by Sari Sommarstrom, President
Watershed Management Council
During 1999-2000, watershed management leaders, or “shedheads”, from around the state gathered for a series of four, one-day forums. The forums were sponsored by the Watershed Management Council, a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to advancing the art and science of watershed management. State, local, and federal agencies and a host of non-governmental organizations involved with the diverse watershed restoration and management efforts going on throughout California agreed that the time was ripe for a statewide dialogue.
The purpose of the forums was to provide a neutral setting where ideas, opportunities, and needs for watershed management across the state could be discussed openly. Initially, the focus was on state and local relationships, as that role was considered sufficiently complex. When EPA joined as a co-sponsor and financial contributor, however, the goals were expanded in the latter forums to include an examination of the federal role.
Participation was by invitation only and limited in number in order to provide for optimum discussion and exchange of perspectives. Invitees were targeted for each of the state’s 10 major river basins, such as the Sacramento, North Coast, San Francisco Bay, Central Coast, San Joaquin, and Los Angeles. The four forums were attended by a total of 134 different people, representing diverse affiliations: state agencies, State legislature, local governments, local watershed groups, land and water management agencies, environmental groups, federal agencies, and universities. Attendance at each of the four forums ranged from 45 to 77. The University of California, Davis Alumni Center Conference Room provided the setting.
A variety of public and private organizations contributed financially as co-sponsors to make the forum series possible. Partners included: the California Resources Agency, Californians and the Land, East Bay Municipal Utility District, For the Sake of the Salmon, U.C. Davis – Public Service Research Program, U.S. EPA (Region 9), U.S. Forest Service (Region 5), and Watershed Management Council.
Out-of-state speakers from Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington kicked off the opening dialogue on September 1, 1999, with presentations about their innovative state-local watershed programs, followed by two experts who presented more regional and national perspectives. From that very energizing beginning, the second forum, held on November 15, 1999, moved on to explore the various in-state views and expectations of state and local governance of watershed management programs. Four panels of diverse speakers responded to specific questions related to accountability, governance structure and flexibility, incentives, and technical support.
During the third forum, held on February 2, 2000, participants really started to listen to one another. Attendees were divided into four groups and rotated round-robin style among four sub-topic sessions, deliberating on how best to create a “robust,” collaborative framework for watershed management in California. Finally, a questionnaire synthesizing comments made at the three forums was prepared and sent out to all participants to rank their level of agreement. Results were presented and discussed at the fourth and final forum, held on May 17, 2000, where there appeared to be convergence of agreement on about one-third of the 182 statements and strong disagreement on another third.
v Participants agreed to move forward where there was consensus. We found that people in a state as large and diverse as California can find commonality of ideas and principles for watershed management. A number of statements (64) were agreed upon on the topics of principles, state & local roles, accountability, and watershed definitions, such as:
v One of the major products,“12 Steps to Watershed Recovery in California” - a list of achievable steps to help accomplish a new State framework - was developed as a checklist for progress by the participants. The list’s strength lies in the joint process in deriving the steps and in the joint (public/private) leadership and participation for carrying them out. Six of the key steps identified by the Roundtable included:
¨ Form a statewide network of local watershed groups;
¨ Coordinate Agency watershed work officially through formal agreements;
¨ Obtain legislative endorsement of the State’s commitments;
¨ Seek endorsement by the Governor for the State’s commitment;
¨ Prepare handbooks and guidelines for watershed assessment & planning;
¨ Develop an effective funding delivery system.
A representative from at least one agency and one organization has been assigned to each step and asked to help follow through. The intent is for all to report back in Spring 2001 on the progress on each of these steps – and progress has already happened!
v California’s Forum also served as a Regional Watershed Roundtable, along with 12 other regions in the nation, under the Clean Water Action Project. In June 2001, 25 selected delegates from the state will participate and share the Forum’s results with the National Watershed Forum in Arlington, Virginia.
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For more information, contact: Sari Sommarstrom at (530) 467-5783 or sari@sisqtel.net. Watershed Management Council, c/o PSRP, U.C. Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis CA 95616-8688. Website: //www.watershed.org.
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A separate federal watershed forum, “Working Across Boundaries”, was held in April, 2000 by the U.S. Forest Service and the Natural Resource Conservation Service to reach out to other government levels and interested groups and discuss ideas of how they could work better together. For more information, see website: //www.ca.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/wf.html