SECTION ONEMAKING THE WATERSHED CONNECTION

[W]e need to make a world-scale 'Natural Contract' with the oceans, the air,the birds in the sky. The challenge is to bring the whole victimized world ofthe 'common pool resources' into the Mind of the Commons...[T]here is nochoice but to call for the recovery of the commons--and this in a modernworld which doesn't quite realize what it has loss. – Gary Snyder Towns and cities like ours are still close to the earth, intimate, andinterdependent in their shared community, shared optimism, and sharedmemory. –Wallace Stegner. Wallace Stegner know, both from his personal experience and from his longstudy of his region, that the two cultures of the American West are not thoseof the sciences and the arts, but rather those of the two human kinds that hecalled “boomers” and “stickers”, the boomers being “those who pillageand run,” and the stickers “those who settle, and love the life they havemade and the place they have made it in”. –Wendell Berry.

We inhabit regions and watersheds. The coastal watersheds of Santa Barbara combine themovements of the land, sea and air. In spring, the winds blow from the sea up to the SantaYnez Mountains. There are 41 creeks that occasionally flow from the headwaters of theSanta Ynez Mountains to the sea. This year four creeks provide habitat for spawning wildsouthern steelhead. With the Santa Ynez River, three mountain ranges (The Santa Ynez,San Raphael, and Sierra Madre Mountains) seem to be “walking” to the sea.

The crest of the Santa Ynez Mountains is a boundary between two distinct butinterdependent biogeographical provinces. The landscape is a mosaic of bishop pine forestand tan bark oak forest; coast live oak and riparian woodlands; chaparral – coastal sage,purple sage and coastal dune scrub; coastal strand with freshwater or salt marsh; vernalpools and seasonal wetlands; and blowing grasslands on coastal bluffs with rockyheadlands. The ecosystems harbor approximately 1,400 native species, of which morethan 140 are endemic to the region. More than 525 plant species, representingapproximately one-half of the plant families in California, live in this region.

The watershed’s boundaries extends well beyond a river’s bend or a creek’s banks.

A wild core is inside each healthy watershed. Within the wild core is a circle of animalsand plants. The human being is inside this circle, and joined to the others by a multitude offibers.

To Think Like a Watershed

For thousands of years, the waters of the coastal watersheds of California were

clear. Steelhead were plentiful. Gray whales washed up on the beaches were eaten byGrizzly bears and by California condors. These memories are growing more distant --fading into the hills. It seems that we have yet to discover the natural contract that bindshumanity to places.

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During the past 150 years, virtually every watershed in California has beenreconfigured and transformed by human activity. The state collects water in more than1,200 large reservoirs and moves it around through the world’s largest aqueduct system;consuming virtually one-quarter of the US’s annual water supply.

Watersheds are complex mosaics that include a range of ecological communities

that transcend political, economic and administrative boundaries or jurisdictions. Politicaland management institutions (both private and public) have not evolved along the samelines as watershed ecosystems. A watershed-based approach to planning andmanagement, therefore, involves a central recognition that we have ignored the spatialhierarchy of ecosystems. Scientists have shown that this geographical disconnect has ledto the degradation in the overall health of watersheds and a decline in native speciesdiversity in the state. For example, past and present development of California's waterresources has affected virtually every watershed in the state. California is facing anecological crisis which is exemplified by the sharp decline in aquatic species diversity.Among the 50 states, California ranks second in numbers of freshwater fish species thatare declining.

From a satellite image, southern California’s urban core appears a pale pink, the

color of concrete from space. There are miles upon miles of shopping malls linked in aseries of superhighways and electronic corridors. The riparian corridors are also pink. Asdepicted in the urban and citified landscapes of the world-cities of LA and San Francisco,suburbanization and industrial development remains the key problem facing California’swatersheds.

Walking in the Los Angeles Basin it is hard to see any sign of a river or creek. Like

most metropolitan cities, LA is subdivided by freeways, theme parks, malls, industrial andresidential developments. The Los Angeles River is approximately 51 miles of a mosaicof riparian habitat and pavement. In an analysis of the ultimate impacts of urbanizationand poor land-use planning on the LA River, Davis (1995) documents the “killing of theLA River” that essentially began in 1930.

Flying above Los Angeles, the sociologist William Whyte (1958) described in an

article for Fortune magazine the urbanization of southern California as “urban sprawl”.He was the first person to use the phrase. Urban sprawl and suburbanization continue tothreaten human communities and ecosystems. There is very little “wild” nature left or forthat matter public space. By 1959, only 3% of coastal Los Angeles could be considered“wild”. By 1995, 1% of LA coastal habitats remained wild while 84% of the landscapewas urbanized. As the historian Mike Davis writes, “The Los Angeles River--the defininglandscape of the nineteenth century city--was sacrificed for the sake of emergency workrelief, the preservation of floodplain values, and a merely temporary abatement of the floodproblem.” The urbanized environment is paved.

While the television weatherman apologizes for the severe rains of the well-publicized El Nino event of 1998, many creeks violently overflowed. Reawakened riversflowed to the sea taking many parts of the city with it. The winter rains scoured the urbanenvironment while environmentalist protested, "We want the sewer systems out of ourcreeks!"

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Despite the history of development of California, there exists today a diverse social,and in some cases, ecological movement that advocates the protection of the soil and lifein many watersheds and ecosystems; the restoration of wetlands and neighborhood creeks;the removal of dams and roads; the return of wild (totem) salmon; the restoration of habitatfor listed threatened and endangered species; the return of flowing rivers and creeks; thereturn of pollinators; the cleaning-up of polluted creeks, bays, estuaries and rivers; and theprotection of private property rights and land-use. It is a diverse movement, but as thisreport shows, the movement has several common features and characteristics.

Whether the goal is to protect an endangered species or to clean up creeks, watershed

activism and organization are one indicator that residents of California are beginning to think

like a watershed . To think and act in accordance to the boundaries of a watershed is to begin

to think like a salmon, and, perhaps, a first step to become more intimate with the salmon,

creek and river. The sense of place and community — a sensibility that can connect river to

salmon and citizen — is what Gary Snyder refers to as an emerging watershed

consciousness .

Watershed consciousness is based on a sense of place and community. Manyresidents or inhabitants of California are in search for a new approach to dealing with andrelating to watersheds. Some watershed activists are in search for the wild riverunderneath the paved and suburbanized landscape. In making the difficult crossing frompreserving isolated tracts of habitat to protecting entire ecosystems, the watershed can bethe medium of influence, much as the river was the means of travel to early explorers. Bytraveling on the rivers, our ancestors explored the continent and settled the land. Byprotecting the watershed, future generations can begin to ecologically restore thelandscape.

The Search for a Watershed Ideal

This report shows that an identification with place and the local community is an

essential part of watershed-based thinking, organizing and planning. Up the coast from LA

and the Ballona wetlands is the wild core of southern California -- the Gaviota or Conception

coast. In Santa Barbara County, forty-one creeks (at times) flow to the sea from the majestic

Santa Ynez Mountains. Four of these creeks still have wild southern steelhead runs. With the

river, the region s three mountain ranges (The Santa Ynez, San Raphael, and Sierra Madre

Mountains) seem to be walking to the sea. The wild core to this regional dance and

biodiversity is the Gaviota. The ecosystems of the Gaviota harbor approximately 1,400

native species, of which more than 140 are endemic to the region. More than 525 plant

species, representing approximately one-half of the plant families in California, live in the

region. The Gaviota is part of a diverse terrestrial and marine system that is influenced by

biology, oceanography, geography and climate. Gaviota s ecosystems are shaped by two

diverse ocean and terrestrial systems. The overall east-west orientation of the mountain range

contributes to the north-south boundary effect because many plants and animals have

elevational limits, so they do not cross north of Point Conception.

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Following the El Ni o events of 1997 - 1998, the South Coast Watershed Alliance

(SCWA) was created to work with Santa Barbara County to begin to deal with water quality

concerns. Like other groups and alliances, SCWA has begun to consider other issues, such as

the need to protect and restore wild steelhead, wetlands, and riparian areas in the region. Toprotect the south-central coastal watersheds of California an emerging coalition of activistsincludes wild lands advocates, farmers, conservationists, fishermen, ecologists, andcommunity members. Over 21 organizations and community groups are working toprotect, and where needed restore, the coastal watersheds and wetlands of the Gaviota.One consequence of this place-based movement is that the National Park Service (NPS) iscurrently conducting a feasibility study to determine if Gaviota should become the Westcoast’s second National Seashore. The watershed movement in the state may represent arestored sense of membership in the more-than human community.

