My idea to volunteer for the Johnson Creek Watershed Council as a way to narrow down my interests for a senior capstone has taken me on a path as crooked and winding as any tributary.
During the surveys for lampreys and steelhead, I interacted with various actors involved in the restoration of the Johnson Creek Watershed in Portland, OR, and to help me further understand the story behind this seemingly successful volunteer and citizen-run survey, I decided to interview one of the JCWC’s employee’s about the history of the JCWC and the creek’s management in general. The goal was to understand exactly how an entity like the JCWC managed to find such success in the trans-jurisdictional world of watershed management, and little did I know that the fight for the watershed was long and stretched far beyond the confines of JCWC. I had just opened a massive can of worms. Unfortunately, a scheduling error resulted in a postponing of the interview, but using past ENVS student research and sources from JCWC’s site, I was still able to get at my questions.
Steve Johnson, a “watershed resident” and PSU professor, authored at least two short works covering the history of the watershed: History of Johnson Creek Canyon and The Johnson Creek Story. The latter details the actors and events that came together, resulting in the situation we see today at Johnson Creek. Of particular interest to me was his coverage of the management approach shifts that occurred:
It was not pure science that drove the process, but rather scientific and technical knowledge embedded in a social process. The Johnson Creek Watershed planning process fits neatly within Judith Innes’ (1998) communicative planning theory, in which information becomes gradually embedded in the understandings of actors in the community through processes in which participants collectively create meanings. In the conventional model of planning, plans are developed by presumably neutral experts who work outside and apart from the political and bureaucratic process through which policy gets made, and their work does not become embedded in the institutions’ or the players’ understandings. Policy becomes “intellectual capital” or shared knowledge only if there is thorough and repeated discussion about the meaning of the information, its accuracy, and its implications (Gruber, 1994; Innes et al., 1994). Information does not influence policy unless it corresponds to a socially constructed and shared understanding within the community of policy actors. If, however, the meaning does emerge through such a social process, the information changes the actors and their actions.
Indeed, during my surveys, I interacted with several watershed residents who seemed very involved in the watershed council’s activities. I interpreted this as the result of living in an eco-conscious area of the country, but I may have underestimated the enormous efforts made by JCWC and previous entities to involve citizens in watershed management.
I also looked at a previous ENVS 330 group’s research project on Johnson Creek’s management and found that the same emphasis on a bottom-up approach involving citizens and residents had the effect of creating an inclusive and less hostile environment. Learning of this project dissuaded me from considering Johnson Creek as a topic for my capstone, but I was curious to see if this bottom-up tactic had been employed in other larger-scale watershed projects, such as those run by federal and state agencies. So I shifted my focus towards the coast and the Siuslaw National Forest.
Last summer, I worked on several hydrology projects in the Malheur National Forest and got a taste of how a massive agency like the Forest Service tackles watershed management. But out of the experiences I had working for the hydrology team, I couldn’t recall a single day when we worked with citizens or other agencies on a hydrology project. Of course, my experience is limited, but what I do know is that the folks at Siuslaw National Forest work in tandem with local watershed councils and other agencies to manage their watersheds. Apparently, this wasn’t the case a few decades ago.
My digging of the Siuslaw National Forest (SNF) website led me to this 30 minute documentary detailing the progression of how a heavily logged SNF became the pinnacle of restoration on public lands. A few minutes into the video, I realized that the components of SNF’s success in building a framework for watershed conservation mirrored those for Johnson Creek. Furthermore, the approach that SNF takes very closely resembles the collaborative decision making process. There is so much packed into this documentary and related articles that is relevant to effective, forest-wide watershed management, but for the purpose of keeping this post an appropriate length, I will reduce my thoughts to a collection of questions that themselves can become full capstone projects:
- Siuslaw National Forest is an example forest for state and federal public lands agencies thanks to its approach to watershed and forest restoration, but the forest is unique not only physically being situated on the Oregon Coast but also historically. How can the SNF’s approach be employed on watersheds falling in different National forests across the United States?
- Qualitative: research into historical development of the Northwest Forest Plan and how SNF achieved its current status as a restoration forest.
- Quantitative: GIS analysis of publicly available data for all NF’s to pinpoint watersheds that can feasibly implement a collaborative decision making process similar to that used in SNF.
- Johnson Creek is an example of successful watershed management within a major metropolitan area. How can Johnson Creek’s approach be employed on watersheds falling in different metropolitan areas across the United States?
- Qualitative: This will likely
- Quantitative: GIS analysis of watersheds in other cities that can feasibly implement a process similar to that used at Johnson Creek.
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