Developing Stakeholder
Involvement:
As Critical As Data & Valid Models
Before
discussing some of the science involved in TMDLs, it is important to
turn our attention to the long overdue changes occurring in the approach
to water quality monitoring across the United States – a greater
emphasis on involving stakeholders, from environmental agencies to
landowners, in the TMDL process.
Nationwide,
teamwork is developing on a local level among local, state, tribal, and
federal agencies more rapidly than ever before. In an article titled
"TMDL Rules Drive Water Monitoring " in the January 1999 issue
of WaterWorld, Gayle Rominger, General Manager of YSI’s Environmental
Products Group, said, "Coordination is an outgrowth of the TMDL
approach. I think this will be one of the benefits to come out of this
because it’s just too big for any one group to do by itself."
Besides the
environmental payoff, watershed approaches can have the added benefit of
saving time and money. Teamwork among agencies in a watershed can
improve the level of dialogue on water quality, proposed TMDLs and BMPs.
Cooperation and
communication can also improve the efficiency of BMP work, water quality
monitoring, standardizing protocols, spreading the large task of data
collection among more participants, and even sharing equipment to keep
costs low.
Whether the
task is monitoring, computer modeling, issuing permits, reporting, or
developing, implementing and monitoring the effectiveness of BMPs, a
watershed framework offers many opportunities to simplify and streamline
the workload.
For example,
synchronizing monitoring schedules so that all monitoring within a given
area (such as a watershed) occurs within
the same timeframe can eliminate
duplicate trips and greatly reduce travel costs. North Carolina was able
to monitor nearly 40 percent more waters with the same level of effort
after monitoring was conducted on a more
coordinated watershed basis.
Building Community
In addition to
your role in studying or safeguarding water quality,
you are likely to find yourself learning group facilitation
skills. Here are a couple of pointers from people
who have been on the front lines of stakeholder involvement:
1. Look for
local training opportunities on group facilitation –
local community colleges are often a good place to start.
Managing group dynamics and learning to build a base
of rules and consensus are invaluable leadership skills.
2. In a
group’s first meeting, have the group establish ground
rules for interacting and grant itself the authority to
enforce them. Then present the list of rules as the product
of the group’s first consensus.
3. A former
Vermont Wetlands Office official who worked closely
with citizen groups offers a few experiential tips:
· give lots of information very early in the project
· meet with
small groups in their kitchens
· emphasize
the voluntary nature of the program
· clearly
state objectives
· very
actively seek input from all involved people, particularly
those in opposition – you want them to have a
stake in the results
Efficiency is
also increased when all the agencies with natural resource
responsibilities begin to work
together to improve conditions in a watershed. In its truest sense,
watershed protection engages
all partners within a watershed, from the private to the federal level,
and all levels in between. By coordinating their efforts, stakeholder
agencies can complement and reinforce each others’ activities, avoid
duplication, and leverage resources to achieve better results.
Data collection
is one activity that is particularly ripe for greater cooperation and
coordination, especially because the time and equipment required for
water quality monitoring make data collection
the most costly part of the TMDL process. A state can reduce its own
monitoring costs by factoring in the monitoring activities of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National
Resource
Conservation Service. In addition, permittees and other stakeholders
that generate ambient
monitoring data can form basin monitoring consortia to pool resources
and provide the state
with greater consistency in collecting and reporting data. For more
details, visit US EPA’s "Why
Watersheds?" http://www.epa.gov/OWOW/watershed/why.html
As agencies
open dialogues with each other, the average resident in a watershed can
– should – also play a key role in TMDLs. Nonpoint source pollution
(NPSP) is often a central target for TMDL regulations. NPSP control
requires the awareness and cooperation of all citizens living within the
affected watershed – not just industry, utilities, or governmental
bodies.
To be most
effective, the citizens should be involved at all levels in the
development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of TMDLs. Though
an expensive and time-consuming way to start the discussion over TMDLs,
getting landowners and land users involved is the critical component in
making the TMDL watershed approach successful. The political battles and
finger pointing that mark many water quality discussions can be
harnessed into productive dialogue if skillfully facilitated and
initiated at the beginning of the TMDL process.
Case Study: Garcia River TMDL
District
conservationist Tom Schott of the USDA Natural Resource Conservation
Service in Ukiah, California has been involved in the,
sometimes-contentious, TMDL process for the Garcia River.
"An
existing watershed group reconvened to ensure broad-based stakeholder
involvement," Schott
said. "I’m not saying we were drinking martinis in the hot tub,
but people understood each other and things were generally on a
reasonably respectful level in spite of the difference of
interests."
The Garcia
River TMDL reflected grassroots building blocks ranging from an existing
rangeland watershed management plan to new input from an agricultural
caucus. Eyebrows were raised when regulatory agency staffers introduced
recommendations for some numerical goals that had not been developed by
consensus, and for tighter regulatory controls.
But stakeholder
involvement was very important in keeping the process reality-based,
said Schott. "It forced a level of maturity to the discussion where
things got more detailed, levels were set," he said. "There
was an
infusion of demand for more planning and science – and those things
have been positive."
(For more on
the Garcia River TMDL process, see "TMDLs – Coming to a Stream
Near You" in the December/January 1997-98 issue of Conservation
Partners, http://www.ctic.purdue.edu/News/Partners/1997/Dec97_pg10.html)
Ed Wagner, a
senior consultant with CH2M Hill in New Jersey, served on a federal
committee convened by the EPA to generate advice on TMDLs. Elaborating
on his comments in the WaterWorld article cited above, Wagner said,
"There are plenty of bumps on the road to an objective as complex
and politically charged as a TMDL. But the critical component in the
process – as critical as data and valid models – is taking the time
to build cooperation among the stakeholders. You can do the numbers and
crunch through them, but it is more than science to do a TMDL. It’s
more of a policy question of who gets the allocation, how much each
stakeholder will be allowed to discharge. To do that in a way that
people will accept generally takes their participation. It takes time to
do that."
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