To say that you are part of a particular watershed system means that you inhabit a

distinctive living community and place. A watershed is defined by government resourceagencies in many ways. Typical is the language of the US Environmental ProtectionAgency, "Watersheds are those land areas bounded by ridgelines that catch rain and snow,and drain to specific marshes, streams, rivers, lakes, or the groundwater." A creek, river,slough or estuary, according to this definition, is not a watershed. A creek is part of awatershed. The Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary offers a similar definition--awatershed is "the whole region or area contributing to the supply of a river or lake; adrainage area." These definitions characterize the watershed as hydrologic entities, whichcontinue to exist even if stripped clean of biota, soil or culture.

Watersheds are important because human activities within them, such as land-use

development, affect the health of the ecological community. Even in the industrializedlandscape of LA, the watershed remains an essential source of life and community. LAincludes a network of interconnecting watersheds. These watershed boundaries are fastnot hard, they can change with weather and fire. Especially during a wet winter of rain, thewatersheds within a basin can intermix and blend. Early in the 19th century, for example,the LA River changed its course, draining in San Pedro Harbor instead of the SantaMonica Bay. This change in the river’s course transformed the hydrologic character ofmany watersheds within the LA basin.

Watershed-based groups are developing programs and plans in urban, industrial andsuburban contexts. For example, the Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR) wasfounded in 1986 by Lewis MacAdams. Membership is open to anyone, irrespective ofland-ownership, profession or place of residence. FoLAR’s goal is to protect and restorethe last remaining natural portions of the river, and increasing public awareness of theriver. Their mission statement is “to revitalize and protect the LA River and its tributaries,a living urban system through creative planning, education and innovative watershedmanagement”. FoLAR is one of the oldest organizations in southern California devoted torestoring the connection between the river, its once healthy watersheds and communities.

In addition to FoLAR, the Friends of the Ballona Wetlands was founded in 1978 bysix concerned citizens, including Ruth Lansford. Ballona wetlands have been reduced to188 protected acres, which constitutes the largest area of this habitat type in LA County.The battles between development interests (such as Dream Works proposed entertainmentcomplex), investment bankers, and the needs of the animals and plants that depend on the

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Ballona wetland ecosystems have yet to end. Nor has it ended in other places, such as theBolsa Chica Wetlands.

The Importance of Place and Local Knowledge

In A Place in Space, Gary Snyder describes the values of the watershed as aparticular place, and poetically refers to the emergence of a decentralized, grass-roots, andecologically-oriented movement. Snyder and other watershed activists believe that societycan rediscover the natural contract that binds culture with place. In Tree Rings, the forumand newsletter of the Yuba Watershed Institute, Snyder writes:

The world of nature, the “environment” is always a mosaic of specificplaces on some part of the earth, regions of habitat shared by humans,plants, and non-humans; places partly in the realm of human culture andpartly in the realm of climate and ecosystem. One of the clearestdelineations of a natural realm is that established by a drainage basin, awatershed. Local people everywhere are finding that thinking in terms ofthe watershed territory is immediately useful, instructive and invigorating.The watershed concept united community and ecology in terms of anindisputable natural entity. Making the watershed connection can involve an extension of the human identity:

It starts with the identification of the neighborhood creek. In time, this identification withthe creek can be extended to an entire watershed. This move to think and identify with anentire watershed can take time and effort. It also requires a new form of socialorganization and networking.

For almost thirty years, the inhabitants of the Mattole Valley have worked togetherto make connect human activities to the watershed community. Citizens have begun tounderstand the reciprocal relation between human beings, salmon and the watershed. It isnot simply a matter of observing the spawning salmon, or noting the geography of theplace, or gathering scientific information for a particular place or region. Watershedactivism requires a cooperative and integrated effort to invest in place in hope of returningsome of the strength to the place. In this sense, the move to restore wild salmon of theMattole River is an act of thanks and a return of the gift of salmon.

Freeman House, a co-founder of the Salmon Support Group and the MattoleRestoration Council (MRC), has written a story of the place and community -in-the-making. In Totem Salmon (1999) House eloquently portrays the process of makingcommunity. Here, watershed activism is a means of incorporating the landscape andrivertime into the human experience and in the shared stories of place. With the wildsalmon and watershed as a guide, the MRC includes a number of citizen groups workingon removing roads, restoring forests, and raising wild salmon. The alliance has become acontemporary archetype of watershed activism and organization because its memberscombine knowledge of the river with activism, social partnership with the ecologicalawareness of the coastal range, and theater (such as HUMAN NATURE’S QueenSalmon) with the wild salmon (McGinnis 1999a,b). Part of the educational curriculum inelementary and junior high school in the Mattole Valley is about the importance of salmon

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in the community (McGinnis, House and Jordan 1999). Children are participants inrestoration and community-making.

The activists of the MRC and other groups also show us that watershed organizationand activism requires more than a sense of “attachment” to place. The watershed is partof what we are, and it can become what we wish to protect and defend. Watershedactivism and organization can be a way of becoming “placed”. Each place is experienceddifferently. Place-based initiation begins with knowledge of the needs of wild salmon orthe sources of contamination within in watershed systems. It requires understanding whereyour water comes from, the importance of the soil and sediment, and where your wastegoes.

The Promise of Diversity and Social Alliance

The character and diversity of the watershed movement can be metaphoricallydescribed as a “rhizome” – a root that travels horizontally in the soil. The plants thatspring from the rhizome root emerge across the soil in random patterns. But there is alsounity among this difference. Each plant emerges from the same rhizome and root system.Each root has the same foundation but takes on its own respective form. The root systemis the connecting force. Place is the foundation to the watershed movement which hastaken on many forms of organization and activism. At times, a number of diversewatershed organizations can collaborate within the same region to build a social networkand alliance . The MRC and SCWA are examples of social watershed-based alliances.But there are many other examples.

As in a rhizome system, the ultimate form of a watershed alliance and network isthat it can combine many diverse organizations with a shared vision of the watershed.Such a vision can be an essential step toward the restoration of community and place. Forexample, the Redwood Community Action Agency of the Watershed Information Network(WIN) in Humbolt County is a social network of diverse watershed-oriented groups andactivities. WIN does not advocate a particular position. Rather, as a social network ofdiverse groups, the goal is to unify the voices of the region. WIN recognizes theimportance of the network insofar as it provide a safe place for diversity. WIN focuses onvocational issues, such as training, building collaborative decision making, providingexpertise, scientific information and a neutral public forum for negotiation andcollaboration. WIN formed around the value of the process of restoration; this remains thecommon purpose or root to the social network.

The Role of Government Watershed-based activism is developing within a changing era of Americanfederalism. Since 1980 the emergence of a new but ambiguous era in federalism andintergovernmental relations has occurred – a rearrangement of responsibilities along amore decentralized and regionalized domain is taking place. Federalism is taking on newmeanings as the intersecting forces of globalism and devolution continue to influenceCalifornia politics. Regional economies and grass-roots, community-oriented activismhave led to the development of what Dan Kemmis and others are characterizing as a“new regionalism” in the US.

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The tug and pull of region and place has shaped the political culture of the West.The deep roots of regionalism are reflected in the early vision of governance proposed byJohn Wesley Powell. In 1878, Powell urged Congress to create a system of governance inthe new states of the semi-Arid West that was based on appropriate watershed boundariesrather than the more conventional straight-line political boundaries of the present. ForPowell, the watersheds was the ideal medium for a new form of regional self-governance.But Powell’s vision fell on deaf ears.

Powell’s vision of watershed-based governance has taken on new meaning in an

era of decentralization and regionalization. Over one hundred years later, in July 1998, theWestern Water Policy Review Advisory Commission, created by Congress in 1992 toreview federal activities associated with water resources, released a landmark report,Water in the West: The Challenge for the Next Century. This report is perhaps the mostfar-sighted federal study of Western water since Powell’s proposal. The Commissionproposes a new government structure that reflects hydrologic, social, collaborative, legaland political “realities” of a watershed.

