What is the role of our organization, the Watershed Management Council, in better managing California's watersheds?

What the Council does

First, I want to describe WHAT the Council is. We're the youngest of the professional organizations represented here, founded in 1987 by a motley group of agency, university, and water utility professionals after the first California Watershed Management Conference in 1986. This conference was held in Sacramento as a forum to discuss issues and technical problems associated with the "multiple uses" of California's watersheds; instead of the estimated 100 attendees, almost 300 people came. This intense interest prompted the organizers to convene future conferences and to create a professional or collegial organization concerned with watershed management; thus, the WMC was born.

From an initial membership of 100, we have now grown to over 650 members in 28 states and 3 countries. Our sphere of influence has expanded beyond California into the western region where watershed management issues have much in common. Our members represent a broad range of watershed management interests and disciplines. Membership is open to anyone interested in watershed management. As we have no survey of the disciplines represented by our membership, I can only tell you that the WMC Board's composition is currently heavy with hydrologists (6 of our 9); with other professions being a forest ecologist, a plant ecologist, and myself - a generalist in resource management and planning. In fact, it is because I am both a generalist and a specialist that I became interested in the WMC as my preferred professional organization - so many disciplines are involved in it. It is a very comfortable fit. Another reason I enjoy the WMC is that it seeks out the Movers & Shakers--Idea People Questioning the Status Quo--as speakers and contributors, so as not to grow old and stale and to help keep the subject evolving.

The Council can best be described by its:
1) Objectives, 2) Functions, 3) Activities.

We had our 6th Biennial Conference last October on the subject of "dynamic equilibrium". The Proceedings will be out in about 3 weeks. WMC now has a part-time, professional staff that we share with the Centers for Water and Wildland Resources at U.C. Davis, who also publishes our Proceedings.

I believe the Council can play a significant role in education and communication of proper watershed management to all disciplines and to the public as well as help bring diverse views together through our conferences and field trips.

Now I need to clarify what the Council is not. It is:

* Not an advocacy group

* Not a certification society, as some of our co-sponsors are

* Not for professionals only, though a good chunk of us are

Expectations of Watershed Management

Watershed management as a field and practice has been around for many decades. However, expectations are sky high at this time that watershed management is the ideal strategy for resolving all of our resource problems and regulatory crises. "Watershed" is now the adjective of choice in most new resource efforts: watershed analysis, watershed health, watershed coordination, watershed plans, etc.. How did this rapid change come about?

Policy and regulations driving watershed management seemed to come on quite suddenly in the 1990s, with some as a reaction to real or perceived crises:

Clean Water Act

1. Since 1991, EPA has been promoting the Watershed Protection approach for resolving nonpoint sources of pollution; now it's trickling down to RWQCB and local levels.

2. Streams determined to be "impaired" (usually for sediment and temperature) were listed under the Act, followed by a lawsuit requiring TMDLs for 17 North Coast streams -- leading to watershed approaches.

3. State Forest Practices Act still remains to be certified as Best Management Practices (BMPs) by EPA: analysis of cumulative effects ("cumies") forced a watershed view.

Endangered Species Act

1. Northern Spotted Owl listing: Forest Ecosystem Management plan (FEMAT), adding Aquatic Conservation Strategy for salmonids/ PACFISH for federal lands / Key Watersheds and Watershed Analysis (WA) have created new field of "Watershedologists", as Gordon Grant et al have dubbed themselves.

2. California Spotted Owl was a driving force for Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Plan (SNEP), yet water issues were central to most resource concerns.

3. Salmon and steelhead proposed and current listings have promoted local watershed efforts for habitat protection and restoration.

All of the above has forceably accelerated the practice of watershed management, which has led to some great expectations. Our collective professional shock at finally having "Our Baby" being recognized as both important and a priority, was described very well by our moderator, Clay, in a Jan. 1994 article he wrote for the WMC Newsletter:

'What do we do now?' gulped Robert Redford after his character won a hard-fought election in the movie "The Candidate". We are now faced with the same question. Watershed management's long period of crying in the wilderness is now over. More and more, people see the watershed management approach as the best approach to working on a whole host of related issues: water quality, erosion and sedimentation, land use, agricultural and forestry practices, and wildlife and fisheries conservation. Now it's incumbent upon watersheders to produce results. Let's keep our promises modest and workable, and deliver on them. Credible results will sustain the new popular focus on watershed management.

