Water Wars: When cities flood canals and canals flood homes, who takes the hit?

Carri Hulet and Lucy Park will share lessons learned about building trust from their work on a collaborative policymaking process involving five private irrigation companies, four cities, and one county in a developing, but historically agricultural region of northern Utah.

Prior to the start of the collaborative process in 2008, trust between parties was at an all-time low. During the first year of engagement, the trust level grew substantially and the group made admirable headway on three major initiatives regarding storm water management. However, the focus of the project drastically changed in July, 2009 when one of the canals breached and flooded a home, resulting in the deaths of a mother and her two children. The emergency tripped the involvement of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and prompted a statewide debate on canal regulation.

The cities and canal companies were well-positioned to respond to the disaster, in large part because of the trust and relationships they had built the previous year.  This foundation of trust was instrumental in rallying the community to manage the crisis and to apply and qualify for funding from the federal government to rebuild the lost infrastructure.

In this breakout session, the presenters will highlight the strategic combination of participatory approaches used throughout the process to build trust between parties and in the process itself. They will link these approaches to specific public participation principles and theories to make clear the connection between theory and practice. Video clips from the stakeholders in the process will “tell the story” of the collaborative effort and highlight points of challenge and opportunity that still exist in the area.

Breakout Presenter Information: Carri Hulet has five years of experience facilitating and presenting in large- and small-group settings. Most recently, Carri participated in a panel at the Utah Department of Transportation’s annual conference where she shared best practices when working with difficult stakeholders. Carri was the conference planner for the 2005 ACR-EPP Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has been a project manager with The Langdon Group since 2007 and has a background in public policy dispute resolution theory that informs her work on the ground.

Lucy Park has three years of experience working on environment and public policy projects with The Langdon Group. As the associate facilitator on the presentation project, Lucy has been intimately involved in the development of the process, and in building relationships with the stakeholders. Lucy has worked with ACR’s Environment and Public Policy section for the past year as part of a committee to create and launch the 2009 EPP website. She is also the 2010 Conference Co-Chair.