Center for Watershed Protection. 2017. Pollutant Load Reduction Credit. Crediting Framework Product #3 for the project Making Urban Trees Count: A Project to Demonstrate the Role of Urban Trees in Achieving Regulatory Compliance for Clean Water. Center for Watershed Protection, Ellicott City, MD. The Center for Watershed Protection Developed a Pollutant Load Reduction Credit for tree planting. This national credit can be adopted by regulatory agencies who wish to offer a science-based credit that encourages greater use of tree planting for meeting total maximum daily load (TMDL) requirements. This is an annual credit for nutrient and sediment load reduction.  This document provides an overview of the credit.