Can we say yet whether we have such "credible results?" In a few places, yes; too soon to tell for others; and not sure what we're managing for in the rest. Can watershed management be all things to all people, as it sometimes has been promised? No. And that is a big part of the problem, such as the local watershed management expectations being promised as part of proposed salmon recovery efforts in California and Oregon.

For all of these hot new watershed management topics, the "art" of getting there lags far behind the "science" of what we want to get to, and the science is still far from perfect.

That leads me to the second theme or question of our panel:

How does the WMC / watershed profession relate to other allied professions in the watershed management picture?

Advancing the Art of Watershed Management

Relating to the original question of this Symposium, "Who's Watershed is It?", I think we all realize that the public trust is involved in all water, wildlife, and lands, whether the lands are publicly or privately owned. the important point to getting watershed management accomplished on the ground is to work closely with those people most likely to be concerned or most able to take action. To do that well and successfully is part of the "Art" of Watershed Management. However, we still have many obstacles to accomplishing the Art:

Art versus Science Example: When I finished my dissertation back in 1976 on ecological planning, I was asked by University Microfilms in Ann Arbor, which catalogs all dissertations, to classify my dissertation as "art" or "science". All of their documents, they said, were catalogued under one of these two major headings. Full of the typical righteous knowledge of recent PhDs, I was in disbelief that this arbitrary division was still being promoted in those "progressive" times and wrote them a letter saying so: that such a distinction was unnecessary and contributed to lack of communication among the disciplines, etc., etc.. A letter came back of the "we've-always-done-it-this-way-and-will-continue-to-it-this-way-thank-you" type of answer. This minor example unfortunately typifies a common attitude that has not changed much in the past 20 years.

In 1997, there is still a huge gap between those that focus on the ART and those that focus on the SCIENCE of watershed management. We often look to a panel of scientific experts to not just identify the problems, but also the solutions. They may not be the ones to best figure out how to repair the watershed, in fact, they can be downright naive. They can tell you it's broken, why it's broken, and maybe how it got broke, but then how it gets fixed is not usually a pure techno-fix. It takes people to get motivated to action and to fine tune a broad conceptual idea into the specific solution that will work on the ground, whether the watershed is one or thousands of ownerships.

Even where a watershed is under one ownership, such as the Forest Service or a large timber company, solving the problem takes many art-ful skills of the employees: an open mind willing to investigate and to carefully weigh the possible solutions; a sales job within the organization to get the funds in the budget and to get sufficient priority; cooperation skills to get it implemented in a timely fashion by the necessary people; public relations skills to work with "outsiders" on the solution, obtain the necessary permits, and inform people of the results, including both failures and successes so they know you are honest and trustworthy. Multiply these skills by each additional ownership in the watershed and the complexity of critical interactions rapidly expands.

Let's examine now the:

Academic Role of Watershed Management in Resource Professions

Watershed Management is not usually a degree program, though Humboldt State University does offer a M.S. degree in the subject. The closest undergraduate program is most often associated with a Hydrology major related to the physical sciences, such as geology or soil science. As the Council is itself rather amorphous and represents a broad range of disciplines, I cannot answer this question from only this one major.

Instead, I took a quick look at a recent course catalog from my alma mater, UC Davis, to see what was being required of the students training to enter the four specialist professions represented here. I noticed if anything related to "Watershed Management" was being required, particularly the "art" of practicing it.

Wildlife and Fisheries Biology major has an emphasis placed on "broad training in biological and physical sciences"; however, only one course in economics, geography or environmental studies required for Conservation Biology but none in Fisheries Biology or Wildlife Biology specialties. A course in limnology or stream biology is the closest the fisheries student must get to hydrology.

Range & Wildlands Science major does require one class in economics, plus "watershed management" (= Water Science 141 = Hydrology 141 = no mention of watershed management). At least the term is mentioned as part of the major!

Hydrologic Science major succeeds in requiring "water policy & social awareness" (6-8 units), but "Watershed Mgt." as a special course is not offered (nor even mentioned in the description of the program or career opportunities.)

Forestry at UC Berkeley: No hydrology or watershed management courses required...

As you can see, the academic training requirements in some schools still lag behind the real-world need for understanding and implementing watershed management.

Why are no applied social sciences required for Wildlife and Fisheries majors, or something beyond economics for the Range major? Why not the existing catalog-listed courses in water policy & law, environmental planning, resource economics, human ecology, environmental politics and administration, public lands management? Special training in mediation or consensus skills? Public speaking? Writing?

