Making Tough Decisions Together
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90519RN:RV 8/5/08 11:48 AM Page 1 A River Network Publication Volume 18| Number 2 - 2008 Integrated Watershed Protection: Making Tough Decisions Together by Wendy Wilson & Gayle Killam , River Network cross the country, community members However, there are ways for them to collaborate to are working together to build watershed create a watershed-based community plan of action. awareness and create more integrated The process of reaching agreement and building decision-making processes. Natural community support for such a plan can be led by a resource agencies are often tasked with creating A collaborative stakeholder group, an inter- watershed plans and watershed protection programs governmental group or a non-governmental group. to address a specific concern such as water quality, The National Estuary Program (NEP) includes sedimentation or toxic contamination. However, the excellent examples of planning, communication and effectiveness of these efforts is influenced by decisions coordinated action. The Maryland Coastal Bays beyond the natural resource agencies’ control. Program was recently recognized for its support of Political, economic and social forces influencing local comprehensive local planning and zoning land-use patterns, transportation planning, achievements. 1 The Coastal Bays Program includes the development of water supplies and management of towns of Ocean City and Berlin, the National Park storm and waste water often have a greater impact on Service, Worcester County, U.S. Environmental the health of the watershed than even the most Protection Agency, and the State of Maryland. These thorough watershed plans. entities joined with citizens and representatives from To become more effective, today’s watershed the development, farming, golf, tourism and fishing protection and restoration practitioners go beyond industries to produce a highly effective conservation their traditional roles in order to integrate the work of and management plan. 2 many different entities. There is an important new Other successful efforts to integrate watershed need for helping communities understand how the protection have been partially funded by the U.S. physical and ecological conditions of the watershed Environmental Protection Agency through Watershed interact with—and are irreversibly changed by— Assistance Grants administered by River Network decisions to develop, pave over and build new from 1999-2004, and the Targeted Watershed Grants plumbing across our common landscape. program since 2004. No one agency or organization—working in isolation—can practice Integrated Watershed Protection. In most places, different agencies take Why Integrate? responsibility for restoration activities, water quality There is no perfect Integrated Watershed Protection monitoring, enforcement of water quality laws and program. But there are many examples of how funding public water infrastructure. And, if you add watershed protection efforts have suffered from a lack in the different agencies involved with land use of integration. The watershed council that makes a big planning, transportation, development and other investment in a stream restoration project is rightly activities that impact our waters, the list of watershed frustrated when its project blows out because of players who need to be “integrated” can be enormous. improper construction practices upstream. The 1 www.epa.gov/nep/openhouse.html 2 www.mdcoastalbays.org cont. on page 4 90519RN:RV 8/5/08 11:48 AM Page 2 CONTENTS 1 Integrated Watershed Protection: NATIONAL OFFICE Making Tough Decisions Together 520 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 1130 • Portland, OR 97204-1511 by Gayle Killam & Wendy Wilson 503/241-3506 • fax: 503/241-9256 [email protected] • www.rivernetwork.org 3 From the President 5 Engaging Government and Business in Planning Change River Network is a national, nonprofit by Waverly de Bruijn organization whose mission is to help 8 Collaboration Triggers Confluence of Watershed Strategies by Kendra Smith & Gayle Killam people understand, protect and restore 11 Bringing the Community Together to Restore Watershed rivers and their watersheds. and Human Health by Steve Dickens 14 Engaging Mayors in Watershed Protection by Waverly de Bruijn & Merritt Frey RIVER NETWORK BOARD OF TRUSTEES Todd Ambs Barbara J. Horn 17 Creating a Model for Sustainable Watershed Protection Catherine Armington Dave Katz by Waverly de Bruijn Adrienne T. Atwell Paul Paryski Suzi Wilkins Berl Charles F. Sams III 21 Integrating Science, Community Outreach Rob R. Buirgy Judith Spang and Education Kimberly N. Charles Marc Taylor, Chair by Waverly de Bruijn Mary Ann Dickinson Balijit Wadhwa Dianne Dillon-Ridgley James R. Wheaton 24 Integrated