Water They Doing Right In Yakima? by Aldric Ulep - AWRA IWRM Conference 2014
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Delivered July 2014 in Reno, NV for the American Water Resources Association's Summer Specialty Conference on Integrated Water Resources Management. Abstract: Ever since the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project Workgroup (YRBWEP Workgroup) arrived at a consensus agreement, its Yakima River Basin Integrated Water Resource Management Plan (Yakima Plan) has been touted as a paragon for collaborative watershed planning. While the YRBWEP Workgroup holds some potential as a model of success for similar basin planning groups, it is critical to first understand the drivers behind its success. This study examines the process that created the Yakima Plan and evaluates the Yakima Plan’s success. In order to identify factors that led the YRBWEP Workgroup to consensus agreement, I analyze qualitative data collected from interviews with approximately 12 stakeholders who represent a variety of interests. I set my findings against theory of successful practices of collaborative watershed partnerships and compare theory to practice. I found that grassroots stakeholders united on shared values to move forward, the state and federal stakeholders engaged actively and coordinated initiatives, and the YRBWEP Workgroup committed to a balanced approach to watershed planning. By closely examining the case of the YRBWEP Workgroup and the Yakima Plan, this study seeks to inform collaborative watershed planning groups of what to think about while considering theoretically effective strategies for success.
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Water They Doing Right In Yakima? by Aldric Ulep - AWRA IWRM Conference 2014
- 7. WATER SUPPLY Recreation Fish &Wildlife NavigationIndustry Irrigation Domestic/ Municipal 1880s: 300,000 -960,000/year Now: three species gone 1902: 120,000 acres irrigated Now: 500,000 acresirrigated
- 14. Fish Passage Fish Habitat Enhancement Modification of Existing Structures and Operations Surface Storage Market-Based Reallocation Groundwater Storage EnhancedWater Conservation
- 16. 3. Previous watershed planning History Literature Data
- 18. 4. Successful watershed partnerships History Literature Data
- 19. (Kenney 2000) (Conley and Moote 2003) •Organizational implementational
- 20. •Act as convening spaces for negotiations; the member agencies carry out the “formal legal actions”
- 21. Leach and Pelkey (2001)
- 22. 5. Findings from qualitative data History Literature Data
- 23. 1. Design a semi-structured interview 2. Identify and contact stakeholders 3. Conduct, transcribe, and code interviews 4. Supplement with documents
- 26. Key Findings 1: Local groups united on their shared values 2: State and federal leaders pushed initiative forward 3:Workgroup committed to a balanced approach
- 27. 1: Local groups united on their shared values You know, we've fought tooth and nail with Roza Irrigation District in our long history. We don't have a friendly relationship with them, prior to this.We came together and we both agreed, we can't go forward with that proposal called Black Rock. [Our joint letter to Reclamation and Ecology] was co-signed, and that shocked the valley. […] That was a game-changer, I guess is how they call it around here. “ ” “ ” YAKAMA:
- 28. 1: Local groups united on their shared values [We realized] that our interests were more similar than different.Together, we could convey an awful lot of power. ROZA: “ ”
- 29. 1: Local groups united on their shared values Sense of urgency; Frustration over lack of progress Shared preference for a better alternative to Storage study Recognition of power in collaboration
- 30. 2: State and federal leaders pushed initiative forward We got leadership at Reclamation and leadership at Ecology to agree with us, and that's when things started to rapidly change.ROZA: “ ”
- 31. 2: State and federal leaders pushed initiative forward We had the right political leadership.They all supported moving forward on what we called the integrated approach to solving these problems. “ ” ECOLOGY:
- 32. 2: State and federal leaders pushed initiative forward everybody at that point was a lot more comfortable in talking about the ultimate solutions “ ” RECLAMATION:
- 33. 2: State and federal leaders pushed initiative forward Responded to local concerns Adjudication reduced conflict “Water, Jobs and Fish Bill” enacted
- 34. 3:Workgroup committed to a balanced approach They're getting enough out of the plan“ ”Friends of Bumping Lake
- 35. 3:Workgroup committed to a balanced approach We're not putting one interest in front of the other. “ ”KITTITAS COUNTY:
- 36. 3:Workgroup committed to a balanced approach Everyone was willing to compromise Workgroup was consciously designed
- 40. power imbalances relationships across and within stakeholder groups over time. lack of money can halt context matters
- 41. power imbalances relationships across and within stakeholder groups over time. lack of money can halt context matters •Can an IWRM framework be a cure-all?
