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Public Involvement Across Boundaries I Paul D. Cowles, Edwin E. Krumpe, Ph.D., K. Lynn McCoy Introduction Perhaps no wbere else on earth, and like no otller time in history, tile American poblic is expecting and demanding to playa greater role in river planning and management Public involvement bas been tou1ed as synonymous witll our democratic principles of government o/tlIe people, /Jy tlIe people and/or tlIe people. It bas been codified in law, ensconced in agency regulations, and embmced in tile very psyche of special interest groups and conservation organizations. We all know some of tile many advantages of public involvement -- a better infonned public, an improved understanding of tile issues faced by managers, avoidance of untenable solutions, a sharing of values, better support for reasonable decisions, and a more positive attitude and outlook by tlIe public for our natural resource agencies. At tlIe same time, we all know tilat public involvement is not witllout its darker side, too. We know that we can quickly become mired in endless public meetings. Our offices have become smothered under mountains of mail and hand written response forms wbicb must be content analyzed. We bave been assaul1ed by angry outborsts and oame-calling, and we bave been dismayed by individuals and groups selftsbly pit1ed against one anotller. Too often we bave been disappoin1ed by small town meetings wbere practically no one sllows up. We are often perplexed by wbat to do wben we are faced by tile diametrically opposed viewpoints of people wbo refuse to compromise. Too many times we have been disappoin1ed wben our supervisors seem to summarily ignore what tlIe public bas told us. Couple tilese problems with tile general public's cynical attitude about bureaucracy and tlIeir mis-trust of public officials and it is easy to see wby poblic involvement presents a particularly llllIgb cballenge to river managers and planners. In Iltis paper we will concentrate on tI1ree important problem areas surrounding poblic involvement in river planning and management. These include (I) old-fasbioned regulations, (2) basin-wide coordination, and (3) structuring effective public meetings. Ratller tilan just focusing on tile negative, bowever, we will also present some practical solutions to some of tile issues surrounding tilese "problem areas". In addition, we will present the results from tlIree small working groups of American River Management Society (ARMS) members wbo, at tlIe 1994 ARMS conference in Grand Junction, Colorado, identified what tiley felt were some of tile critical issues rela1ed to tile aforementioned problems and shared some of tileir own ideas for ways of implementing public involvement across boundaries. Regulations And Policies Issues It's time to face up to tl1e fact tI1at many of tile very laws and regnlations wbicb were supposed to foster better public involvement may indeed be working against us. For instance tlIe NEP A legislation which brought us tile EIS and tlIe EA bas been interpreted tIirough regulations to require a formal, structured process of public scoping of issues; lengtlly public comment periods of 60 or 90 or 120 days; voluminous documents wbicb analyze, report and respond to citizen comments; sterile reports; and unresponsive bearing officers. All of tlIis results in a long protracted process which tlIe public finds difficult to follow, impersonal, and largely tokenistic because tile I This paper higbJigbts tile major discussion points addressed in tile poblic involvement session at the 1994 ARMS conference. During tile session, participant work groups brainstormed issues and potential solutions, tile results of these groups' work have been included under tile appropriate sub-beading.