This issue was confronted in December of 2014 by the Bureau of Land Management, through Oregon Consensus in Portland, Oregon.  They decided to engage CDR Associates to help one county in Oregon (basically one BLM District–larger than the State of Maryland) face the specter of mega-fires in sagebrush country.  With the help of a “Core Team” made up of Federal officials (from BLM and US Fish and Wildlife Service), scientists (USDA Agricultural Research Service), environmentalists (The Nature Conservancy), a County Commissioner, and ranchers, CDR began working on this project in February 2015.

CDR and the Core Team first worked together to create a larger group called the Harney County Wildfire Collaborative.  The Collaborative now includes members from Oregon Department of State Lands, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, members of six Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (the volunteer firefighters for the county), firefighters from federal agencies, members of two other environmental groups, as well as chiefs of tribal, city and county fire departments. The group agreed to meet for a full day once a month in Burns.  Further, the agreed on the following purpose statement:

The purpose of the Harney County Wildfire Collaborative is for the group to reach consensus on specific, achievable, tangible and measurable steps to be taken by all entities (both public and private) to reduce the potential for and impact of mega-fires in Harney County. (Here consensus is defined not as unanimity, but agreement to live with the developed solution and support it moving forward.) 

Suppression (the first topic to be addressed by the Collaborative) is defined as the communication, coordination and integration of actions taken to put fires out in both initial attack and extended attack.

In August the group moved from the suppression topic to the challenges of preventing these mega-fires. As their next step they intend to identify several pilot sites and work together to agree on management tools that can be applied to the wide variety of ecosystems on these sites.  The final major topic the Collaborative plans to address is restoration–so stay tuned! To learn more, contact Mary Margaret Golten.

The future of water in Colorado and the West requires the best collaborative problem-solving and consensus-building skills available. To meet this need, CDR Associates and the Colorado Water Institute teamed up last month in Palisade, Colorado to offer the first in a series of interactive workshops on Best Practices for Collaborative Water Decisions: Moving from Concept to Action.

24 lively and inquisitive water professionals, stakeholders and decision makers from western Colorado and the Front Range gathered at the Wine Country Inn in Palisade to hone their skills in collaborative decision-making and share their experiences with other professionals. Recognizing that collaborative models are increasingly necessary to effectively address the complex and challenging issues affecting water in Colorado, the workshop helped strengthen capacity among water leaders and professionals to participate in multi-stakeholder problem-solving processes.

Participants came from federal and state agencies including the US Army Corps of Engineers, US Bureau of Reclamation, the Colorado Division of Water Resources and the Colorado State Conservation Board; water districts such as the Colorado River District, Dolores Water Conservancy District and the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District; agriculture users such as the Grand Valley Water Users’ Association, environmental non-profit organizations such as the Tamarisk Coalition and the Environmental Defense Fund; municipal governments; private sector entities; and independent water consultants.

The training team consisted of seasoned professionals with broad knowledge of water issues and a breadth of experience in designing, managing and facilitating complex collaborative processes. Trainers Ryan Golten and Todd Bryan of CDR Associates brought strong backgrounds in water resources and collaborative skills and processes. MaryLou Smith of the Colorado Water Institute and Dan Birch of the Colorado River District brought many years of experience in collaborative water planning, allocation, engineering and management.

The Palisade workshop is the first in a series of three collaborative water workshops being planned by CDR and CWI for locations throughout the State. The workshop may also be tailored for specific groups, agencies and organizations that are working together on water allocation issues. For more information on upcoming or potential future workshops, please visit public training courses, or contact Todd Bryan or Ryan Golten.

What we offer:

40 hours of highly experiential and interactive sessions during which you learn:

• to analyze the causes of conflict and develop effective strategies to respond to them
• recognize the states of the mediation process
• help parties use the process to reach agreements and improve relationships
• apply effective mediator communication skills
• learn to respond to parties’ strong emotions
• and much, much more

How to get the best possible training:
A course description and registration form are available here. Please contact us for any additional information.

Bonus:
Register before September 15 and save $100 (Regular registration fee – $1400)

Organizations and agencies are increasingly learning the importance of collaboration for ensuring that decisions and planning efforts are broadly supported and sustainable. This is made harder and more critical when the issues are complex and technical, and when they cross disciplinary boundaries and expertise.

CDR has been working with the City of Fort Collins to help create a health assessment tool for the Poudre River. The Poudre River is a treasured community asset as well one of the most developed rivers in the country. Ecological, agricultural, municipal, industrial, and recreational interests compete for this limited resource, both externally and within the City. The multiple beneficial uses range from delivering water to towns and farms, to providing habitat, flood protection, and quality of life for the community.

The goal of the “River Health Assessment Framework” was to quantitatively describe the City’s vision for a healthy and resilient Poudre River. To do so, the City created an interdisciplinary team that could pursue this goal through a broad, inclusive lens – recognizing the inherent competing challenges, as well as synergies, between the City’s goals of securing a stable water supply, managing stormwater and flood risk, and restoring and maintaining an ecologically healthy river.

