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PUBLIC-AT-LARGE <br />The public at large was invited to participate in the project through various media. <br />Approximately 300 of the 450 invitations mailed were not returned. The remaining 150 <br />people signed up as Level 1-3 PAIs. <br />CHALLENGING ASPECTS OF THE PROJECT <br />Generally, the time needed to complete deliverables was underestimated and <br />most of the milestones were not met on time. This is likely due to several <br />factors, including: <br />1) Difficulty in reaching consensus agreement. Our Project Team and Subcommittees <br />were comprised of stakeholders who often had different perceptions and opinions <br />on elements of this project. While the composition of these groups was <br />intentionally diverse, we did not adequately consider the time and effort required <br />to reach understanding and a level of comfort with various viewpoints. <br />2) Data availability and data management tools. The time needed to interpret <br />metadata and manage thousands of records of water quality data from different <br />sources was underestimated. Current efforts by the Colorado Water Quality <br />Monitoring Council to develop a regional STOREY database should make this <br />task more manageable in the future. <br />3) Overly ambitious goals. The voluntary development ofwatershed-wide nutrient <br />goals required much more effort than originally estimated. Establishing an <br />agreed-upon Nutrient Problem Statement was prerequisite to discussing numeric <br />thresholds and involved extensive discussions and document revisions with <br />various potentially affected interests. Another unexpected contributing factor was <br />the frequent confusion between the processes of developing voluntary, locally <br />relevant nutrient `goals' with Colorado's process of developing state-wide <br />regulatory nutrient `standards' . <br />FUTURE ACTIVITY RECOMMENDATIONS <br />Future efforts to address the following areas of activity would greatly improve the ability <br />of local entities to manage water quality in the Big Thompson and other Colorado <br />watersheds. <br />1) Greater emphasis on the collection, management and analysis of social data, <br />including quality assurance and correlation with traditional monitoring data. <br />2) Better tools to identify and quantify contaminant sources. In particular, there <br />is much work to be done in establishing accurate hydrologic and nutrient <br />balances at the subwatershed level. <br />3) Improved communication and coordination between Front Range and west- <br />slope water management activities. <br />-13- <br />