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Tradable Discharge Permit System For Water Pollution: Case of The Upper Nanpan River of China
Tradable Discharge Permit System For Water Pollution: Case of The Upper Nanpan River of China
Tradable Discharge Permit System For Water Pollution: Case of The Upper Nanpan River of China
27
© 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Abstract. A discharge permit system for water pollution of the upper Nanpan River has been tested
since 1992. This paper proposed the shift of the current non-tradable permits to tradable permits
to attain the same pollution reduction targets at a lower cost. It was found that this river appeared
good for trading. A pilot trading program for point sources was then recommended to a smaller
trading zone. There would be ten potential trades for chemical oxygen demand discharge, gaining
an annual cost-saving of Chinese Yuan 2.4 million, or saving 18.4% of the total annual cost to attain
the reduction target without trading. The marginal pollution reduction cost was estimated at Chinese
Yuan 959 for one kilogram chemical oxygen demand per day. Meanwhile, ‘without trading’ and
‘with trading’ scenarios would bring about 900.9 kg/day and 51.5 kg/day of redundant reduction
respectively. The net annual benefit arising from trading, about Chinese Yuan 1.6 million, would still
be significant. At last, the study recommended that compliance monitoring and executing institution
requirements be kept in mind while designing the program. An information system needs to be
established to provide potential participants relevant information. The method of permit allocation
and lifespan of permits should also be addressed later.
Key words: permit system, point/point source trading, pollution reduction cost
Abbreviations: BOD – biochemical oxygen demand; CNY – Chinese Yuan; COD – chemical oxygen
demand; NH3 -N – ammonia nitrogen; TDP – tradable discharge permits; TMLA – total maximum
load allowable.
JEL classification: I118, D45, D61, D62
Introduction
The upper Nanpan River in Qujing City, Yunnan Province of China was chosen
for an analysis of the potential benefits of tradable water pollution permit system.
Experience and data from the existing non-tradable permit system, along with
further analysis carried out for this study was used to estimate pollution reduction
? This paper was presented at the 3rd Biennial Pacific Rim Allied Economic Organization
Conference, January 13–18, 1998, Bangkok.
28 WENDONG TAO ET AL.
costs for each of the fourteen potential participants in the trading program. Differ-
ence in the reduction cost functions among the likely participants was used to
estimate the potential for profitable trades. The analysis indicated that trading of
permits for COD discharge could significantly reduce overall cost of pollution
reduction.
The upper Nanpan River in Qujing City is 122 km long with a drainage area of
2486 km2 . Based on the distribution of the point pollution sources, the mainstream
of the river is divided into five subzones by the nodes of the Huashan reservoir,
Xiping Town, the Qujing urban center, Yuezhou Town, and the Xiangshui reservoir
(see Figure 1).
The mainstream is designated for industrial and agricultural uses. However, the
instream water is presently so polluted that it is not suitable for any use. The crucial
pollutants are COD, BOD and NH3 -N. About 30 state-owned industrial polluters
are concentrated along the river in Huashan, Xiping, Yuezhou and the urban center.
In addition to the large industrial discharges, municipal wastewater from Xiping
Town and Qujing urban center also add considerable pollutant loading. Finally,
nonpoint sources further add to the pollutant loads, though the industrial and muni-
cipal discharges dominate today and are expected to continue to do so. The total
pollutant loads into the river are and are expected to remain much higher than the
TMLAs.
With increasing amounts of pollutant loads produced due to accelerated
economic growth, water quality objectives became impossible to attain by enforc-
DISCHARGE PERMIT SYSTEM FOR WATER POLLUTION 29
Considering the significant contribution of point sources to the upper Nanpan River
pollution, it is reasonable to confine the permit trading to point sources. Examin-
ation of each of the above necessary conditions found that prospects appear good
for the upper Nanpan River catchment. Basically, the catchment appears to satisfy
eight of the nine conditions.
1. There is an identifiable catchment. The upper Nanpan River has been identified
as a discrete segment. Permit trading may be confined to either the same area
as the non-tradable system or to selected subzones of it.