In addition, the federal government supports regional and place-based planning in

several ways, including: the US EPA’s Clean Water Act grants, special Congressionalfisheries restoration programs, (e.g., the funding of 11 watershed coordinators to For theSake of the Salmon since 1996), the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s waterquality program with local watershed groups, the US Forest Service’s Jobs-in-the-woodsprogram for counties impacted by the listing of the spotted owl, among others (Vitulli et al.1998). The US Department of Commerce also published Kier’s Watershed Restoration: AGuide for Citizen Involvement in California in (December) 1995.

Since the late 1960s, residents of Morro Bay in central California have been

working to sustain, protect and restore the bay. The Morro Bay watershed contains themost significant wetland system on California’s south central coast; it serves a criticalecological function of the Pacific coast and supports several species of migratory birds. Itis one of California’s last remaining wetland systems. Here, you can still here the seacreep into the bay, feel the low tide between your toes, see birds feeding in the shallows,and smell the coyote bush in the clearing wind. It is a very special place that has had along history of community and place-based activism. The alliance of community groupseventually led to the creation of a State Estuary and later the designation of the bay as oneof the estuaries in the National Estuary Program (in 1995). The US EPA’s NationalEstuary Program has worked with local citizens to develop a Comprehensive Conservationand Management Plan (CCMP) for the Morro Bay. The Morro Bay Nation al EstuaryProgram was formed to deal with three priority issues: urban discharge, riparian restorationand enhancement, and soil erosion.

California government has also been a motivating force behind the establishment of

watershed organization and planning. The Coordinated Resource Management andPlanning (CRMP) process which was developed by California over 40 years ago is used byapproximately 45 active groups. CRMP is a “resource planning, problem-solving andmanagement process that allows for direct participation of everyone concerned withnatural resource management in a given planning area, as defined by the California CRMPHandbook (1996).

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During the 1990s, Governor Wilson did very little to initiate a formal statewatershed-based program despite the listings of several aquatic species as threatened orendangered. Governor Wilson’s Executive Order of (August) 1997 states the following:“The State seeks to encourage and support community based watershed efforts” andproclaims that “State activities in watershed protection and enhancement shall, to themaximum extent feasible, be based on coordination of existing state and local authorities,support of community based and voluntary landowner efforts, and other actions as requiredto preclude federal intervention in the management of California’s anadromous fishspecies.” Wilson’s Executive Order was a political response to the listing by the NationalMarine Fisheries Service of Coho (1997), Steelhead (1997) and Chinook Salmon (1998).Without administrative support or formal enabling legislation, the Executive Order has hadlittle impact on state biodiversity conservation policy.

The State has funded and assisted a number of watershed organizations. TheState Water Resources Control Board’s Watershed Management Initiative, the WatershedProtection and Restoration Council’s 1998 plan, and the 1999 Watershed Principlesadopted by the California Biodiversity Council emphasize and encourage the developmentof watershed organization.1 During the 1990s, the California Biodiversity Council – aninformal group made up of representatives from federal, state and nongovernmentalrepresentatives – agreed that a watershed-based approach was needed to begin to dealwith the decline in state’s biological diversity. In addition, Senate Bill 271 (Thompson), theSalmon and Steelhead Trout Restoration Account, which provided funds ($43 million) forwatershed restoration and planning activity. A statewide watershed-oriented legislation hasbeen introduced by Assemblyman Dickerson, which includes a broad vision of what astatewide framework in California would look like. The Secretary of the CaliforniaResources Agency, Mary Nichols, has asked for the formation of a statewide CaliforniaBiodiversity Council Watershed Work Group (in March 1999).

One of the most important state programs has been the California CoastalConservancy, which has funded a number of watershed-oriented planning activities andstudies including the Garcia River Watershed Advisory Group, the Navarro River AdvisoryGroup, the Smith River Citizen’s Advisory Group, and the failed Santa Ynez WatershedEnhancement Effort. Several groups did not sustain themselves beyond the originalfunding by the Conservancy.

In general, California government remains one of the few state governments in the

West without a formal watershed-based program. As one expert on the development ofwatershed organization and activity describes, “The State seems to be promoting all typesof groups, an actions which could be judged as either politically pragmatic or as ‘buyingthem off’ and avoiding the more difficult task of resolving local watershed conflicts. In thepolicy void, groups have usually been self-appointed and self-declared as ‘cooperative’ ,with accountability mainly to each other and to their funders” (Sommarstrom 1998: 14).2 Iftaken seriously, watershed-based thinking, organizing and planning would radically change

1 These activities are described in the summary of California Watershed Management Forum #2, Expectations

of Governance , November 15, 1999 held at UC, Davis.2 The Watershed Council at UC, Davis has held four California Watershed Management Forums. The forums

focused on (1) identifying the potential for a watershed-based approach for the state; (2) expectations of

governance; (3) shaping a robust, collaborative framework; and (4) filling in the framework. The work products

of these forums will be used by the US EPA s California Regional Watershed Roundtable.

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the way we organize and govern to address human and ecological issues, including thewastes we produce.

The watershed movement in California is primarily a non-governmental movement.Indeed, identifying with a particular watershed system is a powerful form of activism andorganization. Snyder (1994) writes, “The watershed is the first and last nation, whoseboundaries, though subtly shifting, are unarguable. Races of birds, subspecies of trees, andtypes of hats or rain gear go by the watershed. The watershed gives us a home, a place togo upstream, downstream, or across in.” A watershed is a visible hydrological container ofall our coexistent life-forms; it is what lies between our eyes and the not-too-distanthorizon.

Our Study of Watershed Organizations and Activities

There remains a paucity of information on watershed organization and activity inthe state. This report represents an analysis of data from a survey questionnaire that wassent to members of watershed organizations in 1998. It is not devoted to the particularstories of watershed alliances and organizations. Instead, the report’s focus is an empiricaloverview of data and information from members of watershed organizations.

As the watershed movement has gained prominence and visibility the number oforganizations voluntarily identifying themselves as watershed groups increaseddramatically. In Watershed Restoration: A Guide for Citizen Involvement in California(December 1995), William Keir and associates published a list of 163 “watershed groupsand organizations” active in California. By the time of our survey in 1998 we attempted tocontact the same list of organizations by US mail, and found that about 8 percent of Keir’sorganizations had no “deliverable addresses” and we were unable to discover updatedaddresses. A large number of groups had changed addresses or had new contact people(e.g., executive director). Through attempts to locate missing groups by telephone, we alsodiscovered a number of key groups that had not been included in Keir’s inventory.

By 1998 we had access to two other lists of watershed groups—one from theCalifornia Resources Agency and a second inventory, housed at UC Davis3 with over 395listings. Our investigations suggested that a very large number of the UC Davis entrieswere not watershed groups and initiatives as we understood them. However, even asidefrom those cases, it was unquestionably the case that the number of “real” groups andorganizations in the inventories had increased almost 100 percent despite the simultaneousextinction of several dozen organizations.

As of early 2000, the Davis inventory had grown to a reported 660 groups, and inlate 1999, a database at the EPA ("Adopt a Watershed") included 657 "activistorganizations" in California watersheds. Even if the proportion of "shell" or defunct groupsremains around 10 percent, this progression represents a tremendous expansion ofwatershed activity in a very short period of time.4 Below, we refer to this compilation as“EPA Watershed Groups.”

3 California Environment Resources Evaluation System, California Watershed Projects Inventory

4 Nine percent of the EPA "groups" were actually wildlife refuges and national forests with an interest in the

watershed, but are difficult to conceptualize as citizen-based watershed groups.

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Our initial study sample included 463 individuals who, we believed, belonged to 193different watershed groups, which, in turn, were drawn from 70 California watersheds.Our responses involved 217 individuals in 98 watershed groups from 45 differentwatersheds (for response rates of .47, .51, and .64 respectively, although a handful of theseresponses were only very partially completed surveys). Fully 20 percent of ourrespondents informed us that they were more involved in a watershed group different fromthe one through which we located them. The average respondent claimed membership in2.3 watershed groups.

There is an extreme degree of organizational fluidity in the movement. In otherwords, watershed activism is dynamic, and involves substantial change in groups and inmembership. Water organization includes a number of social alliances, networks andcross-linkages. While this is probably true of almost every significant social or politicalmovement, we must not lose site of the fact that our research involves a snapshot of achanging “movement.”

