Evolving Water Planning Processes in BC

Thursday, September 15th, 2016 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. PST

POLIS Water Sustainability Project Creating a Blue Dialogue Webinar Series 2016/2017

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POLIS Water Sustainability Project Creating a Blue Dialogue Webinar Series 2016/2017

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A Few Things Before We Begin

1. Audio

2. Question Period

3. Introductions

POLIS Water Sustainability Project Creating a Blue Dialogue Webinar Series 2016/2017

Today’s Speakers

Lee Failing Principal, Compass Resource Management

Kate Cave Research Associate and Project Manager, Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources

POLIS Water Sustainability Project Creating a Blue Dialogue Webinar Series 2016/2017

Evolving Water Planning Processes in BC:

Lessons from Water Use Planning

Polis Blue Dialogue Series September 2016

Lee Failing Sally Rudd

Holly Nesbitt

Compass Resource Management Ltd

Session Outline

• Context

• WUP in a Nutshell

• Lessons for watershed planning

• Considerations for Water Sustainability Plans

Our Perspective

From the trenches:

• Facilitators

• Decision analysts

• Water management

Informed by interviews:

• Regulators

• BCH

• NGOs

Different kinds of plans

Vision-focused Decision-focused

Broad Direction-setting

Proactive

Focused Choice among options

Issue-driven Conflict and trade-offs

Vision-focused

Decision-focused

Vision & Values

Key Attributes

Status & Threats

Issues & Priorities

Goals

Actions

Implementation

Monitoring

2

1

3

4

5

6

Decision Context

Objectives and Measures

Alternatives

Consequences

Trade-offs

Monitor and Review

Iterate

Trouble getting agreement on actions? Are there difficult trade-offs?

Water Use Planning

• Water use planning is a process for clarifying how rights to use water resources should be exercised, taking into account the multiple users of water

BC WUP in a Nutshell

• Long history of conflict, mistrust, legal challenges Crisis

• 23 WUPs developed between 1998 and 2004

• One third the cost of similar relicensing in US

• Important ecological, social, cultural gains; better balance

• Consensus at 22 of 23 facilities

• 85% approval rating by participants

• Recipient of planning and sustainability awards

• A model for water governance (WWF, 2014)

The BC WUP Program

• Interagency committees – steering, management, technical

• First Nations WUP Committee

• Consultation on draft Guidelines

• Pilot WUP completed

• Guidelines finalized

• Program launch

The BC WUP Program

• Initiation is voluntary

• Plan developed by committee process

• Committee makes recommendations

• Proponent submits WUP (BC Hydro)

• Provincial and federal approvals

• Multi-agency involvement in monitoring

2

1

3

4

5

6

Clarify the Decision Context

Define Objectives and Measures

Develop Alternatives

Estimate Consequences

Evaluate Trade-offs and Select

Implement, Monitor and Review

Iterate

Plan Development

Structured Decision Making

An example Simplified, illustrative example of how these steps played out

Context: Getting everyone to the table

Consultative Committee

• Utility, provincial regulators, federal fisheries regulator, communities, NGOs and First Nations

Technical Committees

• Fish, wildlife, recreation, First Nations

Broader Public Process

• Breadth vs Depth

Consultative Committee

Fish Technical

Wildlife Technical

Recreation Cultural and

Heritage

Public Process

Decision objectives and performance measures were used to define what matters in the decision and become the criteria for evaluating alternatives

Why is that

important? Reservoir

Levels

Debris Management

Flow Rates

Shoreline Erosion

Access to: Beach

Boat launch Shoreline

Visual Quality

Boating and Swimming:

Conditions Safety

Kayak and Canoeing Conditions

Safety

Recreation Quantity Quality

Tourism

Economic Benefits Revenue

Jobs

Debris: Standing Floating

Erosion Heritage

Defining Objectives

17

Typical Objectives

Everyone agreed on the objectives and performance measures that will be used to evaluate alternatives

Objective Performance Measure Units

Wildlife Riparian vegetation ha

Salmon Spawning habitat ha

Stranding risk # days/year

Productivity Effective Littoral Zone ha

Benthic productivity index

Recreation Boater days #/year

Heritage Erosion risk # days/year

Power Annual revenues million $/ year

Identifying Alternatives

Alternatives were combinations of rules for reservoir operations and flow releases

