Conasauga River Alliance

Elizabeth Hamilton & Julia M. Wondolleck

Ecosystem Management Initiative School of Natural Resources and Environment The University of Michigan 430 E. University Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1115

www.snre.umich.edu/emi/cases/conasauga

This paper may not be copied, reproduced, or translated without permission in writing from the authors.

1 Introduction The 90-mile Conasauga River begins in the Chattahoochee National Forest high in the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest Georgia and flows north into Tennessee, then west, and finally south into Georgia. In Georgia, it becomes part of the larger Coosa Basin System that continues to Mobile Bay. The Conasauga River watershed is a 500,000-acre landscape that is home to 125,000 humans, and provides habitat for approximately 90 species of fish and 25 species of freshwater mussels (many of them threatened or endangered). Since the 1970s, the number of mussel species found in the river has dropped from 40 to 28. The river is also a source of water for agriculture, local communities, and a carpet-dying industry that creates 80% of the nation’s and 45% of the world’s carpets. Committed citizens and representatives from nearly 40 state and federal agencies, nonprofit conservation and research organizations, businesses, and universities have joined forces to protect the invaluable natural, cultural, economic, and recreational resources of the Conasauga River. Loosely assembled under the umbrella of the Conasauga River Alliance, the diverse partners carry out a multitude of independent and often collaborative activities in pursuit of the Alliance’s vision “to maintain a clean and beautiful Conasauga River – forever.” In 1999, the Forest Service chose the Conasauga River watershed as one of 15 priority large watersheds. Like the Potomac Watershed Partnership,1 the Conasauga River Alliance is an initiative targeted at protecting one of the Forest Service-designated nationally significant watersheds.2 But the Alliance did not begin as a Forest Service-initiated group and, in fact, functioned for several years without the Forest Service as a partner. The story of the Conasauga River Alliance highlights the logic and the challenges associated with large-scale watershed collaboration. Two major observations weave together the lessons of this partnership. First, this partnership highlights the challenges inherent in uniting multiple organizations with multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives under a common umbrella focused on a shared set of activities. The partners of the Conasauga River Alliance sometimes struggle to simultaneously fulfill their individual organizational goals and those of the Alliance. Second, the Conasauga River Alliance experience also

1 See case study for Potomac Watershed Partnership at: http://www.snre.umich.edu/emi/cases/home.htm. 2 In 1999, the Forest Service realized that solutions to watershed issues would require working collaboratively across mixed ownerships within watersheds. Consequently, the Forest Service solicited nominations for regional watersheds fulfilling certain criteria (e.g., nationally significant watersheds with multiple partners doing on-the-ground work), and from more than 60 proposals, selected 15 large-scale watershed restoration projects, one of which was the Conasauga River watershed.

2 highlights the importance of having a designated, skilled and respected coordinator who is able to rally and guide the diverse organizations in a partnership towards shared objectives. From Interested Citizens to Incorporated Organization: Formation of the Partnership Partnerships seldom arise in whole form nor do they appear overnight. Each begins from the initiative of a single individual or organization, usually focused on a particular issue or problem and in a way that engages the attention and involvement of others. The seeds for the Conasauga River Alliance were sown by an initiative taken by the Limestone Valley Resource Conservation Development Council (RC&D). In 1995, RC&D received a $200,000 grant from the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to study the Conasauga River watershed and suggest ways that the community could work together to improve the management of the river, particularly in addressing issues such as excess sediment, excess nutrients, and toxic chemicals3. A major feature of this study’s design was to engage interested citizens in Tennessee and Georgia in research about their watershed. A Steering Committee of local citizens assisted by technical advisors from private and government agriculture and conservation organizations guided the study through a series of participatory community meetings. After the study was completed in 1996, the citizens on the Steering Committee vowed to keep working together—thus was born the Conasauga River Alliance. The Alliance adopted the study’s concluding goals as its own: • Develop respect for natural resources and provide conservation education • Protect private land rights • Sustain and improve a clean Conasauga River

A Steering Committee of local citizens convened to oversee the work of the Alliance’s partner organizations, which do much of the work of the Alliance. The Forest Service Becomes a Vital Partner In 1999, the Forest Service selected the Conasauga River as one of the Chief’s Large- Scale Watershed Restoration Projects. The Cherokee National Forest and the Chattahoochee National Forest Supervisors, who oversee lands within the Conasauga River watershed, decided to create a position within the Forest Service to bridge the two Forests

3 Conasauga River Ecosystem-Based Assistance Study: One of Ten Nationwide Pilot Projects to Provide Ecosystem-Based Assistance for the Management of Natural Resources. August 1996. The Limestone Valley Resource Conservation and Development Council, Inc.