To the extent that calibration is possible, we believe that our sample is broadlyrepresentative of underlying populations of interest. At the watershed level, the number ofgroups in our sample and in the EPA watershed listing correlate at .81. At the watershedlevel again, the number of groups responding and the number surveyed correlate at .73.5

There are 153 watersheds in California identified by the USGS at the level ofdetailed hydrological units. Watershed groups in California are relatively concentrated inpopulation centers (r=0.44 between watershed population in 1990 and the number of EPAwatershed groups in 1999). The largest third of watersheds by population include 57percent of the EPA watershed groups, 60 percent of our sample, and 62 percent of ourrespondents. The top half of watersheds (by population) includes 74 percent of allwatershed groups, 75 percent of our sample, and 69 percent of our respondents.

However, there are a number of low-population watersheds with relatively largenumbers of groups. Figure 1 shows the number of (EPA) groups plotted against watershedpopulation. In figure 1, we can see that relative to population, the truly high rates ofwatershed organization are not in the population centers but in the relatively ruralwatersheds. These data are displayed in another form in maps 1. Map 1 shows thelocation of the California watersheds with more than 2 groups per 10,000 in population.The watersheds involved are overwhelmingly in rural northern California and in the Sierra.A different graphical representation of these results is in figure 2, which plots watershedpopulation against watershed group density. There we see dramatically that the greatestdensity of watershed groups is in low-population watersheds.

[figure 1] [map 1]

5 This correlation excludes one watershed, the Big-Navarro-Garcia which included 13 groups in our sample but

of which only 1 responded. This outlying case reduces the overall correlation to .54. The Big Navarro-Garcia

is on the northern California coast just west of the towns of Willit and Ukiah. The groups surveyed included:

Addison Valley Watershed Association; Albion River Protective Association; Anderson Valley Land Trust;

Coast Action Group; Ocean Sanctuary of Sierra Club Mendocino Lake Group; Friends of the Garcia River;

Friends of the Navarro Watershed; Mendocino Environmental Center; Mendocino Watershed Service;

Redwood Coast Watershed Alliance; Albion River Watershed Protection Assn.; Friends of Schooner Gulch;

Big River Watershed Alliance. We do not know why response rates were so low for this watershed.

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Map 2 shows the frequency of (EPA) watershed groups in the 38 Californiawatersheds with the largest numbers of groups. These watersheds include 72 percent of allEPA watershed groups—or 70 percent excluding the five watersheds that lie substantiallyoutside California which were not represented in our sample. The same watersheds reflect69 percent of the groups in our sample and 62 of the groups among our respondents.6

[map 2]

Dark red indicates the watersheds with 21 groups or more; light red includeswatersheds with between 11 and 20 groups, and the purple indicates watersheds withbetween 5 and 10 groups. Here we see clearly that the bulk of watershed groups arelocated in Northern California and along the coast.

Using data at the watershed level that is available through the EPA we can contrastcharacteristics of watersheds in our sample and those not represented in our sample butwhich appear to have citizen group activity as of 1999 (see table 1). We can also look atthe features of watersheds with no apparent watershed group activity at all.

Table 1 Comparison of All California Watersheds, the Study Survey Sample, the Survey RespondentsAll

Watersheds

with at

least One

(EPA)

Watershed

Group

Watersheds

in our

sample

Not in Sample but

With at least one

Citizen Group

(according to EPA

Data)

Watersheds

with

Respondents

Watersheds

with No

Respondents

Watersheds

with no

(EPA)

watershed

Groups

Average Number of

Watershed Groups in

EPA Adopt-Your

Watershed Data Base7

4.8 6.3 2.8 7.3 4.6 0

Mean Index of

Watershed Indicators,

1=best, 6=worst

3.8 3.7 4.1 3.4 4.1 4.4

Aquatic/Wetland

Species at Risk in the

Watershed Mean Index:

0=1 species; 1=2-5

species; 2=>5 species

at risk.

1.4 1.5 1.2 1.5 1.4 0.87

Population Density

1990

266.5 375.7 124.8 488.5 172.7 17.8

Area of census blockgroup within HUCwith more than 25%imperviousness (ameasure of"urbanness")

1.6 2.4 0.55 2.8 1.8 0.24

N 124 70 54 45 25 29

In summary, the 54 watersheds not represented in our sample have substantiallyfewer citizen groups on average. Thus our sample includes the watersheds with most of

6.Some of our respondents and watershed groups cannot be linked to a specific watershed.

7 Excluding Wildlife Refuges and National Forests.

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the watershed groups. According to data from the EPA, the omitted watersheds (withgroups) appear to have slightly poorer overall water quality but, ironically, fewer identifiedaquatic species at risk (the data suggest that more groups are associated with better waterquality). The omitted watersheds are more rural with less “impervious” (hard-covered)land.

Similar distinctions characterize the difference between watersheds where we hadat least one respondent and those where we had no respondent. The non-responsewatersheds had less watershed group activity on average, poorer water quality, slightlyfewer aquatic species at risk. They were more rural with less ground area covered byimpervious hard coverings. In short, our sample probably underrepresents groups in themost rural settings where there is less watershed group activity. This pattern of responseprobably accurately reflects one of the most important "mobilizing" factors for watershedgroup activism--the presence of endangered species.

In comparing the watersheds without any citizen group activity (far right-handcolumn of table 1) with the other categories, we see that watersheds without group activityhave substantially poorer water quality but many fewer aquatic species at risk. They havelow population density and are very rural. Most watershed groups are located in settingssimilar to the mean of our sample--they are relatively in relatively urban areas withrelatively high population density.

General Characteristics of Watershed Groups

One hundred and twenty-four out of 153 watersheds (or 81 percent) in Californiahave at least one self-identified watershed group (according to the EPA data base). As wehave seen, groups are most frequent in large population areas and in parts of NorthernCalifornia. The greatest density of groups relative to the population base is in NorthernCalifornia and the Sierra.

At the bivariate level there is no association at all between the EPA’s index ofwatershed quality for a watershed and the number of groups in the watershed.8

One might imagine that rapid population growth would provoke a conservativereaction that might show up as support for environmental activities such as those promotedby watershed groups. However, the number of watershed groups is not associated with thepercentage change in population. Moreover, even when we look at the density of grouporganization (number of groups per 10000 population), there is essentially no correlationwith change in population.

The geographical distribution of watershed groups does not appear to be a responseto social change (as indicated by dramatic shifts in population percentage) or to objectivedifferences in overall water quality. Watershed groups are located: (a) where people are;(b) where attractive physical features are to be found; and (c) where more aquatic speciesappear to be at risk.

8 This is true even dropping the two watersheds with extremely large numbers of reported groups.

13

Reliability of Responses

One of the goals of the survey was to gather basic descriptive information onwatershed groups. Survey respondents were asked a series of questions about their groupsand their activities. This is a standard research strategy used to study of interest groups andorganizations. Our results show that there is considerable agreement among respondentsfrom any particular group--indeed far more than would be expected by chance. However,there is still substantial evidence of disagreement, even about factual matters. Thus,whenever we have to rely on only a single respondent, our data suggest that theseresponses may be "incorrect" on simple factual issues as much as 20 percent of the time.

We are much more confident about basic factual information about group activities,size, and age than about evaluative information having to do with the quality of groupperformance. Among all groups with more than one respondent, the median level ofagreement on a set of factual questions was over 80 percent. On 10 out of 13 activitiesevaluated, multi-group respondents agreed with each other more than 75 percent of thetime on average. A detailed analysis is in Appendix A. The basic conclusion is thatfactual information about the group is far more reliable--in terms of eliciting high rates ofagreements among respondents--than is information evaluating group performance. Wepresent the factual information here with appropriate cautions where we think they areneeded.

Group Age, Public Land, Endangered Species

In our initial research design, we hypothesized that three factors would be importantin accounting for the success of watershed organizations, and, in particular, for their abilityto integrate scientific information effectively in managing watershed resources. Thesefactors were the degree of institutionalization of the organization (proxied initially by groupage); the nature of the interests involved in the watershed (proxied by the proportion ofpublic land in the watershed); and the extent of external regulatory threat (proxied by theexistence of some or many listed endangered species). Let us now look briefly at each ofthese factors at a descriptive level.

