market-based information to allocate resources effectively with lower cost. The societal goal is to reduce pollution rather than to avoid paying for unsuccessful pollution control projects. Auctions for public pollution control expenses could be a way to deal with some of the most intractable sources of pollution including nonpoint pollution sources. The government could accept bids based on units of cost per units of pollution reduced and it could pay based on proof of actual pollution reductions based on a performance measurement. An optimal economical trading ratio for tradable permits, such as through the NPDES program, can define allowable loading amounts for polluters with permits. The number of polluters then becomes the key factor for this instrument. Based on the stochastic nature of nonpoint pollution, NPDES permit system for point sources can not simply be used on nonpoint sources. Although many literature reviews mention tradable permits between point sources and nonpoint sources, unfortunately, current economic literature provides little guidance as to how to set trading ratios. Important factors like environmental risk and relative contributions to ambient pollution are critical to designing the appropriate ratio. Pollution taxes or emission charges Typical policy remedies such as Pigovian taxes cannot address the issue of non-point source pollution. Such policies require direct monitoring of pollution at the individual polluter level. This is, by definition of pollution being non-point source, infeasible. The economics literature has many alternative policy remedies however. These alternative policies try to apply the polluter pays principle but basing the tax on what can be observed. Things that a tax can be based on include, the use of dirty inputs, a proxy for individual emissions, or some measure of ambient pollution level. In the case of agriculture, one basis for NPS controls would be to tax farmers based on the amount of erosion they cause. However, measuring erosion and topsoil is expensive. Another way is to impose special purpose district property taxes on farmland that does not adopt BMPs or employ methods to reduce nonpoint source pollution. Another option is to tax farmers based on the amount of fertilizer and pesticides they use. Taxes on pesticides, however, would be limited by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) which takes into account economic impacts. However, a tax on pesticides would only reduce one source of agricultural NPS pollution and would ignore other important sources, such as livestock waste runoff from Concentrated