Editor's Notes
- Sopracciglio Good morning I will refer to this as the Integrated Plan The group that created this plan was nationally recognized There’s talk of it being a model for watershed management across the West How did this group of decades-old enemies come to a consensus agreement?
- Why Yakima? First AWRA IWRM award in 2012 It’s been brought up several times over the past couple days Against the odds, with several decades of quarreling, the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project Workgroup, or the YRBWEP Workgroup, came to a consensus agreement on how to manage the basin’s waters looking forward. And though I’ve asked myself this in different ways, the core question I’ve been working on for the last year is:
- (Slow down)
- Basin characteristics and history The Yakima Integrated Plan Previous watershed planning attempts: Yakima River Watershed Council Literature on successful watershed partnerships Findings from qualitative data
- Basin characteristics and history The Yakima Integrated Plan Previous watershed planning attempts: Yakima River Watershed Council Literature on successful watershed partnerships Findings from qualitative data
- Here’s the Yakima Basin, it’s in central WA Multitude of water users Notably: multibillion dollar agriculture-based economy Two things led to concern over water shortages
- Adapted from http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/images/wsci_04_img0559.jpg
- 2) Salmon that Yakama rely on are going extinct Before the dams, salmon runs numbered in the hundreds of thousands I mentioned some of the actors in the Basin, like the irrigators and the Yakama Indian Nation These actors are not only stakeholders affected by the Plan, but also have representatives on the YRBWEP Workgroup What is the YRBWEP Workgroup? Who else involved in this Plan?
- -Overappropriation and drought -During water shortage years, because of the water rights system in the Western U.S., some of the water is rationed Water is imp’t to agriculture-based economy, and even a 70% proration has significant impacts on the yield And it’s not just agriculture economy that’s affected
- 2) Salmon that Yakama rely on are going extinct Before the dams, salmon runs numbered in the hundreds of thousands I mentioned some of the actors in the Basin, like the irrigators and the Yakama Indian Nation These actors are not only stakeholders affected by the Plan, but also have representatives on the YRBWEP Workgroup What is the YRBWEP Workgroup? Who else involved in this Plan?
- http://ybsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Climate-Change-Forecast.jpg
- Five reservoirs = 1 million af of capacity Snowpack = “sixth reservoir” http://ybsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Climate-Change-Forecast.jpg
- Basin characteristics and history The Yakima Integrated Plan Previous watershed planning attempts: Yakima River Watershed Council Literature on successful watershed partnerships Findings from qualitative data
- Grp that created the plan – composed of representatives from a variety of interests Plan is a consensus agreement that all of these elements are necessary to meet the goals of the different actors on the YRBWEP Workgroup, There were past efforts to create a solution to water shortage in the basin
- * = signatories after consensus agreement on elements in the plan was made
- Basin characteristics and history The Yakima Integrated Plan Previous watershed planning attempts: Yakima River Watershed Council Literature on successful watershed partnerships Findings from qualitative data
- LOOK HOW UGLY THIS IS Droughts spurred action 2009 – Workgroup formed out of Integrated Alternative EIS 2011 – Consensus agreement for integrated plan Another way to pose my RQ: These efforts did not lead to an acceptable solution. What was different about the Integrated Plan? What changed this time around? To answer this question, I looked at factors in previous literature
- Basin characteristics and history The Yakima Integrated Plan Previous watershed planning attempts: Yakima River Watershed Council Literature on successful watershed partnerships Findings from qualitative data
- Some might deride this definition of success as “symbolic policy;” in other words, organizational success does not necessarily lead to implementational success. Indeed, a body of literature argues against consensus agreement as a predictor of success of a collaborative watershed partnership (Kenney 2000); however, watershed partnerships exhibit variance regardless of this rule, and consensus agreement should not be argued against on principle (Conley and Moote 2003). The success of watershed partnerships truly lies in their results, which are hard to measure (Schlager and Blomquist 2008). While organizational success is not sufficient, it makes implementational success more probable and is important to study.
- Leach and Pelkey is a meta analysis of such studies These help me design my methods
- Basin characteristics and history The Yakima Integrated Plan Previous watershed planning attempts: Yakima River Watershed Council Literature on successful watershed partnerships Findings from qualitative data
- Conducted fourteen interviews with stakeholders (45-50 min) Coded in NVivo – qualitative software Applied codes based on the literature of successful collaborative watershed planning groups Identify broader themes Main pt: collected interviews Here are my interviewees Here’s what a code is and how I coded them Here’s a sample coded transcript
- Codes – When I label segments of a transcript that discuss a factor Political, Scientific, Interpersonal Now, after going through some analysis, what insights does my study provide?
