Check out some more photos from the ECR 2010 conference:

Very happy to join all of you on here!

The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Stakeholders (ACFS) is soliciting proposals including expressions of interest, statements of qualifications, and cost quotations from highly skilled environmental conflict resolution practitioners (the candidate) with substantial Environmental Conflict Resolution skills to provide independent neutral facilitation services for Governing Board and Committee meetings. The nature of the program includes working with a diverse and large group of stakeholders, along with numerous state and federal agencies with interests in the ACF Basin.

Proposals are due on June 30. For more information look at our Requests for Proposals page under the Opportunities Tab or Click Here for the full RFP.

Congress has asked the National Academy of Public Administration (the Academy) to analyze organizational options for establishing a Climate Service at NOAA. This study will be used to inform NOAA's ongoing work on this topic. A critical component of the Academy's study is to identify mechanisms to fully engage stakeholders that could be utilized by a Climate Service to effectively fulfill its mission. Everyone is invited to participate.

For 14 days, beginning on Monday, June 14th, the Academy will host an online dialogue to inform the study, which will be delivered to NOAA, Congress, and the public in September 2010.

Check out some photos from the ECR 2010 conference:

Mountaintop removal (MTR) has reduced energy prices and provided corporate income, employment in high-unemployment areas, and taxes to pay for schoolteachers and nursing clinics. It also has destroyed land and streams and divided families and communities. It also lays bare, in stark terms, choices conveniently ignored so that we can keep our current lifestyles.

One factor that makes MTR such an intractable issue is the perceived lack of other economic development options. Wendy Willis, Deputy Director of the Policy Consensus Initiative/National Policy Consensus Center (PIC / NPCC), and Frank Dukes, Director of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation, University of Virginia, are partnering on a community capacity building initiative that seeks to positively navigate community and social change and engage communities to reach shared goals. This effort will not address the suitability of MTR, but will help local leadership increase their capacity to address conflict and polarization and examine other community development options.

This session invites participants to consider these questions:

Carri Hulet and Lucy Park will share lessons learned about building trust from their work on a collaborative policymaking process involving five private irrigation companies, four cities, and one county in a developing, but historically agricultural region of northern Utah.

Prior to the start of the collaborative process in 2008, trust between parties was at an all-time low. During the first year of engagement, the trust level grew substantially and the group made admirable headway on three major initiatives regarding storm water management. However, the focus of the project drastically changed in July, 2009 when one of the canals breached and flooded a home, resulting in the deaths of a mother and her two children. The emergency tripped the involvement of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and prompted a statewide debate on canal regulation.

In spite of having one of the best developed, most institutionalized systems of court-connected ADR in the country, Georgia has certainly been a late adopter of ECR. Only in the last 3 years has the state’s Environmental Protection Division (EPD) dipped its toe in the pool of stakeholder participation in policy making processes. However, this did not stop a large group of water stakeholders in North Georgia from undertaking a collaborative effort at monitoring and managing water at the watershed level. The Lake Allatoona-Upper Etowah River Partnership began meeting in the fall of 2003 and has accomplished Georgia’s first comprehensive watershed monitoring, assessment and protection plan. This group includes seven counties and three water and sewer districts. It has been partially sponsored by the US Army Corps of Engineers and has included input from stakeholders in numerous government agencies and civic groups (e.g. FWS, EPA, USGS, TNC, and others). This presentation will discuss the key factors that contributed to the creation and continuation of these efforts, in the absence of regulatory mandates to conduct work at the watershed level.

The EPP Leadership Council is proud to announce Laura Sneeringer as the recipient of the inaugural Rob Williams Award for Emerging Environment and Public Policy Leaders. Laura is a Collaborative Services Specialist with SRA International’s Environmental and Organizational Solutions Group in Denver, Colorado. Congratulations, Laura!

The award was designed to provide a developing practitioner with a platform to build relationships with peers in the field and become involved with EPP, hopefully creating a future leader in the Section and Association. Laura clearly expressed her commitment to the EPP field, as well as an ability and energy to identify a professional challenge and take action to address it in a positive way that builds bridges and betters the field. This is the essence of the award’s intent, as it was established in honor of the late Rob Williams, who devoted an amazing amount of energy and enthusiasm to enhancing the field and the professional development of its emerging practitioners. As the recipient of the 2010 Rob Williams Award for Emerging Environment and Public Policy Leaders, Laura will receive a: