Watershed Planning and Management: Institutional Realities

Overlaying traditional political boundaries upon natural watersheds creates institutional complexity due to the necessity of facilitating appropriate and effective linkages for watershed planning, analysis, and management. This paper describes and compares two urban watershed case studies designed to identify and illuminate their institutional complexities and various solutions over the past decade. Our premise is that the establishment and maintenance of effective institutional arrangements across political boundaries is an essential element for the overall success of watershed planning and management. Of special note is the relative role of the federal courts in both cases as well as the institutional lessons to be learned. The first case focuses upon the Rouge River Watershed near Detroit, Michigan. The Rouge River National Wet Weather Demonstration Project, begun in 1992, assists the forty-eight units of government in the seven sub-watersheds to develop more efficient means to control both point and nonpoint pollutants. As a result, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality developed a new and innovative voluntary General Permit for storm water that is designed in part to facilitate effective watershed planning and management. Since the U.S. EPA recently stated that those commited to full compliance with all provisions of the Michigan General Storm Water Permit will satisfy the requirements of the new federal Phase II Storm Water rules and regulation, this model may be of interest elsewhere. The western watershed case study focuses upon the Tualatin River Basin near Portland, Oregon. In 1988, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality established Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for total phosphorous and ammonia for the Tualatin River. The river now meets its point source allocations but not its nonpoint ones. Despite significant progress in river quality and community involvement, some conflict remains over interpretations and expectations of science and the law. A variety of institutional arrangements have played important roles and continue to evolve. This examination is particularly interesting since the TMDLs in the Tualatin River were the first ones done by Oregon and among the earliest completed in the country.