We have reports on the year of founding for 91 groups. The median year offounding was 1987, and the founding year ranged from 1965 to 1997. Thus approximatelyhalf of the groups we surveyed had been founded in the preceding 10 years.9 This isconsistent with the apparently high rate of expansion of activity in the watershed area notedabove. However, if watershed group activity had really doubled from 1994-2000 (assuggested by the expansion of the UC Davis watershed group inventory) we would haveexpected to see an even higher proportion of groups founded in the recent period. Part ofthe explanation for the apparent discrepancy is that many general environmental groupsthat have been in existence for some time, have come to identify themselves as watershedgroups.10

9 This conclusion is almost identical to the one arrived at independently by Cook 1998 in a separate study of

watershed groups in California.10

To test this notion, we analyzed 215 new additions (in the portion of the alphabet A-F) to the UC Davis

list between the inception of our research in 1997 and early 2000. Our analysis suggests that 56 percent of

those new groups are not focused exclusively or primarily on issues of watershed restoration and

management although their interests may include watershed quality in a general way. For purposes of this

particular analysis, we treated as clearly a watershed group any group that includes the word watershed in its

14

From data reported in Baumgartner and Jones 1994 (see table 9.2, p. 187), we knowthat environmental groups as a whole approximately doubled in number in the period 1970-1990. Even in 1990, however, the Baumgartner and Jones count of environmental groupslisted in the Encyclopedia of Associations numbered fewer than the reported number ofwatershed groups and organizations in California in 2000 (388 vs. 660). About 19 percentof the environmental groups created in the 1970s were no longer in existence in 1990.Trade associations also experienced rapid growth in the 1980s, growing 41 percent from1974 to 1992 (Baumgartner and Jones, p. 181). During the same period professionalassociations grew 82 percent and “public affairs” associations grew 176 percent (ibid.).However, the apparent quadrupling of watershed organizations in California during the1990s is extraordinary even by these standards—and probably significantly overstates thereal magnitude of increase (still impressive!) by 100 percent.

Endangered Species

There is significant variation in the number of endangered species in CaliforniaWatersheds. The EPA reports an index number for the number of aquatic and wetlandspecies at risk at the watershed level. An index value of 0 indicates 1 species at risk; anindex value of 2 indicates 2-5 species at risk; and an index value of 3 indicates more than 5species at risk. Together with EPA data on the numbers of watershed groups perwatershed, we can get a good initial view of the correlation between group activity andendangered species. The basic results are reported in table 2 below:

Table 2. EPA Index of Species at Risk and the Number of Watershed Groups in Watershed

Species at Risk

Index

Number of

Watersheds

(proportion of

total)

Average Number

of Watershed

Groups in

Watersheds

Total number of

Watershed Groups

in Watersheds

(proportion of

total)

Missing data 10 (.06) 0.6 6 (.01)

0 16 (.10) 1.1 18 (.03)

1 70 (.46) 2.7 190 (.32)

2 57 (.37) 6.7 381 (.64)

Source: EPA "Surf your Watershed" Data Bases.

We can see from this table that there appears to be a fairly strong association between

the number of species at risk and the extent of watershed group activation. In the watersheds

with more than 5 species at risk, there is a dramatic increase in the number of watershed

name, or that includes a specific water feature (a bay, river, creek, wetland) in its name. We fully recognize

that a creek is not a watershed, nor is a river, a bay or a wetland. General environmental groups or not

primarily watershed groups include, for example, land trusts, the Audubon Society, California Native Plant

Society, general citizen action groups (e.g., Center for Economic Conversion, Cloverdale Tomorrow, Citizens

for Goleta Valley).

15

groups. This relationship holds true even controlling for populations size, which we showed

above is a strong correlate of the number of watershed groups (see table 3)

Table 3. Multivariate Regression Model For Relationship between Number of Watershed Groups and Number ofSpecies at Risk, Controlling for Watershed Population11

Dependent Variable: NET_EPA_GROUPSMethod: Least SquaresDate: 03/27/00 Time: 21:40Sample: 1 153Included observations: 146Excluded observations: 7White Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Standard Errors & Covariance

Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.

MANYSPECIES 4.851439 1.035706 4.684184 0.0000FEWSPECIES 1.570699 0.477713 3.287954 0.0013

POP_90 4.62E-06 2.02E-06 2.292048 0.0234C 0.518464 0.301735 1.718275 0.0879

ONESPECIES 0.643635 0.466810 1.378794 0.1701

R-squared 0.269345 Mean dependent var 4.054795Adjusted R-squared 0.248618 S.D. dependent var 6.258545S.E. of regression 5.425052 Akaike info criterion 6.253579Sum squared resid 4149.798 Schwarz criterion 6.355757Log likelihood -451.5112 F-statistic 12.99441Durbin-Watson stat 1.658811 Prob(F-statistic) 0.000000

These findings are consistent with the notion that the external stress of threatenedgovernment regulation--which mounts with the numbers of species at risk--spurs theformation of watershed groups. It is also consistent with the idea that watershed activistsare themselves spurred to action precisely because of the species at risk, rather thanbecause of government regulation per se. We discuss this issue further below.

Property Interests and Watershed Groups

Our final expectation had to do with the patterns of land ownership. Thefundamental idea--and a simple one--is that government would naturally be a bigger playerin those watersheds where it controls a larger share of the land. We do not have objectiveindicators of the share of public land at the watershed level. Where public land ownershipis dominant, the challenges confronted in watershed management will be very differentfrom settings where private land ownership is dominant. Where public land ownership isvery low, the absence of government as a land-holding stakeholder may also affect notonly processes of negotiation but the focus and breadth of watershed group activities.

Respondents were asked whether there was public parkland in the watershed andthey were also asked to estimate the proportion of "public land" in the watershed. Seventy-four percent of groups report that there is some kind of public parkland in their watershed.Thirty-five percent (of all groups) report a national park, 55 percent a state park, and 50 11

Listed species correlates with organization founding year: -.13 (n=91); Listed species correlates with public

land percentage = -.17 (N=81); organizational founding year correlates with public land percentage = -.03

(n=78).

16

percent a city or local park. Respondents were explicitly directed not to include "nationalforests" in their response.

As a representation of all California watersheds, considered at the federalhydrological unit level, these percentages seem implausibly large. Even taking intoaccount every kind of National Monument, recreation area, historic site, seashore, andPark in the state, there are only 23 such locations in California. Most of them aresufficiently compact that they involve only a single watershed. Obviously, of the 124California watersheds with watershed groups, it is unlikely that 43 of them involve nationalparks. However, it is quite reasonable that 16 of the watersheds in our sample involvenational parks or monuments. As we have already pointed out, watershed groups aredisproportionately concentrated in especially scenic areas. Further, it is almost certain,although we cannot document this from our survey, that people quite often think of "theirwatershed" as being more extensive than the federal hydrological unit. After all, thefederal units aggregate to larger and larger watersheds--so in that sense, many respondentsmight reasonably think that a national park is in "their" watershed because they have alarger area in mind than the federal hydrological unit.

Whatever may be the case, the key point is this: relative to the actual number ofnational parks etc. in watersheds (defined by federal hydrological unit), our sample clearlyoverrepresents claims that a park is in the watershed. This is certainly consistent with thenotion that people are motivated to become actively involved in environmental protectionprecisely because they feel connected to some particular highly valued resource.

We also asked respondents to estimate the percentage of public land in thewatershed including public parks, national forests, wilderness areas, and so forth. Ourresponses ranged from 0 to 100 percent with the median percentage put at 31 percent, andthe average at 39 percent. We have not been able to find data that would allow us toassess the accuracy of these numbers at the watershed level. At the county level, weknow that publicly owned timberland ranges between 0 and 56 percent of total countyacreage12 (with the highest shares in Plumas and Sierra Counties13). The mean publicpercentage is 14 percent for those counties with measurable timberlands. Much publicland is not timber-land. For example, Santa Barbara County contains only around 1000acres of timber lands, none of it public, but the US Forest Service controls 30 percent of theland in Santa Barbara County. National Forests comprise 20.7 percent of the state acreageoverall. Since there are only 58 counties in California and 153 watersheds, and many ofthose rather compact, the reported ranges for public land ownership by survey respondentsare, while perhaps somewhat inflated, still quite reasonable.

Institutionalization and Age, Endangered Species, and Public Land.

