Eco-Watch Dialogues

Clean Water Action Plan

The Clean Water Action Plan provides a new arena for all government players --state, tribal, federal and local--to work together with other stakeholders to develop watershed assessments, standards, and other information and relationships (informational, professional, and personal) needed for policy and planning efforts that very often cut across administrative boundaries.

You can get a glimpse of the promise of the Clean Water Action Plan from the Overview, found on the Natural Resources Conservation Service's website.

As we begin the journey toward collaborative stewardship, the time seems right to join with others in government to unite all who hold a stake in outcomes in developing watershed assessment information to build the "four tools" outlined in the Action Plan: (1) a collaborative effort by federal, state, tribal, and local governments; the public; and the private sector to restore and sustain the health of the watersheds in the nation; (2) calling on federal, state, and tribal agenices to revise standards where needed ... to protect public health, prevent polluted runoff and to ensure accountability; (3) calling on federal natural resource and conservation agencies to apply their collective resources and techincal expertise to state and local watershed restoration and protection; and (4) calling on fedeal agencies to improve the information available to the public, governments , and others about the health of their watersheds and the safety of their beaches, drinking water, and fish.

Please join us in talking through the many facets of the Clean Water Action plan, including: collaborative assessment, standard-setting, monitering and evaluation, and social learning. We initiate this conversation to help us all learn more--from each other--about the finer points of collaborative stewardship. Please help us in developing relevent inquiry questions to begin this dialogue or just jump into the dialogue. Thanks.

Inquiry Questions:

Sometimes "collaborative" endeavors seem overwhelming in just trying to get the right people to the right tables to talk, but also in terms of sharing power in assessment and decision-making. How can we better set up opportunities to collaborate that will not prove overwhelming?
Will the Clean Water Action Plan help us overcome the age-old problem in public involvement of too many areanas, too many actors that proves to be a burn-out for planners and the public?
How will the F.S.Natural Resource Agenda fit into multi-scale assessments under the Clean Water Action Plan?
How will Clean Water Action Plan assessments and other assessments link to planning?