3 and focus on the watershed. In 1999, Kent Evans was hired as the Forest Service Conasauga River Project Coordinator, and he began his work by building a business plan for the Conasauga River Alliance, a document required of all Forest Service large-scale nationally-significant watershed restoration projects.4 Evans and George Ivey, TNC’s Conasauga River Project Manager at the time, wrote the plan together. They attempted to unite all of the partners’ goals into a single document,5 but doing so was not easy. By 2000, there were a handful of partners in the 36-partner group who were active on a daily basis, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, Limestone Valley RC&D, USDA NRCS, The Nature Conservancy, and the Southeast Aquatic Research Institute. Other partners include Dalton State College, Dalton Utilities, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, North Georgia Regional Development Center, Tennessee Aquarium, and more.6 The Steering Committee (now Board of Directors) convenes every two months and hears updates from the Alliance partners on the work being conducted in the watershed. In response to the large amounts of grant money that the partners have acquired, the Steering Committee has sometimes developed special subcommittees that make project funding allocation decisions. Initially, the Alliance had no paid staff of its own. Similarly, while the Alliance had a set of guiding goals and boundless enthusiasm when established in 1996, it had no funding to conduct Alliance-specific projects. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and RC&D helped to fill these holes by providing staff, organizational, and financial support to the partnership. RC&D hired one person on contract from TNC to help to run the Alliance and also secured a $380,000 Section 319(h) Non Point Source Pollution grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, matched in part by The Nature Conservancy. The grant funds a five- year project through 2005 designed to implement eight “corrective action” Best Management Practices (BMPs) to address high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in the Perry Creek subwatershed and 16 “demonstration” BMPs to address nonpoint source pollution from agriculture, forestry, suburban and urban runoff, habitat modification, and

4 May 15, 2000. Conasauga River Alliance Business Plan: Conasauga River Watershed Ecosystem Project. Prepared in Collaboration by George Ivey, Conasauga River Project Manager, Conasauga River Alliance and Kent Evans, Project Coordinator, Cherokee and Chattahoochee national Forests, Southern Region of the United States Department of Agriculture—Forest Service. Accessed at: http://www.conasaugariver.net/backgrnd.html. 5 Can be downloaded at http://www.conasaugariver.net/backgrnd.html. 6 Other partners include: University of Tennessee, University of Georgia, DOW Chemical, Trout Unlimited, Conservation Fisheries Inc., Auburn University, National Wild Turkey Federation, Appalachian Sportsmen's Club, Pacific Rivers Council, Georgia Forest Watch, EPA, USFWS, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the Georgia Forestry Commission.

4 transportation corridors in the Conasauga River watershed.7 The grant also supports public conservation education and water quality monitoring programs. Shawn Clouse, TNC’s current Conasauga River Project Manager, is the field representative who conducts much of the proposed field work outlined in the EPA grant. Eight years after its initial formation, in March 2003, the Conasauga River Alliance incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Conasauga River Alliance Steering Committee became the group’s Board of Directors to reflect its new organizational status. The group approved a set of bylaws, indicating the CRA Board of Directors “shall be comprised of representatives of diverse interests residing in or conducting business within the Conasauga River watershed of Georgia and Tennessee.” The bylaws also specify two new goals for the Alliance in addition to the three adopted from the NRCS-funded study:8

• Work with a wide range of partners to achieve mutual goals of the Conasauga River Alliance. • Function as a non-profit organization with high management standards regarding finances, equipment, relationships, and other assets. One of the major reasons for incorporating as a non-profit organization was a response to the challenge of “accounting for what it takes, administratively, to run an Alliance,” noted Doug Cabe, Alliance partner and RC&D representative. While the work of the Alliance was enabled by substantial investments from key Alliance partners like RC&D, The Nature Conservancy, and the Forest Service, not having a dedicated staff of its own had been a serious challenge for the Alliance. This move allowed the partnership both to hire staff and conduct its own fundraising. What began as an initiative of local citizens and the RC&D is today a group of 36 partner organizations—including diverse businesses, conservation groups, and federal, state, and local agencies—who work together under the guidance of the Alliance, conducting research, performing water-quality monitoring, and increasing education throughout the watershed. Before the Alliance was established, citizens were very skeptical of research being conducted in their backyards by various agencies and organizations, and they were fearful of losing control of their land. Attitudes have changed since the formation of the Alliance, comments Rick Guffey, current North Georgia Conservation Director for The Nature Conservancy: “The Alliance really started out as a watchdog-type group, and it has

7 See Appendix A of “Scope of Services, Element 3 – Section 319(h) FY99 Grant” available by request. 8 Together, these five goals are the goals of the Conasauga River Alliance today.

