Missouri River Basin Association

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Summary of Small Group Sessions

MRBA Stakeholder Monitoring Forum

Day 1:  December 11, 2003

  1. What did you hear from the case studies that would work or not work for the Missouri River Basin, particularly concerning stakeholder involvement?

 Which Model:  Several people said they liked the Glen Canyon model because all the interests appeared to have a seat at the table.  Some liked that the Glen Canyon stakeholder group was advisory in nature.  However, many acknowledged that the Missouri River basin was larger, more complex and more contentious than Glen Canyon, and that no existing model will fit us exactly.  

Several respondents said that management actions must be dictated by the results of the monitoring and research, and that management actions must be continually reassessed based on the data.  One person observed that none of the presenters said anything about how they involve and work with Native American populations on ecosystem recovery issues.  Others said that a stakeholder group needs to be authorized in a monitoring bill as it is in the MRBA version of the bill. One person suggested that the stakeholder group should not be organized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which would place too many limitations on the group’s work by keeping federal agencies in charge.

Nature of Stakeholder Involvement and Input: Many felt that the stakeholders need to be involved in all aspects of the monitoring program, from design of the program through dissemination of data.  One role the stakeholders could play, according to several participants, is to define the basin’s needs and objectives to ensure that the correct questions are being addressed by future monitoring and research work.  The stakeholder group, according to some of the respondents, should try to get the broadest possible buy-in for its recommendations.  Several people emphasized that stakeholder input must be used, not just solicited (as in the AOP process), and that stakeholder committee recommendations need to be directed to the federal agencies involved in managing the river.  Also suggested was a paradigm shift that would have stakeholders taking charge of the monitoring/recovery/river management process early and coming up with recommendations that would guide government actions, rather than having the government lead the stakeholders. Another person commented that it’s far better to have decisions made at the stakeholder table than in a courtroom.  Yet another said that the role of the stakeholder group should be to make recommendations and assist in making policy decisions.

Stakeholder Group Composition:  People generally felt that most of the models presented filled too many of the stakeholder positions with state and federal agency personnel.  One person suggested that stakeholders should be landowners.  Another said the stakeholders should be defined along congressionally authorized project purposes for the river.  However, others thought this definition was too limiting and should be expanded to included, at a minimum, users of the river system and people affected by the flows of the river. Some suggested that government employees should not be considered stakeholders, while others said that they should be since they represent stakeholders and have regulatory responsibilities for the river.  Perhaps as a result of the confusion over who should be considerer a “stakeholder,” someone emphasized the importance of agreeing upon the definition of stakeholders before proceeding with the development of a stakeholder committee.  One participant said that there needs to be one group in charge of monitoring rather than several with different objectives and responsibilities.  Another said the stakeholder committee should be comprised of a combination of MRBA Directors and individual stakeholders. People acknowledged the difficulty of keeping the group at a reasonable size while ensuring adequate representation of all the stakeholders and geographic areas of the basin.  One person suggested a possible approach of organizing the stakeholder group by geography – appointing two representatives for every hundred miles of river length.  Finally, one group debated whether all stakeholders should have the same responsibility in a stakeholder committee, regardless of what interest they represent, but the group did not resolve the question.

Independent Science:  There were several comments strongly endorsing the need for independent science to review the monitoring program.  One person commented on the benefits of “transparency” discussed by Leslie Holland-Bartels from the Upper Mississippi EMP.

Funding:  The conference participants pointed out that critical questions are – where does the funding come from, how do you prioritize where it is spent, and who controls how is it spent?  Another asked how to get funding to the areas and activities that are most critical.  Yet another pointed out how important it is to provide adequate funding for a stakeholder group in order to allow stakeholders to participate.

 

  1. What level of involvement should stakeholders have in a monitoring program (advisory vs. decision-making vs. just being kept informed)?

The groups had a general sense that stakeholders could contribute to the science of the basin.  Most of the responses favored the stakeholder group being advisory in nature, although there were a few suggestions that the stakeholder group should have decision-making capability.  One person preferred that the stakeholder group be decision-making, but realized that setting it up as advisory was more feasible. 

Several people said the group needs to participate in all levels of the monitoring program, including the studies themselves and determining how the program funds are allocated.  One person said that the duties of various groups involved in the monitoring program (stakeholders, scientists, etc) must be clearly defined.  A couple of people commented that once trust (between scientists and stakeholders) has been established, we need to let scientists do the science, including deciding where the monitoring will be done and how the data will be collected and used.  Likewise, the scientists need to let the stakeholders set objectives for the river that provide the focus for the monitoring program.  To help gain that trust, there needs to be peer review of the program.  Also, the data needs to be more accessible and understandable than it has been in the past.  In fact, the whole monitoring process needs to be more “transparent,” to borrow a term used by the presenter of the upper Mississippi River EMP.  One person suggested that we could keep program costs down by having non-scientists help with the data collection.

The groups came up with several questions, including the following:  Who should the stakeholders report to (MRBA?); what will MRBA’s role in monitoring be; and are landowners adequately represented by MRBA?

