A sense of ownership…

During the discussion this week one of the points in our conversation that resonated with me was the question of ownership. Who "owns" the plan that an environmental conflict resolution (ECR) process produces? The Money Point, VA example (http://www.virginia.edu/ien/moneypoint/index.html) and current Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) development process provide very different answers to this question.

At Money Point many of the people involved would claim some ownership of the plan. This process was designed with the goal of fostering community and improving the areas environment in mind. Many individuals and groups were diligently included in the process to ensure that everyone who wanted to take part could and did. With so many people contributing, the final plan was of a higher quality with significant consensus and community building laying groundwork for the plan. Reading and talking about the process you can't help but feel good about the work that went into making the project possible. This in many respects represents the “idea” in ECR.

Turning to the Bay TMDL there is a very different feeling. This process had a vision and goals set by the EPA and to some extent the Commonwealth, with little input from the stakeholders that were “invited” to attend. With no input from the larger group about the goals this process was fighting an up hill battle from the start. And with the recent comments from the EPA showing displeasure for Virginia’s WIP it's safe to say that even the Commonwealth isn't happy to be the "owner" of this plan.

Moving forward it is easy to see that there is real need to ask the question, “Who owns this ECR process?” This question goes back to the four questions we discussed during our first class session when evaluating an ECR process:

1. Who gains?

2. Who looses?

3. Who makes the decisions?

4. Who gets left out?
Perhaps we should add #5. Who owns the process?...what do you think?