5 grown from that into a group of people that is really concerned about the river…they want to make sure that their kids have clean water from the Conasauga River in 20 or 30 years.”

Accomplishments With such diverse and numerous partners active in the Conasauga River watershed, there are many activities ongoing at any given time and a long list of achievements of the partners of the Alliance. Doug Cabe of Limestone Valley RC&D believes that one of the biggest accomplishments of the Alliance involves education. In 2000, the Alliance held a two- day field trip organized by the Forest Service and RC&D partners. Over 550 people from Tennessee and Georgia attended and viewed best management practices (BMPs) including riparian buffers installed on private lands, streambank stabilization and restoration efforts, and waste management improvements at poultry facilities. The community members also saw healthier “reference sites” on public lands, watched kudzu control and prescribed burn demonstrations, and visited the aquatic research center and hatchery to see the juvenile mussels and rare fish being propagated to supplement existing, declining populations. Participants also toured Dalton Utilities’ water and sewage treatment plants in the town of Dalton, Georgia, home to 80,000 people and a large carpet-dying business and second to Atlanta in state water usage, using 40 million gallons of water per day. The Alliance also held two-day training workshops for 110 teachers from Tennessee and Georgia in 2001. The group received training on Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), EPA’s water quality education program for elementary and middle school students, from a University of Tennessee professor and provided teachers with teacher’s guides and information on CD-ROM. Teachers have asked that these workshops be held annually and Alliance partners have received requests to conduct individual programs in schools. One Alliance partner comments that there is visible change in teachers’ attitudes and enthusiasm about teaching what they learned at the workshops in their classrooms. Forest Service partner Kent Evans tells a vivid story that he believes conveys the positive influence of the Alliance’s educational activities in the watershed. He describes a camping area on the Georgia-Tennessee border in the Cherokee National Forest in the Conasauga watershed that was badly misused in the past. They were “nasty, hell-raising, beer-drinking” visitors who used to drive to the river and change their vehicles’ oil, drain the transmission and radiator fluid, and wash their cars. In the face of this number one violation site, the Forest Service mounted a clean-up and public relations campaign, installed improved campsites, and provided enforcement. The violations disappeared, not a single

6 vehicle block to the river was removed, and nobody chain-sawed or burned any of the picnic tables. Evans attributes the positive changes to increased messages conveyed through schools, county meetings, and the Alliance’s work and Forest Service’s management. In addition to education, many of the partners in the Alliance focus on on-the-ground conservation and restoration. Activities include installing over 30 miles of buffer along streams and rivers in the watershed, with the largest landowner installing 18 miles, through NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP); installing 25 stack houses, which are composting storage units for poultry litter; and helping individual property owners improve their septic systems or install alternative septic systems, like peat moss filtering. These projects are primarily conducted by one or more Alliance partner organizations in conjunction with volunteers and local landowners as needed. Alliance partners have sometimes used creative strategies to achieve their objectives. For example, in exchange for installing a riparian stream buffer on private property, an Alliance partner helped a family bring their septic system to standard so that the family could receive electricity. There is also a strong element of research in many of the Alliance activities. USFS Southern Research Station and National Forest specialists are working together to determine appropriate vegetation communities in areas where southern pine beetles have destroyed over 10,000 acres of trees in the watershed’s National Forests. The Forest Service has set up fire research plots to study the impacts of burning and thinning on water quality. There is an ongoing road sediment study to model predicted sediment yield from roads and trails in the watershed. TNC and USFS are conducting stream toxicity analyses on National Forests and private lands asking the question, “are there toxins in the sediment?” Alliance partners are also conducting taxonomic work on rare aquatic species to identify biotic hotspots.

