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December 4, 2008
Water Policy Committee hears from Bruce Wilson
Yesterday, the Water Policy Study Committee heard a presentation from Bruce Wilson of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Bruce has been involved with several successful clean-ups or nonpoint source pollution -- where pollutants in a river or lake were significantly reduced -- including in the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes, a project that is held up by the EPA as a national model.
You can view the notes from this meeting online, and the Power Points will soon be available here. For now, I'll just highlight one point that stood out to me.
Much of what Bruce told the committee focused on the importance of collaboration. To successfully reduce pollution in a water body requires cooperation between many different groups with many different perspectives -- not just the various state and local government units involved, but also residents, citizen groups, nonprofits, businesses, etc. The strong interests involved makes it difficult. A neutral, trained facilitator is essential, he said. But the need to bring in a facilitator also shows just how much we care about water here, and the strength of democracy on this issue.
Bruce told us that it is challenging to get various groups to work together and takes years of building relationships, but in the end it is worth it. With the data and a good understanding of the situation in the Chain of Lakes, for example, citizens came forward with goals that were more ambitious than those presented by the Pollution Control Agency. This can not only make clean-up projects more effective and less expensive at the outset, but can help to sustain the projects after they are built.
Bruce has volunteered to answer additional questions that we didn't have time for. If you have more questions you'd like to run by him (even if you weren't at the meeting), please post them here and I will pass them along to him.
As in past meetings, it was also great to hear from others who attended this meeting. I want to thank everyone who has been following this study and encourage all of you to continue giving us your input.
Posted by Annie Levenson-Falk at December 4, 2008 3:02 PM
Comments
Regarding evaluative criteria, I would like to suggest "technical/scientific currency". The issue is whether policies are based on sound science, and whether they have automatic adaptation mechanisms. For example, rules for water quality standards automatically require an update every 5 years, so MPCA is forced to reexamine the science periodically.
On the other hand, some rules are based on science that is 20-30 years old. For example, shoreline zoning does not consider the sensitivity of individual lakes to eutrophication, something limnologists have understood for 30 years.
Ideas?
Posted by: Larry Baker | December 11, 2008 5:07 PM