2. There are significant and sufficient point sources. While nonpoint sources
contribute somewhat toward water pollution, point sources for the crucial
pollutants dominate. There are nearly thirty existing industrial dischargers
participating in the non-tradable system. The municipal and industrial sources
could form a wider trading market. Furthermore, comparison of the current
and projected discharges with the TMLAs shows that control of point sources
would make the TMLAs attainable.
3. The TMLAs have been established. The TMLAs have been established under
the current permit system. A detailed TDP program could be developed on the
basis of the current permit system, or the TMLAs and total reduction targets
for the regulated pollutants could be developed.
4. There are accurate and sufficient data. Accurate and sufficient data on
wastewater characteristics of the major dischargers have been accumulated for
development of pollution control options. However, a computer information
system should be set up to renew and take full use of those continuously
developed data.
5. The concentration-based discharge limitations must be met at a minimum.
In general, TMLAs are developed and enforced for catchments where
concentration-based discharge requirements could not maintain or attain the
designated water quality objectives. In such a case, TMLAs are assumed to be
the more stringent discharge limit. All the industrial dischargers in the catch-
ment must, at a minimum, meet the concentration-based national discharge
standards.
6. There is a large difference in treatment costs across dischargers. Some of the
existing dischargers hold excessive allowances, a few face advanced treatment
requirements, and others only need primary treatment. Analysis on pollution
control options and associated costs showed that the remaining large reduc-
tions were accompanied by difference in unit pollution control costs across
dischargers (CNY88.6/kgCOD/day–7393.3/kgCOD/day). The combination of
required reductions and unit cost differences would provide incentives for
trading.
DISCHARGE PERMIT SYSTEM FOR WATER POLLUTION 31
7. The TDP system be accepted by the community and regulatory agency. China
has generally approved the rights to trade permits. The Provisional Method
to Manage Permits for Water Pollutant Discharge, a circular released by the
National Environmental Protection Agency of China, pointed out that the
discharge allowances for water pollutants could be transferred among the
local dischargers. China’s Environmental Protection Action Plan (1991–2000)
approved by the State Council stated that a detailed policy on pollution permit
trading needed to be formulated in the 90s. The decision whether to adopt
trading to meet TMLAs is up to the local governments. At this time the
Qujing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau staff are supportive of
and committed to trading. To what extent the dischargers would seek to trade
permits was difficult to determine, though no one expressed opposition to the
permits trading during the local seminars and other contacts with industries.
The Qujing Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant will be constructed with a
World Bank loan and domestic investment to serve the Qujing urban center.
The World Bank required that the Plant be managed by a private entity. The
Plant will be the largest participant of the trading program in terms of waste-
loads. That would ensure it a positive position in the trading market. The
municipal sources will participate in permit trading actively and seek to make
money in the trading market.
8. An adequate institutional structure be in place. The region has a capacity for
environmental monitoring adequate to support a trading program. Although
a specific institutional structure to facilitate trading needs to be determined
later, the local environmental protection bureaus appear to be good candidates.
Though they need further capacity building, they have shown their capability
for the permit system management.
9. There be adequate compliance incentives and enforcement mechanisms. Suffi-
cient and effective compliance incentives and enforcement mechanisms are
not yet in place. On one hand, the environmental protection bureaus do not
have enough personnel and resources to conduct unannounced checks. On the
other hand, bargaining is the predominant phenomenon in economic activities
in China owing to the special relationship between the government and the
enterprises (Yun 1997). With respect to discharge permits, enterprises may
bargain either to extend the deadline to comply with their permit limits, or
to eliminate or reduce the penalty for non-compliance. If these constraints are
resolved, the upper Nanpan River stands an excellent chance of developing a
successful trading program. The National Environmental Protection Agency of
China has realized these common enforcement problems and is seeking tech-
nical assistance to formulate enforcement policy of environmental legislation.
Moreover, environmental performance becomes a motivation for enterprises to
invest in pollution control as China’s market system expands. Public exposure
through mass media has a strong influence on the polluter’s behavior in China.
32 WENDONG TAO ET AL.
C ONTROLLED POLLUTANTS
The controlled pollutants are those for which the discharge allowances could be
traded among the participants of the trading program. Tradable permits use the
approach of total mass loading control. It was found that at least before the year
2010, only the crucial pollutants of NH3 -N, COD and BOD would be suitable for
total mass loading control. It would be simpler to manage and more effective to
control other pollutants through a concentration limit approach (Tao 1995; YIES
1995). NH3 -N is and will continue to be from a few dischargers. Therefore, COD
and BOD are proposed as the pollutants to be controlled by the trading program.
