Case
Study
Vermont Water Board Opens Docket to Resolve
Storm Water Management Permitting Controversy
About 60 participants—including legislative, environmental, natural resource agency, municipal, and business representatives—attended the kick-off session of what became a five-month series of technical discussions resulting in consensus on a conceptual approach to stormwater management.
After five months and countless hours of written and oral discussions, the Vermont Stormwater Docket participants reached consensus on a long-term adaptive management approach. The final report lays out an aggressive, scientifically feasible approach to restoring Vermont's urban streams, including a method for establishing reduction targets for sediment and flow.
The report served as the foundation for new stormwater legislation adopted in May by the Vermont Legislature. This legislation provides for stringent permitting standards and a more predictable regulatory process. Included in the legislation are:
1) A net-zero discharge standard; 2) the ability to use offset fees if attainment cannot be reached on-site; 3) an understanding that no action will be required at this time on valid permits, renewals, or expired permits; and 4) appropriation of $1.2 million in seed money to begin infrastructure clean-up projects from an offset bank.
At the conclusion of the last formal Docket meeting, participants decided to continue working together, using a collaborative approach, to address the difficult short-term implementation and related policy issues that remain to be resolved. Under sponsorship of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, and with assistance from seasoned Vermont facilitator Cindy Cook, the "The Stormwater Advisory Group," or SWAG, is now underway.
According to facilitator Tonkin, a number of factors contributed to the success of the Docket process:
Concentrating on the science, and relationship to other processes. The Docket was expressly framed as a technical problem-solving forum, apart from the political interactions and litigation swirling around it. No one surrendered rights in any other forum; no other proceedings were stayed; legal and political differences were respected, bracketed, and worked around. The facilitators helped establish the technical problem-solving tenor of the discussion at the outset and participants earnestly preserved it. By the conclusion of the Docket process, the group had established its capacity to collaborate, and participants were receptive to collaborative discussion on more sensitive topics than they would likely have agreed to address in such a forum at the outset. This incremental approach—refraining from exploring procedural and substantive possibilities until the time was ripe—seemed to work well.
NOT aiming the process primarily at agreement seeking. The purpose of the process was to advance the group's collective thinking about a practical problem through a rigorous, science-based exchange. Importantly, the focus was not on reaching agreement but rather on identifying areas of consensus and divergence and pushing the limits of productive dialogue. This is a corollary to the incremental approach described above. The expressed understanding at the outset, that the process neither presumed nor would try to impose consensus, allowed the group to develop its own impetus and momentum to reach agreement on key issues throughout the discussions.
Transparency, flexibility and deference to the group by the sponsoring agency. The Board laid out its goals, concerns, and timing constraints regarding all docket-related issues, then tried to accommodate the group's preferences. This promoted a culture of cooperation, and respect. The Board balanced its deference with a willingness to push the group by establishing interim deadlines and maintaining a sense of urgency.
Inclusive membership and conditions of participation. Efforts to engage the full range of interests in the process were coupled with the requirement of technical expertise as a condition of participation. This was achieved in part by promoting cooperation among interest groups and reaching out to respected academics in the community. The dual features of inclusivity and expertise helped maintain the focus and seriousness of the discussion.
Understated neutral assistance. The facilitators respected the participants' ability to operate with a minimum of intervention, particularly once the process began. The Board presided over the monthly docket meetings and maintained formal control over procedural decisions, relying on the facilitators to manage the agenda and the flow of discussions. The facilitators' behind-the-scenes roles included assisting in the initial process design, helping develop agendas, and strategizing about unexpected twists during and between meetings. As in-house agency neutrals with EPA's regional ADR program, the facilitators operated independently of EPA's substantive interest in the process. The facilitators were not aware of any concerns about their affiliation with EPA, which had a separate team of EPA employees representing the Agency's interest at the table.
Cross-interest work groups. Creation early on of smaller, cross-interest work groups with tasks that did not involve decision-making (such as developing and conducting a series of tutorials to give all docket participants a common base of information) established a collaborative dynamic that carried over to the larger group.
In addition to the process design and facilitation successes, Tonkin said, several other factors also contributed the docket's success. None of the participants believed that preserving the status quo was an option, she said. Instead, people wanted a chance to have an influence in shaping the future.
She was also impressed with the group's cross cutting appreciation for Vermont's natural resources, and the culture of civility in which sharp disagreements were aired in a respectful way.
Tonkin also acknowledged the role of natural leaders in the success of the process. Difficult junctures were successfully navigated due largely to the visibly collaborative participation of certain charismatic personalities from a range of sectors. Notable among them were the Chair of the Water Resources Board and a University of Vermont professor who chaired the key subcommittee and took the lead in drafting the documents that captured the areas of consensus reached by the docket participants.
"The process was not so much an attempt to resolve legal or policy issues," Tonkin explained. "It was an attempt to determine how to solve the problem of stormwater management, and what was both sensible and technically feasible. As facilitators, we helped the Board think about how to conduct that process. We asked questions and worked behind the scenes to help them tweak their own design, then facilitated it, but the Board visibly presided over it. It really was their process."
For more information on this case, see The Vermont Water Resources Board Final Docket Report , or contact Doug Thompson or Ellie Tonkin at EPA.