What has fostered progress? Monitoring and Evaluation of Objectives and Accomplishments Monitoring is an important aspect of the partnership’s work. This monitoring has two main objectives. The first is educational; to enhance understanding of the watershed ecosystem and to share knowledge and data so that others can use it. The Conasauga River Alliance website describes the Alliance’s goal for the monitoring program: “The long-term goal of our monitoring program is to gather basic information on the biological and physical components of local watershed ecosystems and to share that information with community members, schools, local agencies, other organizations and decision makers.” The second

7 objective is to be better able to track and measure the progress and accomplishments of the Alliance and individual partner’s efforts. The Nature Conservancy has focused its efforts in the watershed on research and monitoring. TNC and Dalton Utilities developed an agreement to collaboratively conduct water quality monitoring. TNC staff conducts the field work and monitoring on a quarterly basis at 11 different sites in the watershed, measuring nutrient loading, fecal coliform levels, and basic water quality parameters, and Dalton Utilities conducts pro bono fecal coliform testing. TNC established a baseline for monitoring in 1999 by taking monthly samples. TNC and Dalton College also conduct bi-annual macroinvertebrate monitoring. In addition, Rick Guffey, TNC North Georgia Conservation Director, explains that they collect baseline water quality data and have a rigorous monitoring program so that they can track any improvements in water quality over time “as we continue our streambank restoration, riparian buffer work, mollusc propagation and stocking program.” In addition, a large focus of TNC’s program is to find the true culprit behind the decline in mussel species, which is occurring without a parallel decline in fish assemblages. Researchers are currently doing extensive work on sediment toxicity issues and expect answers within two years. Of this work, Guffey explains: “Then and only then will we know for sure if our work plan and implementation is addressing the problems of the decline in species and if we truly have the opportunity to bring back many of the populations that have been extirpated. This data along with our restoration projects and mussel propagation will give us our measures of success for restoring declining mollusc populations and providing long-term protection for many other aquatic species.” For The Nature Conservancy, measuring success is inextricably linked to conducting research to determine whether their current strategies are the right ones to be pursuing. As Guffey comments, “since my involvement here, I’ve tried to focus TNC’s efforts on finding the true cause of the decline of mollusc species in the Conasauga River and coming up with a new plan that addresses this issue. I’m trying to get away from addressing the symptoms of a perceived problem and [instead want] good peer reviewed documentation of the cause. It’s my belief that only then can we make a lasting and documented difference.” There are other examples in the partnership where the Partners are focusing on measuring whether given strategies are moving the system towards the desired objective. Doug Cabe explains that the EPA 319 grant dictates monitoring and requires “incredible accountability.” For example, one goal in the grant is to reduce fecal coliform in Perry Creek by 40% over a five-year period, and he explains they are continuously monitoring to identify hotspots and measure whether levels are improving over time. Another way in which the

8 Alliance is measuring its impacts, Cabe explains, is by using an ArcView GIS database, which is enabling them to see “what sites and what effects are happening watershed-wide.” Finally, he says that a large section of the north end of the Conasauga has been taken off the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) list, and he attributes this to the cumulative impacts of 18-19 miles of buffer installed, the stackhouses, cattle restrictions, and alternative watering systems installed. He believes that between the EPA 319 grant, the EQIP program, and the Forest Service’s work, they are “seeing that [we] are making an impact in the whole watershed.” The Alliance continues to try to track progress towards its goals in other ways too. Some of the indicators that the Alliance has chosen to meet this challenge are found in the 2002 Annual Report written by Forest Service partner Kent Evans. They include tracking indicators such as: the number of conservation workshops held, number of riparian campsites rehabilitated, miles of forest trail maintenance conducted, and rare species monitoring, water quality sampling, and habitat research conducted.9 In order to measure success towards conservation and restoration objectives on private lands, the Alliance reports accomplishments by citing acres of the watershed planned for vegetation improvements, number of acres for which rotation grazing systems have been planned, riparian acres enrolled in the Environmental Quality Incentive Program or the Conservation Reserve Program, number of educational brochures distributed, and miles of riverbank that have vegetation buffers installed. Tracking progress is not without its challenges and limitations and the Alliance and individual partners would like to be doing more. Many of these indicators can be characterized as measuring outputs, not outcomes,10 but as Forest Service partner Kent Evans comments, “Measuring success is very time-consuming, and we haven’t worked very hard on it because there was so much obvious work that had to be done. So we jumped right in trying to do the obvious. We know where we need to go, we just haven’t had the money, the time, or the staffing to do it.” He also comments, that as the person who summarizes the Alliance’s yearly accomplishments in its annual report, getting other organizations and agencies to “willingly come forward” with accomplishments measured against goals is often difficult. Evans has tried to quantify the yearly accomplishments of the

