Public Trust Workshop

While advocacy and strategic lawsuits can positively impact specific watersheds and help “motivate” public servants to fulfill their duties, to fully succeed this Campaign will need to build substantial citizen support and political pressure for change across the landscape.
During Phase I we will develop and field test a workshop designed to acquaint citizens with the problem of illegal water use in their communities and potential application of the Public Trust Doctrine in protecting North Coast river flows. Information on this concept has not been taught in our schools nor is it available in the media. In fact we all own rivers and streams in common and this concept is embedded in the U.S. and California Constitutions and has its roots dating all the way back to the Magna Carta and Roman Law. The associated rights include fishing, recreation, hunting and access to rivers and streams and, of course, maintaining the river itself for public benefit.

The first half of the workshop would be informational, the second half would draw the audience into discussions and they would be asked to fill out a survey form designed by the ICARE Planning Team to gage their interest and willingness to participate in the North Coast River Flow Campaign on an on-going basis (i.e. to write letters, review documents, file water rights protests, join a speakers bureau, conduct similar workshops in their home communities and bring education on Public Trust rights and responsibilities into the schools).

In Phase 2 a Public Education workshop built from this model will be used throughout the region as a public education and citizen organizing tool.  Videos, slide shows and any ideas derived from workshops that can be used on the Internet will be shared through the website.

Volunteer Monitoring Workshop

During Phase 1 we will also develop and field test in the Russian River basin a Volunteer Monitoring Training Workshop which will be expanded region-wide in Phase 2. A major impediment to protecting and restoring North Coast river flows is that there are few flow gages and little data to judge baseline conditions and trends. The Russian Riverkeeper has tapped significant volunteer effort to collect water quality data. We will apply a similar model to water quantity/flow monitoring.

The Citizen Monitoring Workshop will describe for participants the problem with lack of data and enforcement of water law and provide instruction on how attendees can help address this lack of data by simple photographic monitoring of streamflow. A network of volunteers will take photos at least weekly at the same location to show changes in stream flows and provide geographic position data. These photos are actually valid scientific tools that can be used in aggregate to tell where flow problems are acute and the pattern of flows at various locations along a stream. A survey form similar to that developed for the Public Trust Workshop will be circulated to estimate willingness of volunteers to continue or expand monitoring under Phase II.