- Frustration over a lack of progress; “desperation” Desperate times call for desperate measures Roza+Yakama got together and wrote a joint letter; interpersonal; dinner; reached out and wrote mutual concerns; signaled “basinwide” the bridge btwn irrigators and fish interests Maybe letter was a promise of the power of cooperation (Don't you get tired of fighting sometimes? -Jewell) Jewell: “The only way you really get what you want in life is by helping others get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar
- Create power through allyship [Our relationship started with] the mutual concern that the [Storage] study was not being properly conducted, that the whole study needed to start over and be done in a different manner, with local input.
- (drought, climate change, growing water need) Some of the overall sentiments I heard was…. The joint letter signaled the bridge btwn irrigators and fish interests The next finding was that the government listened:
- But [the Storage study] was government-driven, and they didn't listen to any of us that tried to provide input. We finally just got fed up until both the state and the federal government said, “This isn't working. It's going down the tubes, it's time to take a different direction.”
- You had ppl who had been involve din litig for many many yrs over water issues int he basin and realized that they haven't gotten anywhere, just simply they were just beating e/o over the head and it wasn't really making progress. And I think… Supported the movement through various efforts
- The other thing that transpired in the mid 2000s was
- State’s involvement was important; THEY answered the Roza & Yakama calls; They initiated the Ecology study when the Reclamation storage study looked inadequate; Initiated Study looking at a more integrated approach, to supplement the storage one being conducted by Reclamation Gov. Jay Inslee – former Nat Rsrcs Cmte Chair – first legislative action as governor was “Water, Jobs and Fish Bill” for Ecology to implement YBIP State legislature provided the money State initiated the Adjudication which confirmed rights and reduced conflict (backup with data) Gov. Chris Gregoire (former Ecology chair): “Former Gov Christine Gregoire was instrumental in this, sort of to get a compromise piece of legislation that provided for fish flows and provided for some new out of stream water supply thru dvlpmt programs. “ - Ecology Support of important stakeholders (angel shift: powerful allies) – Yakama gets what they want; they have a huge stake Yakama didn’t like transfer from Columbia; irrigators didn’t like paying more for water; Ecology didn’t like contamination from Hanford; no one liked water loss due to leakage State champions / “policy entrepreneurs” Federal: Rep. Doc Hastings pushed for YRBWEP funding; Chair of Cmte on Natural Rsrcs Rep. Sid Morrison pushed for it in House Sen. Henry Jackson (authored NEPA) Sen. Daniel Evans (former Gov. of Washington; founder of WA Dept of Ecology) also sponsored bills in support
- Overall, I think the balanced nature of the plan I think is really important. The fact that you've got the members advocating for every aspect I think is important. But Not only that, all Wkgp members respected each others’ goals and supported them, even if they would traditionally be against it i.e. And now what you've ended up with is a situation where you have farmers advocating for the interests of fish restoration. And you have environmental groups […] advocating for new storage projects i.e. dams and expansions of reservoirs. That's pretty unusual.
- Nobody gets their full wishlist, but everybody gets something that puts them in a better position than they've ever been – Roza Most of these ppl were satisfied by Dec 2009: w/ the prelim IWRMP These ppl were involved from the start: Sandison, Van Gundy, Rigdon Newer grassroots groups are not satisfied YBSA formed – opposition; first initiative was to fund Black Rock study Friends of Bumping Lake and enviros e.g. Sierra Club (Washington Chapter) –opposition; did not exist before basin planning efforts To exclude some of the more extreme hardline groups that would veto everything (*QUOTE: you don’t want people like that who are against everything – Roza)
- Conflict reduction – wkgp served as discussion forum Workgroup meetings were a way for stakeholders to express shared value, mutual concern; gave sense of ownership and empowerment Built on previous efforts and streamlined them But they were set also based on who would recognize the integrated nature of the plan, e.g. excluded local environmental groups
- I will now offer a few reflections.
- Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity Some of these might be obvious, but it helps point to what watershed partnerships should prioritize in the development and implementation of a basin management plan Maintaining relationships through implementation Appealing to Congress without Rep. Doc Hastings Securing funding
- In the spirit of the conference theme, I offer some reflections on IWRM.
- Before I end, I want to thank the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the Stanford Bill Lane Center for the American West, and the Stanford Public Policy Program for supporting my research. Thank you