9 See Appendix B of 2002 Annual Report for complete list http://www.conasaugariver.net/documnts/conanrpt.pdf. 10 B. Doppelt, C. Shinn, J. DeWitt. September 2002. Review of the USDA Forest Service Community-Based Watershed Restoration Partnerships. Analysis and Recommendations. Compiled by Center for Watershed and Community Health, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University for the US Forest Service.

9 Alliance in the annual report,11 but it has not always been easy to get all of the partners to report their accomplishments to him: “What I think has happened is that we haven’t pushed [the Alliance partners] to try to, in a real deliberate fashion, to lay these goals out, and the objectives, and the measureables, and then the accomplishments. What I’m doing is pulling teeth at the end of the last two or three years that I’ve written these annual reports. I’ve gone back to each [partner organization] and have thought of some kind of measureable and said, ‘how are we coming here?’” Another factor that makes measuring progress difficult is that, in many cases, the full need for restoration or conservation has not been outlined; the target condition or goal against which to measure progress has not always been identified. For example, Evans explains that nobody has asked and answered the question, “what is the total need of vegetative buffers in the watershed?” For example, while they may have nearly 30 miles of vegetative buffers installed in the watershed, they may be far from doing enough to protect the watershed. And yet, because nobody has mapped the sub-watershed and its tributaries with GIS, Evans suggests that the group may be missing information about a large base of landowners who could be willing to participate in the Alliance or install buffers. Strong links to the scientific community In addition to the crucial financial, strategic, and administrative guidance of Alliance partners like the USFS, Limestone Valley RC&D, and The Nature Conservancy, another element that has helped the large, diverse group of partners is the existence of different forums in which to share current scientific knowledge. One example is the annual Coosa Basin Summit. According to Forest Service Conasauga River Coordinator Kent Evans, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has been “one of the main facilitators for success in the Conasauga” because it coordinates the annual Coosa Basin Summit, a gathering of credible scientists across the Coosa Basin, including the Conasauga River watershed. While one of the main functions of the group is to provide expertise to the FWS about its concerns in the Basin (e.g., listed species conservation), the Coosa Basin Science Committee also plays an important role for the Conasauga River Alliance. When this group gathers annually, they share information about current research and monitoring efforts and help to set priorities for the Alliance’s restoration work in critical streams. The group is currently working to create an aquatic biodiversity poster of the fauna in the Basin.

11 For the most recent annual report, see http://www.conasaugariver.net/backgrnd.html. Conasauga River Alliance Watershed Project, Community Based Partnership, 2002 Annual Report. Prepared by Kent Evans, Conasauga River Coordinator, US Forest Service, November 2002. Designed by Limestone Valley RC&D.

10 While this group has been a facilitating factor in improving communication among the Alliance’s science partners, Evans sees an opportunity to broaden the scientists’ influence. “The Coosa Summit and Coosa Science Committee have a really rich, deep group of scientists, and the challenge,” according to Evans, “is integrating them into the policy realm where their information is palatable to the policy makers and understandable, and where their knowledge is incorporated into strategic long-term planning,” by local and state developers, planners, and policy makers. Evans explains that a new group called the Northwest Georgia Regional Water Resources Partnership (NGRWRP) may be a step in the right direction towards incorporating scientific information from the watershed scientists into strategic long-term planning. The NGRWRP is currently organized along political county boundaries but contains about 90% of the Coosa Basin. At its first annual meeting in November 2002, over 120 people including water resource experts; citizens; state, federal, and local water program managers; business and industry representatives; conservation groups; and government agency representatives gathered to talk about key water resource issues in the six watersheds in the Coosa Basin (Tennessee, Conasauga, Coosa, Oostanaula, Coosawattee, and Etowah River basins), ways of working more effectively across jurisdictional boundaries, and roles of the new NGRWRP.12 Cabe and Evans, two of the key players in the Conasauga River Alliance, helped to organize this meeting, drawing upon their experiences in the Alliance. Multiple Small and Large Partnerships The Conasauga River Alliance’s strategy to establish multiple small and large partnerships is enabling the group to establish a long-term presence and relationships in the watershed. For example, the Alliance has engaged Dalton Middle School in maintaining the Alliance’s new website. Dalton Middle School will maintain the website, funded by TNC, the Forest Service, and a Lindhurst Foundation grant, providing the Alliance with an important link to the educational community and providing local students and teachers with greater ownership of the Alliance’s efforts. This small partnership will likely expand the volunteer base for Alliance projects and provide more opportunities for future partnerships. The Alliance has successfully engaged private business in conservation and restoration efforts by identifying mutual goals. For example, The Nature Conservancy and Dalton Utilities (DU), which recently spent $100 million updating their entire wastewater and filtration facilities, have formed a partnership in which DU conducts pro bono testing

12 For more information, see Executive Report from 2002 Roundtable on Water Stewardship. From the Forest to the Faucet. November 19, 2002. Northwest Georgia Regional Water Resources Partnership. Available upon request.

11 on water samples and sponsors on-site projects to improve sedimentation problems. While purely anecdotal, one partner indicates that DU has done some comparisons of water filtration costs on regular days versus on days following big rain events, and the numbers, while too early to say conclusively, appear to show that the filtration costs after rain events are decreasing over time—indicating that sedimentation issues are improving. Certainly, reducing sediment and improving water quality lessens the filtration costs of turning river water into potable water, and the two groups working together may achieve their respective individual goals—improved water quality and reduced costs.

What challenges were faced, and how were they overcome? Building an effective organizational structure. The CRA has recently implemented what it hopes will be a solution to some of its biggest challenges by becoming a free-standing non- profit organization. The challenges arise from the complex relationship between the Alliance members (the local citizens on the Alliance Board of Directors providing guidance to the partners’ work) and the Alliance partners who are the ones doing the bulk of the conservation work. In recent years, the Alliance members, according to current Board of Director member John Paul Bledsoe, felt as if they had “lost control of some of our partners…they were making decisions instead of the Steering Committee.” The Forest Service’s Kent Evans commented in late 2002 that “the Alliance is really loose. When everyone gets together, we’re still seeing each other as individual agencies with individual projects until someone says, ‘now, realize, we are the Alliance.’ And they say, ‘oh yeah, I guess we are.’” Evans believes that these struggles will be resolved by the hiring of a staff person devoted solely to Alliance activities and housed separate from any of the large partners. This suggestion is now being implemented as the Alliance searches for its first paid staff member. By formalizing the group as a nonprofit, by conducting its own fundraising, and by having its own staff, the group believes it will be better able to direct Alliance-guided work in the watershed and have a stronger sense of identity. Bridging multiple groups with multiple objectives. Striking a strategic balance between fulfilling Alliance goals and fulfilling individual organizational goals has been challenging. Many of the partner organizations of the Alliance operate under different goals than the five identified by the Alliance, each influenced by its own institutional environment. Forest Service partner Kent Evans explains that each partner agency or organization has its own marching orders. The Fish & Wildlife Service marches in step with its recovery plans for threatened and endangered species. TNC staff members, in partnership with local and

12 regional stakeholders, follow the organization’s Conservation by Design process and develop iterative Site Conservation Plans that guide conservation action on the ground in conservation areas. The Forest Service is guided by its Land Management Plans. The Alliance’s business plan, written by FS and TNC representatives, was an attempt to unite all the partners’ goals and with the hiring of Alliance staff should become a guiding light for Alliance activities. One member of the Alliance Board of Directors commented that “Kent Evans has been one of the greatest assets that the Conasauga River Alliance has had,” in his initiative to get this plan developed. Managing growth in membership. Increasing interest in membership has also been challenging the Alliance. As an indication of the Alliance’s positive reputation and proven accomplishments, there have been increasing requests from people and businesses in the watershed, especially from the carpet industry in Dalton, to join the Alliance’s membership. A lot of these individuals would like to play an active role in the Alliance, but until recently, the citizens on the Steering Committee (now Board of Directors) had been hesitant to expand membership, uncertain about the implications of further growth. The new Board of Directors has a commitment to representing diverse interests on the Board. As outlined in their by-laws, membership of the Alliance Board of Directors includes: “one representative appointed by each county commission (Polk and Bradley counties in Tennessee and Murray and Whitfield Counties in Georgia); one member appointed by each of the three Soil and Water Conservation Districts (Bradley County Soil Conservation District, Polk County Soil Conservation District, and the Limestone Valley Soil and Water Conservation District); one member appointed by each of the two Resources Conservation and Development (RC&D) Councils (Southeast Tennessee RC&D and Limestone Valley RC&D); and ten at-large members appointed by the Board of Directors to represent the diverse interests operating within the Conasauga River watershed, such as forestry, carpet manufacturing, developers and builders, utilities, recreation, and the Farm Bureau.” The new Alliance Board is actively soliciting diverse representation. Similar to the progression towards diversity in representation, the Alliance hopes to expand its geographic influence in the future. The majority of the Alliance’s work has been conducted in the upper watershed, and many want to expand efforts southward to integrate the southern portions of the watershed, including the carpet industry, into the Alliance. They are also looking forward to growing partnerships with private businesses in the area, including an approved project to build an education center on 5 acres of a 200-acre former dairy farm recently purchased by Dalton Utilities, and a wetland construction project to treat runoff from impervious surfaces at one of the carpet company’s plants.