Estimating Consequences

Objective Performance Measure Units Dir Altern

ativ

e 1

Altern

ativ

e 2

Altern

ativ

e 3

Wildlife Riparian vegetation ha H 500 200 300

Fish Spawning habitat ha H 850 1220 1220

Recreation Boater days #/year H 210 190 195

Heritage Erosion risk # days/year L 42 45 45

Power Annual revenues million $/ year H 3.2 4.1 4.0

Addressing Trade-offs

Focus analysis and deliberations on key trade-offs

Objective Performance Measure Units Dir Reserv

oir Sta

ble

Reserv

oir Dra

wdow

n

Wildlife Riparian vegetation ha H 500 200

Fish Spawning habitat ha H 850 1220

Recreation Boater days #/year H 210 190

Heritage Erosion risk # days/year L 42 45

Power Annual revenues million $/ year H 3.2 4.1

Seeking creative solutions Find new alternatives that reduce trade-offs

Preferences changed as people learned

Objective Performance Measure Units Dir Reserv

oir Sta

ble

Reserv

oir Dra

wdow

n

Draw

down w

ith P

lantin

g

Wildlife Riparian vegetation ha H 500 200 300

Fish Spawning habitat ha H 850 1220 1220

Recreation Boater days #/year H 210 190 195

Heritage Erosion risk # days/year L 42 45 45

Power Annual revenues million $/ year H 3.2 4.1 4.0

Agreeing on a package

Water Use Rules

Physical Works

(in lieu) Monitoring

• Reservoir elevations • Drawdown rates • Ramping rates • Environmental flows

• Spawning channels • Riparian planting • Boat ramps • Erosion protection works

• Fish abundance • Habitat quality/quantity • Water quality • Recreational usage

Participants asked to indicate level of support:

Endorse – Accept – Oppose

22 of 23 WUPs achieved consensus

Now do it 22 more times

Lessons from Water Use Planning

#1 Confirm decision-maker commitment

Understand how your planning process links to an actual decision

• What’s the decision that will be made?

• Who will make it?

• Have they provided direction on scope and bounds?

“These [plans] can’t be done in a vacuum.”

#2 Bound the Scope

• It can be tempting to try to address everything, but that can mean nothing will be accomplished.

• Successful watershed planning requires biting off a manageable piece of the problem.

• Water use plans had a firmly limited scope and a “notional” budget cap but retained flexibility for creative solutions

#3 Use a structured and rigorous process

2

1

3

4

5

6

Clarify the Decision Context

Define Objectives and Measures

Develop Alternatives

Estimate Consequences

Evaluate Trade-offs and Select

Implement, Monitor and Review

Iterate

Best practices based in the decision sciences

#4 Address both facts and values

Facts

• Answer “what will happen if…”

• Provided by experts

Values

• Answer “What should we do, given what we know”

• Informed by facts, but don’t require expertise

Key success factors

• Effective combination of Analysis + Dialogue

• Leveling the playing field between technical and non-technical participants

#5 Agree on what matters

• Everyone needs to agree on what matters

• Don’t try to agree on weights or priority

• People can agree on solutions even when they wildly disagree about the importance of the objectives

Keep it simple!

The thing that matters and a preferred direction:

• Minimize flooding

• Maximize reservoir productivity

… and understandable performance measures

• Turn model output into concise, understandable, measures of performance

210

212

214

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220

222

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19631964196519661967196819691970197119721973197419751976197719781979198019811982198319841985198619871988198919901991199219931994199519961997199819991991 HiLiteBlank MedianREF 10thREF90thREF Median

Upper Campbell/Buttle Reservoir Elevations: Reference Alternative

Objective: Reservoir Productivity Performance Measure: Effective Littoral Zone (hectares)

#6 Explore a wide range of alternatives

• Be creative

• Be “value-focused”

• Iterate

• It will take time

• People won’t make hard trade-offs if they don’t believe a full range of alternatives have been explored

Round 1 (Exploratory)

Round 2 (Value-focused)

Round 3 (Refined)

Round 4 (Final)

#7 Build shared understanding of

consequences

• Commit to evidence-based decisions (Science and TK)

• Avoid dueling experts - agree on the models and experts to use

• Scale effort to issues – do analysis that’s “good enough”

#8 Face and talk openly about trade-offs

• Trade-offs aren’t bad; they just are

• A good process will minimize, but not eliminate, them

• Any process that does not address value trade-offs will not build lasting solutions

Objective Performance Measure Units Dir Reserv

oir Sta

ble

Reserv

oir Dra

wdow

n

Wildlife Riparian vegetation ha H 500 200

Fish Spawning habitat ha H 850 1220

Recreation Boater days #/year H 210 190

Heritage Erosion risk # days/year L 42 45

Power Annual revenues million $/ year H 3.2 4.1

#9 Commit to a realistic AM program

• Commitment to AM can be key to reaching agreement

• Ban wishful thinking!

