Public Involvement in Fairfax County's Watershed Management Program: The Little Hunting Creek Watershed Project

Fairfax County has initiated a comprehensive watershed management program for protecting and restoring the ecological health of streams throughout the County. The county adopted a collaborative approach for involving the community and for gaining support for the watershed plans developed through the program. Rather than reinventing the public involvement process for each of the County's 30 watersheds, a template for this process was developed and is being applied to each watershed project. As part of the scope of work for the Little Hunting Creek Watershed Management Plan, Woolpert LLP and the University of Virginia's Institute for Environmental Negotiation (IEN) developed the public involvement process guidelines for the County's watershed planning program. Since smaller watersheds will be grouped together, it is anticipated that the process will actually be applied to 15 separate watershed plan projects. The public involvement process used by Fairfax County consists primarily of the formation of a steering committee of diverse community representatives and key stakeholders for each watershed project. Their primary role is to advise each County/consultant project team and to play an integral role in conducting outreach to their own constituencies, and to help get the public to attend a series of four pre-defined forums or workshops: the Issues Scoping Forum, Community Watershed Forum, Draft Plan Review Workshop, and Final Plan Review Workshop. This approach promotes collaboration, encourages engagement of citizens, and helps to build consensus from the community throughout the development of each watershed plan.