71st SWCS International Annual Conference July 24-27, 2016 Louisville, KY

1. Ward Ling
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension
July 25, 2016
WATERSHED PLANNING IN TEXAS:
LESSONS LEARNED

2. AGRILIFE’S WPP EXPERIENCE
 Plum Creek WPP – 2009
 Geronimo Creek WPP - 2012
 Mill Creek WPP – 2016
 All received EPA acceptance

3. PLUM CREEK WPP PROCESS
 Pre-emptive Work
 Met with local media, County Extension Agents
 Identified potential steering committee members
 Watershed characterization and set up model
 Data collection
 WPP Development
 public meetings and sought input on development
 presented chapters multiple times, presented complete draft
plan twice at the end of period
 1 ½ year delay to achieve EPA acceptance
 Some implementation started during the long interim
period between development and acceptance
 EPA accepted in June 2009

4. PLUM CREEK WPP PROCESS
 Pre-emptive work – 5 months
 WPP development – 25 months
 Some implementation started before EPA acceptance
 EPA review – 17 months
Time = 3.8 yrs
Pre-emptive
Development
EPA Review

5. GERONIMO CREEK WPP PROCESS
 Pre-emptive work
 Met with local media, County Extension Agents
 Identified potential steering committee members
 Watershed characterization and set up model
 Data collection (drought started)
 WPP Development
 Used report model from Plum WPP
 presented draft sections to public as developed
 Delays – Was put on hold by funding entity over
modeling issues
 EPA approval September 2012

6. GERONIMO CREEK WPP PROCESS
 Pre-emptive work – 4 months
 Development – 16 months
 Delays – 16 months
 EPA review – 2 weeks
Time = 3 yrs
Pre-emptive
Development
Delay
EPA Review

7. MILL CREEK PROCESS
 Pre-emptive Work
 Met with local media, County Extension Agents
 Identified potential steering committee members
 Watershed characterization and set up model
 Data collection
 WPP Development
 Public meetings and sought input on development
 Ran model and presented outputs
 Submitted sections to public as developed
 EPA approval delay– took longer due to internal
restructuring

8. MILL CREEK WPP PROCESS
 Pre-emptive work – 4 months
 Development – 6 months
 EPA review – 8 months
Time = 1.5 yrs
Pre-emptive
WPP
Development
EPA Review

9. THINGS TO DO
 Preemptive work
 Set up the model—have it ready—easy to
understand
 Meet with potential Steering Committee members
 Have a document template ready
 Value your stakeholders
 Communicate with them
 Value them - Name them in press releases,
websites, and keep them informed
 Engage approving agencies starting at day 1

10. THINGS TO AVOID
 Long development phase— no re-running the
model or recalibration, please…
 Time lags between development and
implementation
 Long approval or acceptance process
 These can all lead to:
 Turnover of elected officials and city management
 Stakeholder “fatigue”

11. SUGGESTED POLICY CHANGES
 Match Flexibility - allow steering committee member
time to count towards match
 Refreshments – allowance for meetings—“if you
feed them, they will come…”
 Travel funds – increase funding to allow federal and
state personnel to attend stakeholder meetings
 Reduce “us and them” feelings by stakeholders
 Would help to keep them engaged in the development and
reviewing the document as it is developed

12. QUESTIONS?
Ward Ling
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension
College Station, Texas
wling@tamu.edu