d said Greg Allen, a former environmental scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s Chesapeake Bay Program Office.<\/p>\n But McClarren has yet to earn or sell a single nutrient credit on the state market. And he is not alone.<\/p>\n According to a registry maintained by Maryland\u2019s Department of the Environment, there have been just three trades involving oyster aquaculture over the program\u2019s lifetime, and none since June 2020. Oyster farmers have been slow to participate, and would-be buyers of nutrient credits even slower. The vast majority of nitrogen and phosphorous credits generated through oyster farming have languished on the market unpurchased.<\/p>\n Although Allen continues to see the nutrient credit market as a valuable incentive for the private sector to commit to environmental conservation, others like Kurt Stephenson, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at Virginia Tech, say the performance is emblematic of many of the challenges facing similar programs nationwide.<\/p>\n Nutrient credit trading has become \u201ca bit of a parlor game among certain people,\u201d said Stephenson. \u201cIf you\u2019re thinking about financial returns through a trading program,\u201d he later added, \u201cit\u2019s just not a lot there \u2014 and I don\u2019t think it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The Chesapeake Bay watershed \u2014 a region that encompasses nearly all of Maryland, large swaths of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and portions of Delaware and New York state \u2014 has long been plagued by high nitrogen and phosphorous levels from sources including agricultural operations, stormwater runoff, and wastewater facilities. Those nutrients ultimately empty into the Chesapeake Bay, the nation\u2019s largest estuary, where they can fuel algae blooms that deplete oxygen, block subsurface sunlight, and create dead zones<\/a> that threaten aquatic life. Officials often<\/a> have to close parks<\/a> to recreational swimming due to algae that can be harmful to humans.<\/p>\n To address these kinds of problems, the EPA established what\u2019s known as the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load<\/a>. Adopted in 2010, it called for Chesapeake states to reduce the watershed\u2019s nitrogen and phosphorous loads by 25 percent and 24 percent, respectively \u2014 to 185.9 million pounds and 12.5 million pounds annually \u2014 by the year 2025. Maryland\u2019s Water Quality Trading Program was one of several initiatives that were launched to help achieve those reductions.<\/p>\n A 1991 satellite image of the middle portion of the Chesapeake Bay. The watershed encompasses nearly all of Maryland, large swaths of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and portions of Delaware and New York state. It has long been plagued by high nitrogen and phosphorous levels from sources including agricultural operations, stormwater runoff, and wastewater facilities. Visual: NASA\/Flickr<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The concept behind the Maryland program isn\u2019t new: Similar trading systems have worked in the past, said Allen. He cited as an example the Acid Rain Program<\/a>, a cap and trade system the agency established under the Clean Air Act in 1995 to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. \u201cIt exceeded all of our expectations and basically fixed the problem,\u201d said Allen. \u201cAnd it fixed the problem without a whole lot of public agency funds being used to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n But Maryland\u2019s Water Quality Trading Program has struggled to take off. According to the state registry, the three trades involving oyster-generated credits \u2014 all made during 2020, the first year oyster credits were certified \u2014 amount to a small reduction of 111 pounds of nitrogen and 12 pounds of phosphorous.<\/p>\n Even considering credits generated by means other than oysters, the environmental impacts of Maryland\u2019s program appear slim compared to the EPA\u2019s initial goal for the watershed. The sum total of trades logged in the state registry for phosphorus and nitrogen \u2014\u00a084, including oyster-generated credits and those generated via farming, stormwater treatment, and wastewater treatment practices \u2014 amounts to the removal of about 107,000 pounds of nitrogen and 19,000 pounds of phosphorous over the past seven years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like an engine that you\u2019re trying to start,\u201d Allen said. \u201cAnd maybe it\u2019ll start for a minute and it\u2019ll\u201d \u2014 he imitates a sputtering engine \u2014 \u201cand then it dies.\u201d<\/p>\n Allen attributed the disappointing performance to a shortfall of demand to buy credits. Indeed, roughly 90 percent of the nutrient reduction credits certified through the program have languished on the market without a buyer, according to the state registry.<\/p>\n A view down the pier at Choptank Oyster Company, located on the Choptank River in Dorchester County, Maryland. Visual: Kevin McClarren<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For Choptank Oyster Company\u2019s McClarren, however, one key problem is that the state hasn\u2019t effectively communicated the details of the program to the oyster farmers who are critical to the market\u2019s success. He sees water quality trading as a potential buoy in an increasingly competitive oyster farming industry \u2014 and a lifeline for his local waterways. \u201cMy kids swim in the river. I fish in the river. We crab in the river,\u201d said McClarren.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you spend time on the Choptank River,\u201d he added, \u201cyou want it to be a better river.\u201d<\/p>\n But McClarren, whose company has yet to participate in the state market, says the steps required to claim and sell credits remain a mystery to him. \u201cYou spoke more to me about it than any other organization,\u201d McClarren said. \u201cSo we are kind of in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In 2020, Eric Wisner, who owns and operates an oyster business on Maryland\u2019s Eastern Shore, became one of the first oyster farmers to successfully claim nitrogen and phosphorus credits for an oyster harvest. Wisner recalled that, to certify his credits, he submitted monthly harvest reports that had to be corroborated with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. He wasn\u2019t expecting to receive a windfall from the program, he said. \u201cI was just happy to try to be one of the first participants on getting the ball rolling, to make it get out there, and make people aware of it.