Here are two proposals that the committee will consider on Thursday: governance (broadly defined) and water supply/sustainability.

NOTE: The supply question is no longer focused solely on the metro area (see comments below for explanation).

I have heard from a lot of committee members since the last meeting, and I wanted to summarize these in a transparent way, so that everyone can see the feedback that I've heard.

First, Randy Neprash has suggested" various questions that could fit under the 3 topics proposed at the last meeting. These may be very helpful in figuring out "where we go from here" once we have decided on our policy focus.

• Some members felt that the committee was headed in a direction to define a broad charge around issues of governance


• Some people were frustrated, feeling that progress from the 9/4 meeting was disregarded and conclusions from the 9/18 meeting were too broad.


• Some people felt that the process on 9/18 didn't include many voices, so the final vote wasn't representative of many of the members who were present.

There also seems to be a difference of opinion about how broad or narrow the focus should be to be the most meaningful and impactful.

because a significant portion of members felt that the conclusions from 9/4 were unfairly disregarded, the co-chairs and I have decided that it would be beneficial to re-introduce the issue of non-point source pollution, which was strongly put forward after 9/4. This will be presented in a proposal (in the same format as the two in my above comment) that will be voted on on Thursday.

I encourage any members (or other folks) to post your thoughts on this process here on the blog so that we can keep these discussions as open as possible.

Whatever conclusion the committee reaches on Thursday, it's very important that the process we take to get there is as solid and transparent as possible. I thank everyone for their feedback, and look forward to hearing from more of you.

Here are additional resources committee members have sent along that may be helpful in this process.

• Overview of Indian Water Rights, Susan Williams
• The Right to Water, World Health Organization
• Spirituality and Sustainability: Water, the Common Element
• Policy Basics
• Framing the Elusive Concept of Sustainability: A Sustainability Hierarchy, Juliand Marshall and Michael Toffel

Thanks Annie, for kicking off a discussion on this. I am really struggling with the two proposals that have been posted so far, so I'd like to say my peace. Ultimately I'll have to vote for one of them (one more proposal is still coming, right?) so for now I need to get this off my chest....

I don't think we have given adequate attention to clearly defining the problem we're trying to solve. Jon made this point in his email to all of us before our last meeting. I feel like I need our problem definition to be very explicit - that is, I need to know exactly what our approach is trying to ameliorate. So.... this may seem like stating the obvious, but can we do a little dot connecting?

What's the problem:

1. On the quality side, too many of Minnesota's lakes, rivers and streams have been declared "impaired" and the vast majority of pollutants are coming from non-point sources. Our water managers have expressed frustration with their inability to turn this around and the public’s seeming unwillingness to change.

2. On the quantity side, too much of Minnesota's groundwater (and surface water?) is withdrawn for human uses without adequate knowledge of its impact on a continued healthy flow (a "sustainable" flow). This is compounded in areas where massive withdrawal is taken from a single source location. Our water managers see this as an agency responsibility to deal with and see the public as passive consumers to be managed.

In general, there is a perception among the public of worsening water quality and lessening of supply security.

Now let me stop there. Do I have this right? Do we agree THIS is why we are concerned? Maybe the above needs editing.

THEN if we agree on the problem, we next need to take a stab at WHY these problems persist? This is where it gets trickier. Because most public problems have more than one cause. But this is what I was hoping the different proposals would do - attempt to identify a common, causal root for BOTH problems that we as Citizens (via a Citizens League committee) can impact. I didn’t expect the proposals to layout very prescriptive details of proposed solutions - I’d prefer the full committee had a role in developing this. I just wanted the proposals to hone in on a particular definition of what they think the root of the problem is and what general approach we should take to study this. So I guess I’m having a problem with too much prescriptiveness in the proposals making me reluctant to vote for them as I fear I’ll be hamstringed.

FIRST - Clear statements, Janna.

I would modify number 2 only by removing "too much". We don't know if it's too much, because we don't know what a sustainable flow is.

I would add a third problem statement:

3. Water policy is fractured both among and within levels of government, causing it to be less efficient and effective than it could be.

SECOND - How did "Supply/Sustainability/Future Use" become "metro-area water supply"? I certainly did not intend to express my support for limiting our work to the metro area, and will oppose doing so.

THIRD - I object on principle to adding a proposal at the meeting on Thursday.

We narrowed the field. Non-point pollution as a specific topic did not make the cut. That does not in any way prevent it from being a sub-topic or theme within our work.

More importantly, let's have a little respect for process, please. We agreed that the first item on Thursday's agenda would be a vote on the three topics we chose, with discussion carried out electronically between the two meetings. If we go against that, we undermine ourselves and waste precious time.

FOURTH - On the question of, How can the Citizens League make a unique impact? - Acknowledging that my public policy education may bias me, I have always seen the Citizens League as an organization that promotes good governance through critical review of state and local policies/institutions by interested citizens (e.g. LGA, charter schools).