CDR helped the City:

• structure a process in which the thorniest issues could be directly addressed directly
• ensure the process resulted in concrete early outcomes
• make sure these early successes could be built upon
• provide meaningful problem-solving around difficult issues
• bring in the necessary parties and ensure they were consulted at critical junctures
• assure the process was iterative and set up for a lasting, successful outcome

Why CDR’s facilitation expertise helped create buy-in and minimize internal conflict:

• we helped create a comprehensive, transparent process
• we were able to help frame complicated issues in tangible, constructive ways
• we helped challenge assumptions and dig beneath them to promote greater understanding
• we probed staff on difficult questions

The result was a testament to real-life collaboration:

• challenging, at times messy, complicated, and fast-paced
• a process that resulted in deeper mutual and cross-departmental understanding
• increased capacity for handling real and perceived conflict

The process culminated in a broadly supported tool that will have wide-ranging impacts for the city and beyond. The “River Health Assessment Framework” will be available in early July for public comment at http://www.fcgov.com/naturalareas/riverhealth.php.

For more information, contact Ryan Golten.

CDR Program Manager Todd Bryan explores water planning in Colorado.

“The Colorado Water and Growth Dialogue aims to redirect the issue of water and growth from the question of where to find water for future growth to the question of how we can make better decisions by understanding the consequences of land use decisions. A dialogue framework was developed, with the goal to identify strategies and actions for water and growth on the Front Range with the help of several collaborators…”

Read the full article starting on page 2 of the Colorado Water News Letter.

“We, who participated in the mediation process, had an experience that none of us anticipated.  While we believed that we could form a ‘legal’ agreement, we gave little thought to personal relationships.  We started out as adversaries with firm positions, people who did not know one another, and began by treating each other as stereotypes.  However, during the process we began to learn about, know and value one another as people of integrity and good faith.  In the end we formed relationships based on mutual respect, understanding and appreciation.  In short, we became friends.  This was not a goal, it was a gift.  It was a lesson for life for all of us and is of much greater value than any legal settlement could ever be.”

Lorraine and Michael for the community organization

Joy and David for the chemical company

Background

In 1995 a toxic chemical (sodium chloride) was spilled at an off-loading terminal in a low-income community where a mix of industrial and residential use has created a number of challenges for residents of the neighborhoods.  The EPA agreed to a settlement with the responsible chemical company.  Neighborhood residents in the community where the spill occurred had organized meetings with city and State representatives to discuss this settlement.  This resulted in a recommendation to request a mechanism for contacting residents in the future, should another evacuation be necessary.

Although the EPA settled, the company was still responsible under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRKA) to provide information about the spill to the affected residents in the community. This information was not provided, as required by the law and, two years after the spill, residents felt forced to sue the company.  However, residents were open to a settlement discussion, believing that communication and negotiation could possibly result in a satisfactory solution for all.  The company, which had positive experience with mediation in the past, was also interested in pursuing a mediated agreement.  After meeting in two one-day sessions, the parties reached agreement on all the issues, and the community organization that had filed suit agreed to have the suit dismissed with prejudice.

The affected community of 2200 homes was split in half during the 1960’s by the construction of two highways.  Over the past two decades, heavy industry has moved into the neighborhood.  61% of homes are owner occupied, many with two or three generations living in the community.  They are well organized and, due to the existence of many environmental hazards, have developed experience in working constructively (where ever possible), with companies who emit pollution into the environment.

In 1987 the community formed an Environmental Justice organization.  That organization has since grown statewide with over 500 members.  It was members of this organization that undertook the mediation with the chemical company.  The chemical company, itself, had also been seeking ways for developing better relationships with people in the communities where they are based.

Keys to Success

There were three primary factors that helped this process to succeed. First was the mediators’ determination, as a result of the pre-mediation interviews, that a fundamental issue was the development of relationship among the real parties to the dispute.  To that end, the logistics were arranged in such a way that the parties were near one another, across the table.  The mediators then structured the initial stages of the process to focus on personal communication among the parties, with little input from the mediators OR the attorneys.  By focusing on this fundamental, developmental theme, the parties began to build relationships, which sustained the process when it moved into more difficult negotiation on the practical, financial resolution of the conflict.

Second was the “slower is sometimes faster” principle, something CDR references often in our work.  The parties were asked to slow down, in spite of the urge to present (and respond to) monetary demands, we postponed settlement discussions until there had been an opportunity to understand how each group had experienced the spill and resulting perceptions of one another.  These frank discussions helped to humanize the situation and build mutual appreciation, creating a foundation for a productive negotiation on the settlement itself.

The third factor involved the roles played by the attorneys and the parties in the actual negotiations.  The parties took the lead in discussions, with their attorneys present to provide legal guidance.  This allowed direct, unfiltered expression of perspectives and concerns.  This was especially valuable because the direct conversations enabled the parties to build on the developing relationship, making tangible proposals and offers based on the real interests expressed by both sides.