\u201d<\/p>\n But Wisner is unsure what ultimately became of his credits. The state\u2019s ledger shows that Wisner\u2019s credits \u2014 certified in February 2020, and amounting to 170 pounds of nitrogen and 28 pounds of phosphorus \u2014 went unpurchased. According to an email from Jay Apperson, deputy director of the Office of Communications at the Maryland Department of the Environment, \u201call nutrient credits used for permit requirements must be generated in the same year the permitted entities need them.\u201d Credits don\u2019t expire \u201cand in some rare cases can be used for a permittee to address violations from prior years,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n Environmental economists have explored and debated<\/a> the merits of water quality trading programs since the programs started to be explored in the 1980s. A 2009 fact sheet<\/a> circulated by the World Resources Institute asserted that nutrient trading programs \u201ccould make it possible to achieve Bay restoration goals faster and at lower cost.\u201d Meanwhile, groups such as the Center for Progressive Reform, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, warned<\/a> that water pollution trading was untested on a large scale, and that a poorly designed market \u201ccould actually facilitate an increase in pollution with each pollution credit traded.\u201d<\/p>\n For Virginia Tech\u2019s Stephenson, it\u2019s little surprise that Maryland\u2019s nutrient credit trading market, and similar programs around the country, are stalling. In an email, he wrote that water quality trading programs, in the way they are typically implemented, \u201chave yet to make a significant contribution to addressing the nonpoint source challenge.\u201d Unlike pollutants that flow from a single, traceable origin (e.g., wastewater treatment plants), a large share of nutrient runoff originates from sources that are difficult to track, making it a significant problem.<\/p>\n \u201cMarket-like incentives can be created by other means than just nutrient trading,\u201d Stephenson explained in an email. \u201cFor example, public sector agencies [c]an implement \u2018pay-for-performance\u2019 or \u2018pay-for-outcomes\u2019 programs where the agencies buy nutrient reductions based on selecting providers who can do it at the lowest possible cost.\u201d He noted that such programs would be akin to a nutrient credit trading market that had only one buyer: the government.<\/p>\n \u201cI strongly believe that market-like incentives have an important role to play in environmental policy,\u201d Stephenson wrote. \u201cMy concerns with \u2018nutrient trading\u2019 have been focused on the way some programs have been implemented and some more [ambitious] claims of what can be accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Today, nutrient levels in the Chesapeake watershed remain stubbornly high. Annual nitrogen and phosphorous loads have more than doubled<\/a> EPA targets in some recent years, according to data from Chesapeake Progress<\/a>, a website that helps track progress toward the goals and outcomes of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Maryland can, however, claim at least one win: According to an EPA evaluation<\/a>, in 2023, the state failed to meet target reductions for nitrogen but did meet the target for phosphorus loads.<\/p>\n It remains unclear just how cost-effective the water quality trading program has been compared with other policies the state implemented. Gregorio Sandi, chief of the Maryland Department of the Environment\u2019s Watershed Restoration Division, told Undark that while he couldn\u2019t recall precisely how much funding had been allocated to the program over its lifetime, he estimates that personnel costs in the initial years of the Water Quality Trading Program were between $90,000 and $100,000 annually. In the years since 2020, he said, those costs are about half.<\/p>\n Sandi said that, given the circumstances, he feels the water quality trading program has met expectations. The program\u2019s planners envisioned that wastewater facilities would be some of the larger buyers of credits, he said, but by the time the program launched, many of those facilities had upgraded their nutrient reduction technologies and no longer needed the offsets. Other factors \u2014 geographic limitations on who can buy credits from whom, the department\u2019s own reluctance to directly connect sellers with potential clients, the disruption of the Covid pandemic \u2014 added to the difficulty of getting the program to take off, Sandi said.<\/p>\n As Sandi explained it, when\u00a0buyers didn\u2019t materialize,\u00a0farmers felt spurned, their excitement gave way to frustration and disinterest, and the program lost some of its credibility.\u00a0He said he\u00a0and his team are hesitant to make another attempt at invigorating the market, lest farmers end up in a situation that is \u201cmore of the same.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0heard from anybody\u201d since the pandemic, Sandi told\u00a0Undark.\u00a0\u201cNor have we gone out to the organizations that we contacted in the past to promote the program.\u201d<\/p>\n In an emailed statement to Undark, Sandi wrote that \u201cMaryland is a leader in improving water quality and oyster restoration because we are willing to try innovative solutions. We\u2019re taking a broad, all-hands-on-deck approach \u2014 from wastewater upgrades to tree planting to stormwater improvements. The trading program is just one tool in the toolbox.\u201d<\/p>\n When Allen spoke with Undark toward the end of 2024, he said he believed in the potential of the program, though he admitted \u201csomething big\u201d would have to occur to create a sufficient demand for credits. He told Undark he planned to meet with a science and technical advisory committee to workshop ideas to rev up the idling market.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if we only come out of it with a refreshed list and just a few of those things, few of the roadblocks and knowledge gaps that we can go after and fill in, well, that\u2019s just taking a few more steps in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe just need to refresh our understanding, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing next, at least in the group I work with,\u201d Allen added.<\/p>\n Allen has since retired from the EPA, and the agency\u2019s plans for next steps are unclear.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-09-at-12.20.02\u202fAM-1024x730.png\")
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