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Creating Solutions in an Era of Conflicts Over Water
Watershed Management and Governance for Our Future
By David Keller
Bay Area Director of FOER
Here in our Eel and Russian River watersheds, we are challenged to solve complex management and governance problems for both our short- and long-term future. Will there be “enough” water? Who gets it? How do we restore our dwindling salmon? What happens with climate change? Can we build trustworthy working relationships to get this done? Who will do this, and do it right?
We’ve got problems.
We are confronted with numerous unresolved local and regional problems and conflicts. These include increasing urban and agricultural water demands; seasonal water shortages; the collapse of salmon fisheries; subsequent ESA listings, Habitat Conservation Plans, and mitigations; unregulated and illegal diversions of tributaries; defining and enforcing minimum flows and riparian habitats; dams, fish barriers and diversions from the Eel River into the Russian River; depleted groundwater; exports and discharges of treated municipal sewage; the health risks of emerging toxic contaminants; timber conversions; threats to recreational uses; algae blooms and other nutrient, oxygen, temperature, and sediment impacts; continued mining of river gravels; flood management; storage of and access to water in Lakes Sonoma, Mendocino and Pillsbury; water rights, property rights, and the public trust doctrine; and changes in weather patterns.
We have balkanized governance of our watersheds, with authority over various components of our water life divided among federal, tribal, state, county, and municipal water and wastewater agencies, regulators, and governments. We have fractured and often conflicting interests and values among a wide range of stakeholders.
We’re short of solutions and the trust needed to create them.
Water is life. We must find mutually agreeable solutions to these long-standing problems, lest we risk losing water’s sustenance and further damaging our communities. It is clear that self-serving decisions that pit interests against each other have not produced sustainable water supplies, restored watersheds, or enabled the return of thriving fisheries and sustainable local economies.
However, we believe that with the combined, dedicated, good-faith efforts of all the stakeholders in our North Coast watersheds, we can get this working right for our future. The choice is ours to make.
There have been proposals, projects, regulations, and funding over the years aimed at restoring our rivers and groundwaters, watershed by watershed. There are significant government efforts to address minimum river and stream flows, fisheries habitat and restoration, and surface water runoff. There are legal actions over water diversions, use of recycled water for irrigation, salmon protection, property rights, runoff and groundwater overdraft. There are also significant efforts to improve land and water stewardship practices both privately and publicly.
Re-inventing governance of our water resources.
Over the past decades, there have been calls for new principles, goals, and programs for the management of watersheds and water resources on the North Coast. There have also been a number of proposals for revising the governance of the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA), the largest and most powerful public water agency on the North Coast. SCWA directors also comprise the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, with all their inherent conflicts of interest for their constituents. The state legislature has set up less than a handful of water agencies governed this way.
As in many other cases when protecting, managing, and controlling water become contentious issues, major power players arise, chiefly the extremely well-funded and politically well-connected SCWA. SCWA is working now to position itself not only as the “greenest” water district in the state, but also as the most comprehensive water agency capable of directing and controlling the future of water resources in the Russian River watershed. This includes a self-described possible future role as “Water Master” for the Russian River if the basin is adjudicated by the court. (SSee the following article.) As a consequence of how poorly we have dealt with competing interests over the past 60 years, there is a profound mistrust among stakeholders over water issues. Unfortunately, much of the current work on new governance and goal-setting is being done behind closed doors, with limited public and stakeholder participation. This tendency to plan and act in secrecy will doom the efforts to further mistrust, contention, and ultimately, failure. Our joined watersheds and combined water customers cover at least five counties with direct interests: Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, and Marin. All stakeholders must have early access to these critical discussions and planning. SCWA-driven processes and goals are not enough for broad-based support and success.
We’ve had our share of major conflicts between and among counties, the state, federal agencies, tribal groups, and cities; fisheries, agriculture, business, property owners, environmental groups, and individuals. These conflicts will not go away until we pay attention to the many disparate interests and work towards long-term solutions. For instance, as long as the Potter Valley Project connects the Eel and Russian rivers, stakeholders in Russian River watershed issues will have to include Eel River stakeholders as well.
How can we get to solutions that work now and over time?
Success will require:
1. Using early engagement of all stakeholders in a process that is fair, open, transparent, responsive, and effective and which can rebuild trust and working relationships while resolving disputes. Collaborative processes are critical to avoid “winner-take-all” failures. Use of professional mediators will be essential.
2. A focus on the goals, values, and interests of all the stakeholders, including public trust needs. Think big. Think inclusively. Think long-term. Imagine success.
3. Short- and long-term solutions that are manageable, valid, measurable, effective, and changeable as needed to reach success.
4. Scientifically and economically valid data, peer-reviewed research, and feedback and correction loops to ensure long-term achievement of meaningful goals.
5. Institutionalized settings with adequate funding, public engagement and oversight, clear rules and processes for protecting or altering the rules when needed, enforcement, effective management and dispute resolution skills, coordination between the involved institutions, and with the political and legal will power and authority to ensure realization of agreements.
6. Building long-term relationships within and across communities of interest, and wisdom.
Each of these parts is critical for success. None of them alone is sufficient.
If we have a viable, sustainable, and restorative approach to managing our water, then we can reduce the risks that have come with our inadequate 60-year-old practices.
We will need to formulate a roadmap for our water futures, and define a process to get there. It will take time, patience, and dedication. But without this cooperative effort, we can be assured that we will not succeed; our access to reliable, clean water, fish and game, and our dependent economies and communities will suffer badly.
Pogo understood our circumstances correctly in stating: “We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.”
David Keller is the Bay Area Director for Friends of the Eel River. He can be reached at 707 763-9335 or email him at dkeller@eelriver.org