I am therefore both reluctant to go down the path of, How do we reach out to citizens/change their behavior? There are plenty of organizations (governmental and non) that do citizen engagement. We are uniquely postitioned, as citizens and participants in a study committee, to critique the structure and functioning of government.

Below is a rough draft of some ideas that I had and how we could maybe frame our proposal:

Objective- To ensure better water quality and sustainability for future generations.

How to go about doing this;

It is our recommendation that each branch of government and all government agencies make significant strides when it comes to innovation for wastewater treatment, and overall usage for both the consumer sector and the corporate/business/agricultural sector. We also believe that by impacting and structuring conversation around water policy usage for all areas of government and consumer usage we will challenge the ideas that consumers have in order to make a more informed population.

We have found that our resources as it applies to water (similar to air, and oil) are limited. We began the conversation with how can we affect a positive change in our states overall usage and begin to educate the community at large about the limited resource that is our water. There are many different aspects of our water supply that we need to affect. Two of these are our surface water, and the overall quality of it, and the second is our drinking water. It is our belief that there are (5) major ways this can be directly affected by government agencies; First this can be affected by finding ways to put more and more of our water back into use after it has been used (we’ll call this the recyclability aspect). Second we believe that education is needed to affect people’s behaviors around water usage and the fact that the supply is diminishing. Third we believe that non-point pollution is something that each area of government must affect immediately as this will make one of the greatest changes in our overall water quality. Fourth we believe that citizens can impact overall research in these areas and can be a great asset as it pertains to monitoring and affecting change in non-point pollution, and the supply of drinking water. Lastly we believe that government agencies have a duty to the population it represents to strive to make water quality better, quickly. (This was just something I came up with and can be modified and changed).

Currently our water supply is not treated as a commodity. We are seeing our water supplies around the world diminish, while the demand for water has continued to increase. In recent years we have watched many of our lakes and streams lose significant amounts of water quantity. The best example of this is Lake Superior losing a record breaking 2.5 feet of surface water. This cannot be recovered. As we lose our water supply, it becomes more imperative that we affect the amount, and quality that is being put back into the system.

Recently there have been reports of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals being found in our water supplies, not only in cities, but now also in wells and aquafors. This is a deep concern, it is clear that the water that we are currently using is not being treated to affect this, and that there is little to no incentive for many of our behaviors to change. Something has to change and needs to change.

In rural communities often times, people can only get permits for mound septic systems. These systems are guaranteed to fail, in fact its considered a rarity if they don’t fail at least once in five years. These systems are ineffective. When they fail they pump hundreds of gallons of untreated waste water, and waste into surrounding water sheds and often times can negatively impact surrounding water supplies. The systems will also cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage on a regular basis. Why would we allow consumers to buy something that is so inefficient and can be extremely detrimental to entire communities? The answer is that we haven’t come up with something better yet. There are many experimental waste water treatments for rural communities, however, there are no permits for these systems. We believe that this needs to change. Our solution is to give incentives for innovation. People need to stray away from the ever failing mound systems to systems like peat filtration systems, wet land treatment facilities, and seeping treatment systems. These systems historically have given better quality, even drinkable water after treatment. They are more effective, and more efficient.

There is another issue that we seem to run into when talking about wastewater treatment. Year after year we see flooding of our current wastewater treatment plants in all major cities. There have been major strides to affect this but if we have historical rain fall, year after year we see those strides wiped away. Our surface water is ultimately contaminated, which adversely affects our drinking water for years to come. The standards and ways that we treat waste water are ineffective. There needs to be some major changes made and sought after for continued progress and change in the current treatment of wastewater. What we would like to propose is that the many varied bodies begin to find ways to incorporate alternative treatments, such as wetland wastewater treatments, community treatment plants, instead of city wide treatment plants. Overflow needs to be addressed as well. The quantity of wastewater treatment can not adversely affect the quality. The quality standards need to be held month over month, year over year. If anything the standards in quality need to continue to rise regardless of our increasing quality.

My personal goal in observing treatment of wastewater, is to have it drinkable, or almost drinkable in the time that it is extinguished from the wastewater treatment plant (regardless of size or use(home, or corporate). We can’t expect to positively effect our overall water quality if we don’t look directly at how we impact that quality at the outset.

I love this! I feel like speaking through the blog is giving us a much heartier dialogue. These are all very important points made by Becca. But I do want to respectfully differ with her on a couple of them. One is, I think I heard Annie say that, after the last meeting, there were several committee members who contacted her to say they felt uncomfortable with the process we adopted (mid-meeting) to vote on the topic choices. From what she said, the concern was similar to what Becca is expressing now - that we didn't respect the process (and the outcome) of the Sept. 4th meeting.

As for the process on the 18th, I may be reading between the lines here, but I think the concern might be that by voting twice (rather than once and then a run-off in case of a tie) the proposals that actually were a "second" choice for most folks are the ones that rose to the top. Now that may still be a perfectly legitimate outcome - maybe we can only get maximum agreement on second choices. But would we have wound up with a different "second" choice if we'd voted separately on 1st and 2nd? Anyway, I don't mean to muddy the waters, but if we are to argue for respecting process then the question of what happened to the process we used at the Sept. 4th meeting is still unanswered. I do appreciate, however, that we are growing weary of being in this limbo stage of struggling with HOW to pick, so my hope would be we could work this out over the blog before tomorrow.