To what degree are these groups institutionalized—that is, to what extent have theyestablished an independent organizational base distinct from the personal efforts of a singleentrepreneur? And how is that institutionalization related to age, public land, andendangered species? Any successful organization builds an base of active members whoare willing to contribute time and resources to the organization’s goals. If this happens with

12

Data Source: USDA Forest Service/Pacific Northwest Research Station; data are available online athttp://www.nass.usda.gov/ca/bul/902farms.htm.13

Plumas County touches on 7 watersheds; Sierra involves 4.

17

watershed groups, then with luck and persistence, after many years, watershedorganizations can successfully build partnerships and alliances that support, protect andrestore the health of the watershed community.

Respondents were asked to indicate whether their group had a series of elementsthat characterize established organizations. These were:

* An office separate from members' residences;* A telephone number used exclusively by the organization;* regularly scheduled meetings;* a formal leadership structure;* formal membership status* membership dues;* a newsletter; and* (b) tax exempt status.* A program for recruiting new members

Together we take these as indicators of institutionalization. We examine them bothseparately and together in a simple additive index where one point is awarded for eachfeature the organization has (scores range from zero to 9; with a mean of 5.1 and astandard deviation of 2.43).

Summary results for all groups are reported in the right-most column of table 4.Here we see that groups overwhelmingly (80 to 90 percent) reported that they have regularmeetings and formal leadership. Slightly less common (71 percent overall) are anewsletter and membership dues. However, the hallmarks of separate, independentorganizational existence, —a separate phone, an office, and tax exempt status—are sharedby only about half of the groups in the study.

[table 4]

An obvious supposition is that groups that survive longer achieve a higher level ofinstitutionalization. This is borne out by our data. Age makes a difference forinstitutionalization, except with respect to having regular meetings. Being a group at allmeans having regular meetings. Usually (68 percent of the time for the youngest groups),being a group means having a formal leadership structure. Viewed in terms of themagnitude of difference between the youngest and oldest groups, the difference betweenyoung and older groups is greatest in two areas: membership dues—only 38 percent of theyoungest groups had dues, but all of the oldest reported having dues--and membershiprecruitment programs –only 19 percent of young groups did recruitment, but 68 of theoldest groups did. The next largest effects of age on institutionalization involved gainingtax exempt status. Only 40 percent of the youngest group had tax exempt status, but 81percent of the oldest cohort had tax exempt status.

As we can see in the top portion of Table 4, groups differ in interesting waysdepending on their age. The age divisions were picked for convenience in order to assurereasonably equivalent numbers of organizations in each category. Group size increasessteadily—indeed dramatically—with age, from a median size of 38 in younger groups to700 in the older groups. However, command of financial resources does not vary with age.The older groups are much more like mass-membership organizations than are theyounger groups. This may be an aging effect—older groups may naturally become more

18

mass-based, but, as we think is probably the case, this may also be due to a cohort effect--the younger groups may truly different.

Government was much more likely to have played an important role in creating theyounger groups. Government helped create 33 percent of the youngest groups but only 4percent of the oldest. Similarly, younger groups were much more likely to have formalrepresentation from business, government, and environmental organizations. Indeed, over70 percent of the younger groups had representation from all three groups (business,government and environmentalists). But this was true of only 21 percent of the oldestgroups. The older groups are much more characteristically cause-based environmentalgroups while the newer groups are, as we shall see further, oriented toward negotiation,priority-setting, and regulation avoidance more than older groups.

Institutionalization and Endangered Species

We have seen that the frequency of group organization in a watershed is closelylinked to the number of species at risk in the watershed. While species extinction maymotivate activism, does that translate into group institutionalization? We present somebasic data bearing on this question in table 5.

Table 5. Institutionalization and the Presence or Absence of Listed Endangered Species (Survey Responses)

Institutional Characteristic (A)

Listed Endangered

Species = Yes

(N=77)14

(B)

Listed Endangered

Species = No (N=14)

Difference (A-B)

An office separate from members’

residences;

58 36 22

A telephone number used

exclusively by the organization;

51 29 22

Formal membership status; 66 57 9

Regularly scheduled meetings; 88 92 -3

503(c)(b) tax exempt status. 63 36* 27

A newsletter 73 57 16

Membership dues 74 44* 30

A formal leadership structure 81 79 2

A program for recruiting new

members

44 29 15

*Statistically significant difference between columns at 0.1.

As would be expected from the EPA data on groups and species at risk,overwhelmingly our survey respondents report that their watershed includes an endangeredspecies. Most of the differences in reported watershed group institutionalization work sothat higher degrees of institutionalization occurs where the respondent recognizes thepresence of an endangered species in the watershed. The differences are generally notvery striking and approach statistical significance in only two instances--havingmembership dues and having tax-exempt status.

Of course, we cannot at this point rule out the possibility that causality, if any, workssuch that more institutionalized groups produce a greater awareness of an endangered 14

This refers to responses received in our survey, not to the EPA index cited above.

19

species. The alternative, that awareness of endangered species motivates activists intocreating stronger organizations, is our basic expectation. Both effects could be present.

Public Land and Institutionalization

Table 5 shows the relationship between the level of institutionalization and theproportion of public land estimated by the average member of the respondent groups. Justto be sure about the impact of different degrees of public land ownership, we compute thepercent of groups having a particular institutional characteristic both for rather largeproportions public (more than 60 percent of watershed land), for intermediate proportions(between 20 and 60 percent) and for rather small (less than 20 percent of watershed land.

Table 5. Group Institutionalization and the Proportion of Public Land in the Watershed.

Institutional

Characteristic

Public Land Pct

>60 percent

(large)

Public Land Pct

>20%,<=60

Public Land Pct

<=20%

(small)

An office separate from

members’ residences;

59 54 43

A telephone number used

exclusively by the

organization;

45 46 46

Formal membership status; 73 80 57

regularly scheduled

meetings;

95 100 83

503(c)(b) tax exempt status. 54 59 46

A newsletter 68 71 73

Membership dues 70 83 68

A formal leadership structure 85 80 77

A program for recruiting

new members

46 52 38

The data in Table 5 show that watershed group institutionalization does not stronglyor consistently correlate with the share of public land ownership in the watershed. In onlytwo cases (formal membership status and regularly scheduled meetings) does therelationships approach statistical significance. In one case a higher public land ownershipshare is associated with lower rates of institutionalization (membership dues, but not withstatistically significant differences). There is a suggestion that the effect of public landownership on institutionalization may be curvilinear in a few instances (especiallymembership status, regular meetings, membership dues, program for recruitingmembers.15

By and large, the evidence here does not support the notion that there is aparticularly strong or consistent relationship between public land ownership and the degreeof institutionalization of watershed groups. This is not troublesome to any degree since ourexpectation at the outset of the research was that public land percentage related more to an

15

We have tested this directly in binary logit models for each institutional feature using a common curvilinear

specification for public land share (Bpubpct + Bpubpct^2).

20

expected pressure for rapid action with, possibly more compromise than would otherwisehave been forthcoming.

In table 6 we present the results of a multivariate regression model that shows thesimultaneous relationship of the three central variables--age, public ownership, andendangered species--to the institutionalization index described above. (Recall that theindex is the number of institutional characteristics evident for a particular group). Theseresults confirm statistically a conclusion suggested by the tables separately above--institutionalization is strongly related to group age, but not to the presence of a endangeredspecies or to the public land ownership share.16

Table 6. Multivariate Relationship between Institutionalization and Public Land Ownership and EndangeredSpecies in Watershed.

Dependent Variable: INSTINDEXMethod: Least SquaresDate: 05/04/00 Time: 16:44Sample(adjusted): 16 98Included observations: 73Excluded observations: 10 after adjusting endpointsWhite Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Standard Errors & Covariance

Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.

YRFOUND -0.141053 0.040454 -3.486729 0.0009C 284.4486 80.92085 3.515147 0.0008

LISTEDSPEC 0.171106 0.710486 0.240830 0.8104PUBPCT1 0.035445 0.039882 0.888760 0.3773

PUBPCT1^2 -0.000318 0.000411 -0.772819 0.4423

R-squared 0.226329 Mean dependent var 5.027397Adjusted R-squared 0.180819 S.D. dependent var 2.437967S.E. of regression 2.206570 Akaike info criterion 4.486790Sum squared resid 331.0886 Schwarz criterion 4.643671Log likelihood -158.7678 F-statistic 4.973176Durbin-Watson stat 2.289773 Prob(F-statistic) 0.001413

Group Activity and Institutionalization, Age, Endangered Species, and Public Land

Of course, our real interest in studying these watershed groups is not just inexamining their degree of institutionalization as groups, but in knowing something aboutwhat they do and why. We certainly expect that institutionalization indicates a greatercapacity to achieve many goals and to undertake more activities. However, we alsoassume that the activities groups undertake will be responsive to the particularities of theirown specific environment.