13 Finally, the organizational structure of the Forest Service has at times been challenging for staff trying to think and manage at a watershed level. The agency’s management information systems collect and store information about accomplishments by ranger district, making analysis of accomplishments watershed-wide difficult. Evans also explains that many projects are put on the back burner in particularly bad years for forest fires, and there is often little time to evaluate success on projects let alone implement projects: “Because we’re the US Forest Service, and I’m a firefighter too, if things go to hell in June, everybody leaves. You’ve got smoke, and a lot of things stop.”

What lessons can be drawn? The Conasauga River Alliance case demonstrates the tremendous value of simply providing a “place” where citizens and groups who care about a watershed can go to contribute ideas and energy. Without such a forum, this passion and interest will lie untapped. In addition, having such a “place” provides an important identity with the broader watershed for those involved that helps transcend individual and group goals and perspectives, enabling larger issues to be tackled. As Doug Cabe commented, “We’ve still got a lot of growing to do, but we’ve done a great job. We’re pretty well known. We’ve done a good job protecting the watershed and bringing in all the partners…You know, having a local group that can make recommendations about where they live and what they want to see in the watershed [is powerful].” The CRA experience also highlights the importance of a coordinator role and an effective organizational structure. Partnerships require organization and management; the partnership “label” is not sufficient to ensure progress. They need to be managed in a thoughtful and deliberate manner that enables individuals and groups to meaningfully participate, communicate and coordinate their activities. A mechanism is needed to bridge interests and define and pursue overarching goals, to select among project activities, to attract resources and involvement, to coordinate activity, and to enable communication and learning to occur. It is important to find ways to structure the process in a way that enables those involved to easily communicate, share information and plans, and coordinate their activity. A thoughtful structure enables the partnership to more deliberately ensure that different perspectives are being heard and hopefully communicated back across the many groups and communities within the watershed. A successful partnership will inevitably attract an increasing number of stakeholders over time who are interested in contributing to the group’s success. As Doug Cabe explains, the Conasauga River Alliance is facing that situation now: “We do need to move on. We

14 need to broaden the Alliance and bring in the money and partners that want to participate, that want to be here, and that can really help us grow.” Planning for and including mechanisms to evaluate and/or accommodate this growth and change in any partnership over time is necessary. The Conasauga case also illustrates the added-value of adopting a partnership approach for agencies such as the Forest Service. As Cabe noted, being part of the Conasauga River Alliance has “been a good thing for the Forest Service because they are constantly under attack from the environmental groups.” By being involved in community- based efforts and being visible, the Forest Service has earned the trust of local citizens in the watershed.

For Further Information

Rick Guffey North Georgia Conservation Director The Nature Conservancy 109 King St., Ste. I Dalton, GA 30736 ph: 706-259-2205 fax: 706-259-2480 email: [email protected] www.nature.org

Kent Evans Conasauga River Coordinator Cherokee National Forest and Chattahoochee National Forest 6050 Appalachian Highway Blue Ridge, GA 30513 (706) 632-3031 x 107 fax: (706) 632-5552 email: [email protected]

Doug Cabe Limestone Valley Resource Conservation & Development Council 125 Red Bud Road, Suite 7 Calhoun, GA 30701 Phone: (706) 625-7044 e-mail: [email protected]

http://www.conasaugariver.net/