The second point I wanted to make is that I do see citizen outreach as a legitimate policy issue. My interpretation of the Citizens League's identity statement and mission is that we have to take deliberate steps to carve out a place at the policy making table for ordinary folks. In terms of water mgmt, I think one of the things we've learned is that these orgs who make it their business to organize citizens are not being included in any official capacity as part of our govt. water mgmt system. And given that behavior change is a critical outcome needed for water quality improvement, this is a legitimate part water policy - I guess this is my sociology education bias. :D

Because various committee members have wanted to focus on either drinking water OR nonpoint source pollution, here are a few comments regarding the connection between the two:

1. 23 public water supplies in MN use surface water. That doesn't sound like a lot, but these comprise 1.4 million and cities like Mpls, St. Paul, Duluth, Ely, etc. All of these are potentially impacted by nonpoint source pollution.
2. Several of these cities use lakes for storage of municipal source water, which means they are susceptible to eutrophication problems - especially taste and odor problems (St. Paul!). In today's world, many of these storage lakes are now surrounded by urban land - hence urban stormwater is part of the source water.

3. The rest of Minnesota uses groundwater, which of course is susceptible to contamination from nonpoint source pollution. Nitrate contamination is one major problem in ag areas - which becomes an urban problem through urban sprawl (the MN Dept. of Health has some nitrate maps online (http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water/swp/nitrate/index.html). We are also seeing evidence of road salt contamination of aquifers in the TC.

3. We may be exacerbating the problem by using infiltration to treat urban stormwater. There's nothing solid on this yet, but good reason to be cautious.

4. There is probably not sufficient coordination among entities responsible for nonpoint source pollution and those responsible for source water protection. This was a conclusion from a MN Dept. Health report.

Just a few brainstorming comments as we ponder direction.

Valid points from both Becca and Janna on process - the question that the co-chairs and I have been struggling with now is how to make the best out of what has been an imperfect process.

Since multiple members voiced their dissatisfaction with the ad-hoc procedures at the last meeting, we're suggesting we consider bringing back issue of nonpoint source pollution, the issue that was raised most strongly on the 4th but that didn't make it through on the 18th.

The first question at the next meeting will be whether this issue should even be reconsidered - it will be put to a vote, and if fewer than half of the group believes it should be put back on the table, it won't.

Becca was also right that we hadn't decided to limit the supply question to the metro area. I spoke with Joe Mansky, and changed the proposal.

One of the benefits of having a committee like this is to take the opportunity to engage in some unconventional thinking. There are at least two possible routes for this kind of thinking to take us. One is how we perceive the resources we have. Second is the kind of structures we create to use them.

Since at least 1948, the traditional view of our topic has been cleaning up impaired waters. And although it was not the original focus, degradation of water resources from nonpoint sources has been understood for many years and has formally been the focus of government efforts since 1987.

And the traditional method of dealing with these issues at the state and local level is also fairly well settled. For example, the standard act under which state conservation districts operate dates from 1936.

The question before us is this: is the traditional view of water resource management the right vehicle to arrive at a solution to the problems at hand?

Whatever decisions are ultimately made by the committee, it would be useful to keep in mind that the objective should be to make something happen.

I really like Joe's problem statement/question, as a succinct approach to the governance topic.

Joe, I agree wholeheartedly with your stepping us all the way back to reconsidering the very perspective from which we view water resource mgmt. I think this really is where we need to begin - or wind up - as a committee if we are to untangle the many water problems - both quantity and quality - that share a common thread leading back to the paradigm itself. So I hope our committee does not shy away from questioning the fundamentals and braving the unknown territory of a new and novel approach. I also would like to say I find it unfortunate that we are having to choose between quantity and quality in our quest for a focus. But I also understand the utility in using a specific issue as a grounding point from which to demonstrate systemic failings. I also agree non-point source pollution has been on the radar for decades. But I would disagree that how to deal with it has been settled. In fact I think non-point source pollution is the poster child for why we have to try something new, because our approach for the last two decades isn't working. So...whether we choose to start with a specific issue(non-point source pollution or drinking water) as a means to highlight the general, or start with the general and then drill down into a couple of specifics for illustrative purposes, either way, I think a fundamental rethinking of resource management is long overdue and a way for our committee to show leadership

I confess that I'm one of the committee members who expressed frustration with the process to Annie. I don't have a strong opinion about what process to use.

However, I feel that we set one process which was then totally discarded. We adopted a new process without consent of the group, and that in that process we discarded valuable input from the first process - again without consent from the group. I personally felt that a limited number of voices were recognized in the second discussion.

I hope, and I ask that today's meeting begins with coming to consensus of what process we will use - and that we will stick to it. I'm happy to abide by the will of the group, so long as that will is determined via an open process. (Check out the Citizens League principles.)