• Ensure multi-party design and oversight

• Make it a legal requirement

#10 Seek but don’t require consensus

• Emphasizing consensus too early hides key issues, limits creative alternatives, produces short-lived answers

• Requiring consensus gives power to individuals who won’t compromise

• The group is not necessarily representative

• The goal is to inform the decision maker

* There is great value in a consensus agreement, but there are good reasons not to require it…

36

# Above all… Create space for co-learning

Planning processes succeed when people learn together, when raw opinions turn into informed and thoughtful judgments

• Learning about what matters to others

• Learning about complex consequences and trade-offs

Learning Together

Mind-changing conversations

Analysis +

Discourse

Broad support for hard choices

& trade-offs

Dealing with challenges

Challenges

• It can be a long process. What keeps people at the table?

• “Belief that something will change”

• “Empowerment”; “a sense of being in control of our own fate”

• “Tangible progress”; “professional facilitators who know how to drive to an endpoint”

Challenges

• How do you make progress when people don’t trust each other?

Trust Progress ?

Progress Trust ?

Useful working assumptions:

• Everyone is trying to do the right thing

• Everyone has a piece of the puzzle

What makes a good plan? Good process leads to a good plan

Some elements of a good plan

• Concrete, enforceable actions

• Key values considered and indicators of performance

• Predicted outcomes - what do we expect to achieve?

• Transparent trade-offs - what have we accepted?

• Monitoring/AM plan – key management questions,

monitoring programs, triggers for action and review, focus on

priorities

• Review and oversight provisions – for implementing,

interpreting monitoring results and revisiting decisions

Considerations and questions for Water Sustainability Plans

Considerations

• Drivers/Demand

• Capacity for multi-party collaboration/leadership

• Diversity of issues addressed

• Funding

• FN participation

Compass Resource Management Ltd. 210 – 111 Water St

Vancouver, B.C. V6B 1A7 Canada

Phone: 604-641-2875 www.compassrm.com

Thanks! Lee Failing Sally Rudd

Holly Nesbitt

Evolving Water Planning

Processes in BC: Lessons from

Water Use Planning

Polis Blue Dialogue Series

September 2016

Kate Cave

Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources

First Nations Integrated Watershed

Planning Toolkit:

Why CIER created these tools:

1.Water is a vital, irreplaceable life-giving substance

2.First Nations have a unique, complex relationship with water

3.Increased watershed planning without or limited First Nations involvement

4.Water myths in Canada

Water is not only a source of life for all

living things and essential to both

physical and cultural survival, but it is alive

and is spirit.

What is Watershed Planning about?

Watershed planning is about bringing the people within the watershed together to:

think about, talk about, make and implement

decisions regarding our current and future

relationships with the environment and everyone

and everything that is dependent upon them.

Social

Economic Cultural

Environmental

What is involved in the watershed

planning process? 1.Describing your

approach: Know Yourself

2.Building Partnerships 3.Knowing your

watershed 4.Achieving Consensus

on the Plan 5.Bringing the Plan to

Life

#1: Describing your approach: Know

Yourself

“Your

Community’s

Voice”

#2: Building Partnerships

“The process is often as important as the final product.”

#3: Knowing Your Watershed

What are some of the specific challenges facing

water in this area?

How are the lands and waters used by your First

Nation members (both negative and positive

uses) and valued in your community?

Do you have any concerns

about the water?

Lessons from Watershed Planning

1. Build and maintain community motivation.

2. Process is often as important as the final product.

3. Understand capacity and resource needs to engage in a watershed planning process.

Collaborative

Environmental

Planning

Initiative (CEPI) Source: CEPI website

Source: CEPI website

Thank you! Any questions?

Contact Information: Kate Cave kcave@yourcier.org 204-956-0660 ext 9 http://www.yourcier.org/f

irst-nations-integrated-watershed-planning-guidebooks-2011.html

Question Period

POLIS Water Sustainability Project Creating a Blue Dialogue Webinar Series 2016/2017

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