To look at differences in watershed group activity, we analyze responses to a set of"thermometer scale" questions asking respondents to evaluate how well their groups weredoing at pursuing particular goals or using particular strategies. Respondents were 16

These results hold identically for estimation with ordered probit and with the use of a quadratic specification

for the share of public land.

21

specifically instructed to skip any goal or strategy that did not apply to their organization.This allows us to address two questions: which groups have embraced a goal or strategy atall? And of those that have embraced a goal or strategy, how well do they evaluate thegroup's performance?

Group members were asked to evaluate the following set of goals and strategies:* Cleaned up the river, creek, wetland, slough or lake* Facilitated a compromise between diverse interests and users of the watershed* Preserved Habitat* Respected private property rights* Used the best available scientific information in watershed planning and management* Used consultants to assist in planning* Used the courts and litigation process* Avoided imposition of more stringent federal and state regulation* Lobbied the legislature* Restored the watershed* Educated the general public in your area* Interacted effectively with the media* Identified priorities for future watershed policy

This list includes, roughly, two kinds of activities--those that refer directly to themanagement of the watershed itself (clean, restore, preserve, avoid regulation), and thosethat refer to the management of social relationships (compromise, property rights, litigation,lobbied, educated, media, priorities).

We have available a series of measures dealing with characteristics of thewatershed itself in addition to those already introduced (public land and endangeredspecies). Respondents were asked to indicate whether or not their watershed included anyof the following:

* Substantial commercial timber lands* Substantial agricultural acreage (not including commercial timber lands* "Significant" presence of any of the following outdoor recreation industries:

* fishing* hunting* camping* skiing/winter sports* marine-related activities (surfing, boating)* mountain biking* off-road vehicle use* river floating/rafting/canoeing/kayaking

The definition of the terms "substantial" and "significant" was left undefined in thequestionnaire.

We believe that the effects of group age should be captured in the generic area ofgroup institutionalization. And, in general, we believe that more highly institutionalizedgroups should be more likely to be involved in virtually all of these activities.

22

However, we believe that the presence or absence of a listed species and the shareof public land should continue to have independent effects on activities. The presence of alisted species should encourage more activity, especially action directly related to thewatershed. However, since the presence of endangered species accounts for the presenceof watershed groups, and since almost all of our groups have endangered species withintheir watersheds, this may not prove to be a very strong factor in group activity.

We also believe that the share of public land in the watershed will be anindependent factor in watershed activity. The relationship could be non-linear under thefollowing logic: public resources contribute to and encourage more watershed groupactivity up to a point, but the incentives for private group activity should decline in thepresence of very high levels of public land ownership.

In terms of recreational activities in the watershed, we have a single rather simpleexpectation. Some recreational activities are particularly likely to involve explicitinteractions with non-human species or to give local citizens a more direct interest inspecies health. In this category are hunting and fishing--which we expect to be positivelyrelated to watershed group activities. Others categories of recreation are much moregeneric and strike us as ambiguous in their effects. We expect, however, to find adistinction between activities that are more damaging to the environment (RV use,mountain-biking) and those that are relatively less damaging (camping, marine sports) withthe former likely to be positively related to watershed group activity.

How Are Older Groups Different in Activities?

We have seen evidence that older groups are more fully institutionalized, but itcould still be the case that the younger groups are distinctive in ways beyondinstitutionalization. We have already noted that younger groups are different in terms oftheir formal membership composition (much more likely to include business andgovernment representatives) and the rate at which government played a significant role increating the group.

As is apparent in figures 3 and 4, group age is strongly associated with someactivities of groups and not others. In particular, organizationally demanding activities suchas lobbying the legislature or using the courts and litigation process are more commonamong older watershed organizations (see figure 3). Older groups are also more likely toreport that they actually “preserved habitat” or “cleaned up the river. . . “.And, finally,older groups are significantly more likely to report that they facilitated a compromisebetween diverse interests and users. Whether these correlations merely reflect differencesin institutionalization remains to be seen.

[figure 3][figure 4]

In some other activities, however, it appears that age does not make a significantdifference (see figure 4). There is no difference between young and old groups in rates ofuse of best available scientific information, use of consultants, effort at setting priorities forfuture watershed policy, and watershed restoration. Young groups actually report higherrates of involvement with efforts to avoid imposition of more stringent federal and stateregulation, and respecting private property rights.

23

Thus, what emerges from this is additional evidence that there may be differencesbetween younger and older groups in addition to differences in institutionalization. At thispoint it appears that younger groups are smaller, more focused on avoiding imposition ofregulation, more likely to have been government-organized, and far more likely to includebusiness and government representatives as members. They are less likely to be involvedin preservation and restoration of habitat. The youngest groups are the groups that are mostexplicitly identified as "watershed" groups.17 The oldest groups are more like traditionalenvironmental groups.18

Endangered Species and Activity

Does the presence of endangered species in the watershed affect the activities ofwatershed groups--at least as reported in our survey? We know that the existence ofgroups is linked to endangered species, but their degree of institutionalization is not. Table7 reports the percentage of groups engaging in different activities according to whether ornot the respondents perceived the presence of a listed endangered species in thewatershed. The entries in bold italics represent a statistically significant relationship atconventional (0.05) levels.

Table 7. Watershed Group Activity by Presence or Absence of Endangered Species.

Activity (A)

Endangered

Species =

"yes"

(B)

Endangered

Species =

"no"

Difference

(A)-(B)

Cleaned up the river, creek,

wetland, slough or lake

73 53 20

Facilitated a compromisebetween diverse interests andusers of the watershed

81 53 28

Preserved Habitat 77 53 11

Respected private property rights 83 47 36Used the best available scientific

information in watershed

planning and management

83 67 16

Used consultants to assist in

planning

74 53 20

Used the courts and litigation

process

56 40 16

17

Examples from our study would include: Eel River Watershed Improvement Group; Citizens for Responsible

Forest Management; Clear Creek Conservancy; Jacoby Creek Watershed Workgroup; Lower Klamath River

Restoration Partnership; Arana Gulch Coastal Watershed Council; Sanfransquito Creek Coordinated Resource

Management and Planning Project; Friends of Mill Valley Watershed; Dry Creek Conservancy; Pilarcitos Creek

Restoration Fund; Waterways Restoration Institute; Quincy Library Group; Spring-Run Chinook Salmon

Workshop; Redwood Community Action Agency.

18Examples would include: League to Save Lake Tahoe; Friends of Point Sal; Trout Unlimited of California;

California Trout; North Coast Environmental Center; Redwood Coast Watershed Alliance; Amigos de Bolsa

Chica; Bolsa Chica Foundation; Bolsa Chica Land Trust; Friends of Ballona Wetlands; League for Coastal

Protection.

24

Avoided imposition of more

stringent federal and state

regulation

53 40 13

Lobbied the legislature 68 40 28Restored the watershed 74 47 27Educated the general public inyour area

91 73 18

Interacted effectively with themedia

88 53 35

Identified priorities for future

watershed policy

80 67 13

N=96

Recall that the basic idea was that the presence of an endangered species signals acontext of threatened regulatory action. Thus, presumably such threat would lead to agreater readiness to compromise and a concern for taking active remedial steps to restoreor preserve the watershed. Interestingly, these are largely not the associations we find. Ifthe endangered species represents an external regulatory threat, it is noteworthy that thepresence of that threat is not associated (at conventional levels of statistical significance)with avoiding regulation, cleaning the watershed, or preserving habitat (although all theserelationships do have the "correct sign"). Of course, in most cases the watershed doeshave an endangered species, so there is not a great deal of variance.

There is the expected relationship in the case of "restoring the watershed" and"facilitating cooperation." However, most of the activities correlated with presence of anendangered species are not related to the condition of the watershed but to socialrelationships such as lobbying the legislature, interacting with the media, educating thepublic and respecting property rights.

Public Land Percentage and Activity

Our expectation was that as the proportion of public land in the watershedincreased, it would prove easier to reach agreement on watershed restoration andmanagement. This would reflect the higher weight of public stakeholders, their additionalresource base, and their greater direct responsibility for ecological resources.