Considering the common characteristic of oxygen consumption due to both
COD and BOD, it seems proper to allow trades between COD and BOD as long as
an appropriate trading ratio is specified.
T RADING ZONE
The trading zone of permits is the geographical area within which dischargers of a
given pollutant would be allowed to buy and sell permit allowances. Generally,
the greater the number of sources targeted by a permit system, the greater the
likelihood the permits will be actively traded among firms (Government of Canada
1992). However, in over-large trading areas local ‘hot spots’ – localized areas in
which instream water quality standards are exceeded, may be a problem.
With regard to the distribution of existing and future dischargers, it would be
pragmatic to establish a pilot trading program within the subzone 3 and 4 – a total
channel length of 38 km. Most of the dischargers along the upper Nanpan River
are within subzone 3 and 4, and the channel distance is relatively short.
PARTICIPANTS
Ideally, from an environmental and economic standpoint, all sources of pollution
within the trading zone would be included in a given trading program. Frequently,
however, it would be administratively costly and impractical to include directly
many small sources (Government of Canada 1992). This trading program could
contain all 18 existing industrial participants of the non-tradable permit system in
DISCHARGE PERMIT SYSTEM FOR WATER POLLUTION 33
the trading zone and the two major municipal sources. Future industrial dischargers
also could be brought into the trading program. If all the pollution credits were
issued in the initial allocation, then anybody who made an application to develop a
new pollutant source, or to increase discharges from an existing source, would first
need to purchase sufficient credits from existing market players (NSWEPA 1994a).
YIES (1995) gave each subzone a TMLA during low-flow conditions that could
be considered in implementation of the trading program. The TMLAs in low-flow
conditions do not take into account the contribution of nonpoint sources and could
then be apportioned to the point sources within the trading zone.
The initial allocation will affect the bargaining power of participants in a trading
program. There are a few methods for permit allocation that appear appropriate for
the tradable permit system, such as modifying the current allocations, negotiating,
rewarding existing dischargers and growth/entry that adopt cleaner production,
and auction, among others. It is no simple matter to select the most practicable
one. Hence, alternatives for initial allocation of permits under the trading program
are hereafter identified as an important concern to be addressed in later stages.
To simplify the benefit analysis, existing allocations are used to estimate the cost
savings of trades at the present stage.
Comparing the unit costs across all reduction options of the potential participants
identifies the trading opportunities. We rank all the options according to unit cost
from the most expensive to the cheapest. In principle, permit trading allocates
pollutant load reductions across point sources using least cost as the criterion. The
most likely trade would occur when the participant with the highest unit cost offers
the highest permit price for a unit of excessive allowance on sale released by the
one with the lowest unit cost. Consequently, it is assumed that the participant with
the most expensive option is the first to buy such a unit excessive allowance on
sale.
The actual load of a participant is either larger than or equal to the allow-
ance. The participant that is with discharge load larger than that allowed has to
reduce its load. Application of a new specific control technology might result in a
participant having excessive allowances. Such excessive allowances could be sold.
Nonetheless, few dischargers are assumed to solely seek financial gain by upgrad-
DISCHARGE PERMIT SYSTEM FOR WATER POLLUTION 35
Table I. Cost-effectiveness with and without trading to meet permit limits.
ing their treatment facilities and selling the excessive allowances, considering the
low proportion of the cost needed to meet permit limits to the cost of industrial
product (i.e., 0.04% to 0.65% with exception of one paper mill at 7.33%). This
assumption fits with the Fox River experience (USEPA 1992b). The other options
of the buyer are then deleted from the ranking if the buyer gets enough discharge
rights to meet its permit limits.
For the options that are extended from the sold option, it is feasible to increase
excessive allowances through adding up unit treatment processes. For the options
that are not extended from the sold option, it is impossible to improve wastewater
treatment facilities because they are developed to reduce loading from the same
current load as the sold option but with different combination of unit treatment
processes. Therefore, the former options are substituted by the increments of
reduction load and cost, and the latter are deleted from the ranking.