Watershed Protection Assessment Don Elder Robert L. Zimmerman, Jr. 31 Lessons of Integration by Wendy Wilson & Merritt Frey 32 Voices from the Field RIVER NETWORK STAFF 34 Resources & References Matthew Burke Gayle Killam Ryan Carter Katherine Luscher 35 Partner Pitch Waverly de Bruijn Deb Merchant Steve Dickens Julie Noble Dawn DiFuria Mary Ellen Olcese River Voices is a forum for information exchange among river and watershed Don Elder groups across the country. River Network welcomes your comments and sugges - J.R. Ralston tions. River Network grants permission and encourages sharing and reprinting of Merritt Frey Susan Schwartz information from River Voices , unless the material is marked as copyrighted. Please Bevan Griffiths-Sattenspiel credit River Network when you reprint articles and send the editor a copy. Diana Toledo Additional copies and back issues are available from our national office. Jean A. Hamilla Stephen Twelker Editors: Waverly de Bruijn, Katherine Luscher Kevin Kasowski Wendy Wilson Editorial Assistance: Don Elder, Merritt Frey, Gayle Killam, Wendy Wilson Design & Layout: Greer Graphics 2 River Network • RIVER VOICES • Volume 18, Number 2 90519RN:RV 8/5/08 11:48 AM Page 3 From The President n o i t c e l l o C k r o w t e N r e v atershed planning has come a long way. It wasn’t so i R : t i d e long ago that the very idea was brand new in most r c o t o h places. Today, there are literally thousands of P watershed planning processes underway across the Wcountry. They are involving people with many types of interests and expertise, and they are addressing a good and growing range of water quality, quantity and habitat issues. But let’s face it: far too many of our watershed planning processes still lead simply to a set of recommendations that are easily and regularly trumped by local and state transportation, land use and economic growth plans—as well as by land development pressures, market forces, and people’s deeply ingrained habits about land and water use. We must gain much greater influence. The great challenge for the watershed community in the decade ahead is integrating our planning efforts with other important community planning activities, and doing so in a way that leads to different kinds of major decisions throughout the watershed. No decisions are more important to the future of a watershed than those about major infrastructure. Yet far too few of our watershed plans today seriously address even water infrastructure, much less the transportation and other types of infrastructure that have everything to do with where and how an area grows and develops. Ignore these in most watersheds and most of the rest of our work is for naught. The good news is that the watershed provides an ideal spatial context for coordinating many types of ongoing planning efforts in most regions. While advancing our own organizations’ missions, we can also lead the way to better planning in general for our communities. We at River Network hope that this issue of River Voices will help you get started on the path toward coordinated watershed planning and action. Volume 18, Number 2 • River Network • RIVER VOICES 3 90519RN:RV 8/5/08 11:48 AM Page 4 Making Tough Decisions Together, cont. cont. from page 1 agency that approves a watershed planning on the nature and extent of watershed document never to see it implemented due “integration” or coordination. The working to a lack of political will becomes sluggish group participated in a day-long discussion about writing any more plans. And all those and follow-up communications throughout engaged stakeholders drift away when the year. The group discussed goals and implementation dollars for a TMDL do not tools most useful in promoting such materialize. approaches. As River Network listened to the working group, we identified a set of Perhaps the worst possible “indicators of success” for Integrated results of “un-integrated” Integrated Watershed Protection. watershed protection lead us to Watershed community health issues and The working group emphasized the value of Protection the uncertain future of our certain intangibles such as trust between is any process used to drinking water. All over the stakeholders and community readiness for coordinate land use country there are examples of change. They also emphasized the communities where importance of scientific tools such as planning, environmental development ordinances aren’t regular water quality monitoring and programs and resource designed to protect vulnerable watershed assessment. protection on a drinking water sources. In the In the end, River Network felt that the worst cases, a community may watershed scale. indicators of success fell into five broad continue to suffer from public An Integrated categories: health problems because their Watershed concerns