Entries in table 8 report the relationship between survey respondent estimates of theshare of public land in the watersheds and various activities of watershed groups. As withthe prior table, differences that appear to be statistically significant at conventional levelsare indicated with the use of bold italic type

. Table 8. Public Land Ownership Share in Watershed and Activities of Watershed Groups.

Activity Public Land>60%

(N=24)

Public Land<=60

and >20 (N=28)

Public Land <20%

(N=31)

Cleaned up the river, creek,

wetland, slough or lake

76 86 77

Facilitated a compromisebetween diverse interests andusers of the watershed

93 93 68

Preserved Habitat 81 89 68

Respected private property rights 88 96 74

Used the best available scientificinformation in watershedplanning and management

93 93 77

Used consultants to assist in

planning

79 89 77

Used the courts and litigation

process

64 64 48

Avoided imposition of more

stringent federal and state

regulation

57 71 45

Lobbied the legislature 76 82 52Restored the watershed 83 89 68

Educated the general public in

your area

95 96 87

Interacted effectively with themedia

95 96 74

Identified priorities for futurewatershed policy

90 93 71

On the whole, the results summarized in table 8 appear to be consistent withexpectations. There are a number of significant correlations between public land shareand activities of the watershed groups. All of these correlations involve the social side ofgroup activities, not the direct work of conservation and restoration. Thus, public landshare is correlated with facilitating compromise, lobbying the legislature, interactingeffectively with the media, identifying priorities for the future, and using the best availablescientific information.

Of special interest is the evidence in several instances that there are nonlinearitiesin the relationship of public land to the practice of various activities. We suspect that atvery high levels of public land ownership there is a drop-off in activity precisely becausethe land is already mostly managed by public entities. At moderate levels of public landownership, we suspect that government plays a critical role in encouraging manywatershed group activities, and that the presence of substantial public land signals thepresence of attractive physical features that stimulates watershed group activity. At thelowest levels of public land ownership we expect that there would be a correspondingdecline in the magnitude and extensiveness of government role in encouraging watershedgroup activities.

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Age, Public Share, Endangered Species and Group Activity in a MultivariateContext.

As with institutionalization, we have used two different ways of looking at the jointeffect of these main variables on activity indicators. The first, and simplest, is just to forman additive index of the various forms of activity (thus an index value ranging from 0 to 13,with a mean of 9.4 and a standard deviation of 4.1). The second is to estimate separatemodels for specific activities. We believe that the latter is probably most appropriate andmost important, so most of our attention is focused on those results.

First, the results using the index. This is reported in table 9. The dependentvariable is a simple additive sum of the items referred to above. The independentvariables are organizational age, the institutionalization index, presence or absence of alisted species, and a curvilinear specification of the effect of public land percentage. Asexpected, more institutionalized groups engage in more activities. The results also showthat group age does have an effect on activity independent of the institutionalization index.Moreover, age is positively related to activity--that is, that younger groups are more activeon average, controlling for level of institutionalization. The effect of endangered species ispositive, as expected, but not significant. Public land has a curvilinear relationship toactivity, again as we suspected given the bivariate relationships examined above.19

Table 9. Regression Model for Effects on Group Activity IndexDependent Variable: ACTIVINDIIMethod: Least SquaresDate: 04/08/00 Time: 20:16Sample(adjusted): 16 98Included observations: 73Excluded observations: 10 after adjusting endpointsWhite Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Standard Errors & Covariance

Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.

INSTINDEX 0.336377 0.167939 2.002971 0.0492YRFOUND 0.002451 0.001000 2.452407 0.0168

LISTEDSPEC 1.755119 1.474464 1.190343 0.2381PUBPCT1 0.131186 0.055440 2.366252 0.0208

PUBPCT1^2 -0.001322 0.000541 -2.444933 0.0171

R-squared 0.195079 Mean dependent var 10.06849Adjusted R-squared 0.147730 S.D. dependent var 3.637493S.E. of regression 3.358077 Akaike info criterion 5.326649Sum squared resid 766.8144 Schwarz criterion 5.483529Log likelihood -189.4227 Durbin-Watson stat 1.639868

If we control for some of the recreational activities found in the watershed, as in theresults in table 10, we find that the independent effect of group age is reduced and is nolonger statistically significant. On the other hand, as expected, recreation emphasizingspecies contact does seem to result in higher rates of watershed group activity. In

19 Note that the results in table 9 are estimated with ordinary least squares. It would be more statistically

correct to use ordered logit. However we found that the general qualitative results are not changed by using

OLS instead of ordered logit, and because of the greater familiarity of readers with OLS and the greater ease of

interpretation of coefficients, we present the OLS results here and elsewhere in this section.

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experiments with the other recreational activity variables, none was statistically significantwhen added to the variables reported in table 10.

Table 10. Watershed Group Activity as a Function of Variables including Recreational Features of theWatershed.

Dependent Variable: ACTIVINDIIMethod: Least SquaresDate: 04/08/00 Time: 20:49Sample(adjusted): 16 98Included observations: 72Excluded observations: 11 after adjusting endpointsWhite Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Standard Errors & Covariance

Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.

INSTINDEX 0.462261 0.182716 2.529945 0.0138YRFOUND 0.001560 0.001082 1.441573 0.1542

LISTEDSPEC 1.569790 1.614728 0.972170 0.3346PUBPCT1 0.142130 0.054462 2.609708 0.0112

PUBPCT1^2 -0.001500 0.000530 -2.828293 0.0062FISHING 2.506741 1.200115 2.088750 0.0407

CAMPING -1.022348 0.883045 -1.157753 0.2512

R-squared 0.269729 Mean dependent var 10.08333Adjusted R-squared 0.202319 S.D. dependent var 3.660793S.E. of regression 3.269564 Akaike info criterion 5.299356Sum squared resid 694.8531 Schwarz criterion 5.520698Log likelihood -183.7768 Durbin-Watson stat 1.755382

In table 11 we summarize the results of a set of separate regression analyses donefor each of the different activities examined. We are particularly interested in seeing howspecific sets of group activities relate to the main independent variables we examined.The detailed results are included in an Appendix B [SEPARATE FILE]. In table 11 wemerely indicate whether coefficients were statistically likely to be non-zero--and the signof the coefficient.

[table 11]

The results summarized in table 11 are quite interesting. As expected, the presence orabsence of listed endangered species was only once a significant factor in accounting forvariation in watershed group activity. The general institutionalization index was asignificant factor only three times. By contrast, the public land share was significant innine out of 13 equations. And the presence of a significant recreational fishing industrywas also significant (and pro-activity) in eight out of 13 equations. Of particular interest,the age of the group did matter frequently in these equations, even controlling for theeffects of institutionalization. Group age entered significantly in six equations, each timewith the "wrong" sign--meaning that older, not younger groups were more likely to beengaged in those specific activities.

The activities we have characterized as directly involving watershed management--cleaning, preserving, restoring and avoiding regulation deserve some additionaldiscussion. The models are rather similar in the cases of cleaning, restoring and avoiding

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regulation. In each case, public land share is significant, as is fishing. Institutionalizationdoes not enter significantly in any of these models. The model for preserving looksdifferent in that group. Age matters, public land percentage is not significant, and fishing isnot significant. The basic interpretation we make of this is that "preservation" is adistinctive watershed activity that is particularly characteristic of older groups.

Concluding Thoughts

This introductory section has introduced the diverse watershed movement in

California. We have described the important sources of the watershed movement. We haveshown that watershed groups are linked particularly to population centers, to watershedswith species at risk, to watersheds with highly valued natural features. Watershed groupsdiffer significantly in their institutionalization and the kinds of activities they engage in.There is a group of younger organizations, more likely to have been organized bygovernment, that are focused especially on problems of watershed management and onnegotiation and compromise among relevant groups. Older organizations are more likelyto have been traditional environmental groups which have been drawn into "watershedthinking" and are less focused on problems of watershed management. They are morelikely to emphasize "preserving habitat."

But a remaining important question has to do with why people become involved inwatershed activities. The fact that there is an endangered species in a particular watershedis known to thousands of people. Of those, only a handful become actively involved inproblems of watershed management. Why people become activists, and why someactivists are far more active than others remains an important issue to address. This is thefocus of the next section.