Although the research aims at examining the implications of trading in real
settings, our trading cases (see Table I) are hypothetical. We simply wish to illus-
trate the potential effect of such an alternative to the current permit system for
water pollution control.
36 WENDONG TAO ET AL.
The potential annual benefit, direct reduction cost savings, is the difference of the
total annual cost of all participants to meet permit limits without trading and that
with trading. The “without trading” approach requires each discharger to achieve
its permit limits by upgrading its own wastewater treatment facilities; the “with
trading” approach allows permit trading to be an alternative for the dischargers to
achieve their permit limits.
Without trading, the calculation of the total cost is relatively straightforward.
It is obtained by getting the sum of the reduction cost of all participants’ option
that just makes the permit limits achieved. Under a trading program, there are
two choices for the dischargers to meet their permit limits – upgrading their own
wastewater treatment facilities or buying excessive allowances from the other
holders. Thus, the calculation of the total cost with trading is the sum of the
reduction cost of the participants that would meet their permit limits by upgrading
their own wastewater treatment facilities and the reduction cost through trading.
For example, although QCF applies the same pollution reduction option with and
without trading, it would sell 88.8 kgCOD/day of excessive reduction beyond
768.2 kgCOD/day to QUC if trading is allowed. The 88.8 kgCOD/day of traded
reduction and associated cost of CNY55689/year is then transferred from QCF to
QUC.
Based on our simulation, there would be only one case of trade between the
industrial participants (GPM adopts reduction option 5 and sells excessive reduc-
tion to ZPFP). However, there would be eight trades between municipal source
QUC and industrial participants and one case between the two municipal sources
(XT sells excessive reduction to QUC). These trades would gain a cost saving of
CNY2.4 million/year, or 18.4% of the total annual cost to attain the total reduction
target without trading. Because of the earlier mentioned assumptions to identify
trading opportunities, this amount of cost savings is a conservative estimation so
that it is modest compared to those (US$23 000 to US$27.2 million; 1 US$ ≈ 8.3
CNY) of US case studies of tradable permits for water pollution (USEPA 1992b).
Inclusion of the Qujing Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is
currently under preparation, into the trading market might bring out monopo-
listic behavior. With regard to their higher pollutant loading and potential trader
position, the municipal sources cannot be excluded from the trading program. To
prevent monopolistic behavior of the municipal sources, government could set
interventions to the permit trading prices, or an industrial congregation could be
instituted.
Theoretically, trading makes the differential in unit cost across dischargers
approach zero. The unit price of the last trade can approximately be considered
the marginal pollution reduction cost. In this case, it is estimated to be CNY959/kg
COD/day.
The ‘without trading’ and ‘with trading’ scenarios of the upper Nanpan River
permit system will, due to specific pollution control options, bring about 900.9
DISCHARGE PERMIT SYSTEM FOR WATER POLLUTION 37
kg/day and 51.5 kg/day of redundant reduction respectively beyond the required
reduction (see Table I).
A fair comparison between incentive-based and command-and-control policies
necessitates that any additional benefits associated with command-and-control
policies be offset against the cost advantages enjoyed by their incentive-based
counterparts (Oates et al. 1989). The net annual benefit arising from trading would
be direct pollution reduction cost-savings minus benefit of the additional reduction
of (900.9–51.5) kg/day. The net benefit of about CNY1.6 million is still signific-
ant when the benefit of such additional reduction is monetized by the marginal
reduction cost.
Estimation of the benefits of any TDP system is difficult before the system is
actually in place. In practice, the actual level of benefits will depend largely on
the extent of trading (USEPA 1992b). If BOD data were used to estimate the cost-
savings, results would be different. The research presented here intends to help
the government and industries accept the TDP program by illustrating the benefits
from trading.
Acknowledgments
This work was carried out with the aid of a small grant from EEPSEA. Our thanks
to Dr. David James, Dr. John Whalley, Dr. David Glover and Dr. Herminia Fran-
cisco, as well as many EEPSEA workshop participants for their useful comments
and suggestions. We would like to thank the US EPA Region 5, NSW EPA of
Australia and David James for providing valuable materials.
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