Or 'How to get a thick skin?' I remember a CDFG biologist telling me, "I went into Fisheries because I love fishing, but no one told me that I'd need thick skin for the job."

In fact, I feel that watershed management should really be an overlay on other majors - it's too important to other disciplines to be side-tracked by itself. A student should be able to understand upslope and instream processes without having to become a geomorphologist. I'm mentioning this academic preparation because of the certification requirements of your societies, which seem to rely heavily on college course work. At lunch today, I just found out from Dr. Dennis Pendleton of UCD Extension that the idea of a UCD watershed management institute of some sort is at the germination phase now. Please help water this seed and make it grow.

I realize that some wildlife biologists may think that I'm trying to push watershed management on them. Regarding The Wildlife Society's viewpoint in their Abstract for this Conference that watersheds are an "artificial construct" for wildlife, I would argue that wildlife directly benefit from good watershed management and that this scale is a very useful and applicable one for their profession. Try getting agreement on delineating a 'landscape'. All wildlife needs good water, both in quality and quantity, and if watersheds are not properly managed, then wildlife will suffer - even the large mammals and birds that can readily migrate across small watersheds. An Example: While the major objective of our French Creek Watershed Advisory Group's efforts was to reduce the sediment yield, our road management efforts ended up also benefitting wildlife, particularly large mammals, by controlling access to dispersed logging roads and thereby reducing human disturbance and impacts, such poaching. I can tell you that the bear hunters were not terribly pleased, however, with some of the road closures. (Time for thick skin again.)

While small watersheds make up big watersheds that make up huge bioregions, scale is very important in accomplishing things on the ground. Local watersheds are something people can relate to better than bioregions across ten counties.

Inter- or Cross-disciplinary, not Just Multi-disciplinary, Effort is Needed (Thanks to Drs. Leslie Reid, Bob Zeimer, Tom Lisle for targeting this issue in an article in the WMC Networker and in a paper at WMC Conference '96.)

* True inter-disciplinary efforts have the potential for the results to be greater than the sum of the parts: a positive cumulative effect, if you will. As an Oregon State University (OSU) study of research professionals revealed, interdisciplinary research efforts tend to "rapidly decompose into loosely related disciplinary studies". Reasons offered for this behavior include: 1) it's safe to stay within the confines of one's own discipline and avoid the risk of possible professional embarrassment or even ridicule; 2) being creative trying to think outside of the "norm" is difficult and requires additional time and energy, which can be in short supply; and 3) rewards are usually absent from within one's organization or profession.

* As Leslie and her research colleagues have pointed out, Watershed Analyses as currently practiced are too often done by professionals - foresters, range conservationists, fisheries & wildlife biologists, hydrologists, soil scientists, etc. - in isolation of one another. People are creating separate chapters at separate desks and then putting a cover on and calling it an analysis. We are not seeing or understanding the interrelationships of each other's specialties, and synthesis of the data is not often occurring. We could be doing so much better with our potential.

* To help overcome this problem, Leslie recommends diagramming the problem or issue. Brainstorm a "mind map" or "The Shape of the Problem" together to visualize the components. An Example is: 1) The Issue of "Disappearing Salmon", focusing on the sub-issue of "Stranding of Young Salmon". By diagramming the potential mechanisms and triggering changes with all the disciplines, the connections between each one's "world" or "territory" become apparent. It's not just a fisheries problem.

* WMC tries to promote professional and disciplinary inter-action through its field trips, workshops, newsletter, conferences, and proceedings and, of course, this symposium. We seek to be thought-provoking - to challenge members to look at the subject in different ways. The profession of watershed management is evolving rapidly, as it should be as more experience is gained.

* There is so much to be learned from each other, yet we still remain too isolated. Joint field trips with our French Creek Watershed Advisory Group members were the best way to break down each of our professional biases or misconceptions; the second best way was to have meals together, which also helps break down personal biases or misconceptions.

* It is critical to have two-way communication not just between disciplines, but between professionals and public: cooperative, consensus-based local watershed groups are one way, though not a quick or easy way, to promote this. It cannot be THEM vs. US - Professionals vs. Non-Professionals, or Scientists vs. Non-Scientists.

* I have found that for watershed management to be successful, we must be: 1) willing to be honest with each other about our failures and our fears; 2) able to keep learning and changing; and 3) able to define and achieve "success" with those who are not like us.

We encourage you to become watershedologists, watershedders, or even watershedaholics, along with all of your other hats.

You can reach Sari at (916) 467-5783 or fax 467-5733.