 

  1. Should stakeholder input be regional or basinwide?

More people believed stakeholder committee should be basinwide rather than regional, even though some acknowledged that a basinwide focus would be more difficult.  One group settled on the need for the basinwide approach, since everyone uses the same water from the river.  One person observed that there already is regional stakeholder input, and that this process does not seem to be working well.  The regional advocates pointed out that there are different aspects of the river, different systems (reservoir vs. free-flowing vs. channelized river segments), and different economic concerns in different regions of the basin.  One person said that if the stakeholder input is organized regionally, those regions should represent distinct hydrologic boundaries.  Another suggested that the regions could be organized along congressional district lines.   Yet another said that the regions should be organized by stakeholder interests who meet separately at first and later together with other groups. 

At list three responses suggested that the stakeholder input should be both regional and basinwide, though they did not suggest how this might be accomplished.

 

  1. What mechanism would be the most effective for stakeholders to provide meaningful input?

Participants believed that the stakeholder group must effectively link river users with the states (through MRBA) and the federal agencies (through the Missouri River Roundtable). 

Several mechanisms were proposed for setting up the stakeholder group, including the following:

Several people suggested that the stakeholder group utilize the latest technical innovations, such as the Computer Information Access, to review, analyze, and disseminate data.  Other people noted that funding is needed to ensure stakeholder participation.   One person suggested having an internship program to teach students about the basin and to bring in new ideas. Another person suggested holding regular science forums where stakeholders and scientists can get together to review data from the monitoring program.  Finally, someone suggested that we find out how the Glen Canyon and other basins selected and set up their stakeholder committees.

 

  1. What aspect(s) of a monitoring program should stakeholders be involved in (design, oversight, review of results, overseeing research grants)?

Most people believe that the stakeholders should be involved in all aspects of the monitoring program.  Almost as many said that the most important part of the program for the stakeholders was the design phase; that the community needs to have a voice through the stakeholder committee in what is monitored and researched.  If the stakeholders are involved in determining what is important to achieve through a monitoring program and thus, what to monitor for (and what questions to ask in the research), it will result in a successful program.  According to several people, by involving stakeholders in the program design, the stakeholders will be more likely to trust a technical group that puts the program process into place and the scientists who do the research and analysis.  Some believed the stakeholders should also be involved in oversight of the program to maintain its integrity.  Several people suggested that the stakeholders actually do some of the data collection to keep costs down and to keep people engaged.  Other suggestions include the following:

 

  1. What should be the scope of a monitoring program for the Missouri River Basin (T&E species only, full ecosystem recovery, social and economic impact monitoring)?

Some people said that the monitoring program should look at the entire ecosystem.  There may be more T&E species in the future that are not currently listed.  By monitoring the condition of the whole ecosystem now, we will not have to go back and re-design the program.  Many also said that even though the program should look at the whole ecosystem, the initial focus should be on recovering the current T&E species.  One person suggested that we look at the list of things being monitored in Glen Canyon and use that as a starting point for our program. 

One of the groups brought up several questions that need to be addressed before the monitoring program is put in place.   The questions include the following list: what is monitoring; what is the definition of “ecosystem; how do you define “stakeholders” (some said they should be restricted to people related to the authorized project purposes, others said this would be too restrictive, still others said that stakeholders should not include government agency personnel); and what are the recovery objectives?  The stakeholder committee can help answer these questions.  One person suggested that we review the three recovery plans (for the least tern, piping plover, and pallid sturgeon), to see which plans were based on good data and which were more speculative because of the lack of data.  Several people mentioned the need to monitor the social and economic impacts of the management of the river, because humans are part of the ecosystem.  Other specific things that people said should be monitored or researched are the following:  Water quality; T&E species (are the species increasing, what are the spawning/hatching rates, etc).; man-made habitat (is it working as we had planned?); the relationship between flows and habitat (what flows are needed to create habitat, and what flows are needed to restore floodplain connectivity with the river?); water temperature; and toxins.  Finally, someone observed that we will never get enough money to answer all the questions we have, so it is important to prioritize.  Again, the stakeholders could and should help with this process.

MISCCELLANEOUS COMMENTS:

One group said that it did not believe that MRBA always represented the majority of the people in the basin, since two of the states (Iowa and Missouri) have large populations relative to the other basin states.   This has led to some contentiousness relative to MRBA’s work.  Several interests, such as farmers, said they felt they were not well represented in decisions made by MRBA and would like more of a voice in MRBA’s decisions. Others pointed out that some of the federal agencies were not interested in or did not have the authority to represent river users.  Others questioned the science behind some of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s opinions.

One group observed that a lot of problems boil down to possible economic injury to river users resulting from river operations.  Perhaps stakeholders should recommend compensation for economic injury, thereby reducing pressure on decision makers.  One group observed that businesses stop investing if litigation occurs and that millions of dollars of contracts were cancelled because of Missouri River lawsuits.  Businesses can not operate, whether they are navigation or recreation-related, if they don’t know whether the water will be there.  Clearly, there is a need for some process to avoid this.  Adaptive management can lead to even more uncertainty, unless it has well-defined parameters. 

Another group suggested that the meeting several years ago in Bismarck was a good model for stakeholder gatherings.  It provided the right combination of hard work and fun, the meeting focused on serious issues, and there were facilitators in each breakout room.   The group also liked the meeting in Sioux Falls two years ago. 

Other ideas for monitoring that groups suggested include the following: