Virginia has instituted a Pay for Outcomes program that is seeking creative ways to reduce pollution. This is Don Rush. The program differs from traditional ones by providing the funds upon demonstration of progress. The aim is to reduce the pace of nutrients running into the environment. In our weekly series with the Bay Journal, we talk with reporter Lauren Hines-Acosta about this effort.
“Virginia's Pay for Outcomes program focuses on basically paying people for how much pollution they prevent from entering the Chesapeake Bay. Other programs like this in Maryland and Pennsylvania, usually they just pay for a farmer or somebody to put in a practice that supposedly does that, like putting trees along a stream where the trees can soak up the nutrients from farms in the water, so then it doesn't get into the bay. But so this program in Virginia, it makes people or farmers pay for that cost upfront and then they'll have to show the state we actually reduced nutrient pollution by X amount and that's how much they'll get paid”, Hines-Acosta explained.
In terms of the number of applications, there've been a number of them. I guess only a few have been awarded. What's the situation with that so far?
“The program got 31 applications. Most of them were stream restoration applications, but nine groups actually got grants. So there's some traditional ones like restoring forest land, building oyster reefs, see that a lot, but some other ones took a new approach, which is kind of the whole point of the program, for people to try things the Bay Program hasn't approved yet or isn't quite traditional”, she said.
One of the techniques, matter of fact, I've noticed was this filtration system to capture ammonia gas in the chicken houses. We obviously have a lot of those here on the eastern shore. Tell me a little bit about that.
“Well the technologies wants to use an air filtration system in poultry houses, and those create a lot of ammonia, but ammonia is also 82% nitrogen, so the company can basically extract that nitrogen and maybe sell it for other things. They're not sure what they're going to do with it, but that one, I believe they said the filter, which they can see at the end of every day how much nitrogen is taken. They think it'll prevent 164 pounds of nitrogen per house annually from entering the Bay”, said Hines-Acosta.
Obviously the end goal is to boost the reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus, but I guess there are questions about just how accurate the comprehensive evaluation system response is.
“The reason Virginia is trying to reward actual observed reductions in pollution or nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus is because the modeling systems the Bay Program has been relying on seems to be overestimating how much pollution we're reducing or preventing from getting into the Bay and some of that model, very simply, it's a prediction based on the variables we have, and so some of the limitations of the model is that it assumes that every best management practice is effective in every area, pretty much acts the same way no matter where it is, but the model isn't nuanced enough to see how well they work. The Virginia program is trying to really focus more on where are we actually seeing on this observed Data”, she finished.
Bay Journal reporter Lauren Hines-Acosta on Virginia's Pay for Outcomes program to pursue creative ways to reduce pollution into the Bay Watershed. This is Don Rush for Delmarva Public Media.
