CHAPTER 7

GOVERNMENT-LED
COMMUNITY COLLABORATION

The Animas River Stakeholder Group

Like the Albemarle–Pamlico Estuarine Study (APES) in Chapter 6, the Animas River Stakeholder Group (ARSG) is a case of government-led collaboration, but the two cases differ significantly. Whereas federal governmental actors and institutions initiated APES and served the dominant purpose of planning activities in the Albemarle–Pamlico Sound, state governmental actors initiated the ARSG and defined its purpose to encompass both planning and management activities in the Animas watershed, a much smaller area than the sound. Additionally, ARSG members faced fewer organizational constraints imposed by governmental actors than did participants in APES. In the APES case, interest already existed among organized communities, but with the Animas watershed, little organized community interest in undertaking an extensive remediation effort existed before the creation of the stakeholder group. In the end, the ARSG was able to agree on and promulgate new regulations to improve its watershed, unlike the more frustrated efforts in APES. In the case of the ARSG, governmental actors played a more active convening role in a collaborative environmental management effort than in any other case in this book.

COMMUNITY-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

To understand the ARSG case, we first need to consider community-based environmental management (CBEM). Closely related to collaborative environmental management, CBEM is an approach that centers on community interests playing an active role in managing resources. Community-based environmental management would seem to imply the active involvement of communities engaged in or driving environmental management processes. Yet in one study, Kenney (1999) identified that communities were the lead coordinating entity in only 20 percent of 400 local watershed initiatives, while state agencies took the lead in 40 percent of the cases, and federal and local agencies each took the lead in 20 percent.

Community-based environmental management can originate with either a community organization or a local, state, or federal governmental agency. A community that is organized and looking to play an active role in managing its resources may serve as the catalyst for cultivating agency interest, or a governmental agency may serve as the driving force. These are two poles on a diverse continuum of options that involve various combinations of relationships between agencies and communities as they seek to manage resources that are important to them (Seymour 1994). The ability to integrate and involve community-based organizations in management solutions, then, is dependent at least partly on the willingness of these agencies to empower local actors (Berry et al. 1989; Kweit and Kweit 1980). Consequently, the potential for successful community-based environmental management hinges not only on the ability of a community-based group to take an active part in the management of the resource, but also on the organizational culture and institutional incentives within the managing agency (Romzek and Dubnick 1994). But if governmental actors often are the lead conveners in an effort to collaborate, and usually possess technical, financial, or other resources that are essential to the management task at hand, at what point does a government-led, community-based management effort cease to be community-based?

Agency actors can play important roles in cultivating organizational capacity at the local level and enabling strong local responses through the channeling of needed resources. The approaches agencies can take to drive community-based efforts are numerous. Agency actors can be involved in and even drive a community-based effort, but this association calls for a different role than agency actors have played traditionally. In contrast to the top-down, command-and-control, inflexible bureaucracies that have been associated with environmental management, community-based efforts require flexible responses and a more decentralized approach within a collaborative setting (Chess et al. 2000; McGinnis et al. 1999). Consequently, in a community-based management scenario, agency actors have to employ different skill sets, behaviors, and attitudes. Likewise, they must recognize the limits of their roles and the potentially negative force they can have if perceived as too domineering. The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate the constructive role agency actors can play in community-based management through a case study of the Animas River Stakeholder Group. Government-led, community-based management need not be an oxymoron. In circumstances where the community is unorganized governmental agencies can help stimulate and support collaboration. But governmental actors also must recognize the limits of their ability to control a legitimately community-based effort once it has developed.

THE ANIMAS RIVER STAKEHOLDER GROUP

The upper Animas watershed is located near the town of Silverton, Colorado, and ranges from 9,000 to 13,800 feet in altitude. Known as the “avalanche capital of the world,” its steep mountains see approximately 40 to 50 inches of precipitation a year, mostly in the form of snow. The watershed is 186 square miles in size and is drained by the upper Animas River, which is fed by two tributaries, Mineral Creek and Cement Creek. The upper Animas turns into the lower Animas near Durango, Colorado. Because of the harsh winters, the population of San Juan County, in which the watershed lies, varies considerably throughout the year, with approximately 500 year-round residents and an additional 3,500 tourists and temporary residents in summer (Robinson 2000).

As part of a highly mineralized geologic zone, the San Juan Mountains long have been famous for the mining that has taken place throughout the spectacular red peaks. Gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper have been excavated from the more than 1,500 mines that honeycomb the region (Blair 1996; Robinson 2000). Mining practices, as well as natural geologic processes, have contributed to heavy metal loading in the headwaters of the Animas. For decades, if not centuries or millennia, copper, iron, aluminum, manganese, lead, and cadmium have rendered the waters of the Animas virtually lifeless.

In 1991, the Colorado Water Quality Control Division (WQCD), the state agency charged with regulating surface water and groundwater quality, began a biological and water quality sampling program in the upper Animas watershed that lasted until 1993. Members of the Non Point Source Program in the WQCD were looking to work in a watershed that could demonstrate successful control of and improvement in water quality, and they believed that the Animas was an ideal target (Parsons 2001). Beginning in 1991, the WQCD sought to establish baseline data for the watershed. Field crews from more than 14 local, state, and federal agencies sampled over 100 sites throughout the watershed during high and low flows for three years (Robinson 2000). Biological and chemical sampling revealed that dissolved aluminum, cadmium, copper, and zinc in the river and its tributaries were toxic to most forms of aquatic life and resulted in an abnormal reduction in diversity and abundance of these flora and fauna (Robinson 2000). Armed with empirical evidence to support its initial premise, the WQCD advocated that the upper Animas River basin held great potential for improved water quality.

The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) is the primary institution in Colorado that sets water quality standards and use classifications on rivers and water bodies throughout the state, as part of fulfilling the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA).¹ The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has final jurisdiction over the CWA, but it grants primacy to state and tribal authorities to set designated use standards for water bodies. Use standards describe the desired conditions for the water resources in question. For instance, standards might be set for industrial uses, water supply, or recreation and fish and wildlife habitat.

In 1979, the WQCC first set water quality standards on the upper Animas as ambient (McAllister 1999). This meant that, given the poor water quality and the fact that the waters were not used as a source of drinking water, no use standards would be applied to the rivers. The ambient standards held until 1993, when the WQCC asked the WQCD to make a new recommendation for the upper reaches of the Animas River. The WQCD studies from 1991 to 1993 suggested that water quality in the Animas could be improved, but it was unclear how this might be accomplished.

The WQCD faced two options. The agency could impose new use standards for the watershed, but it understood that stakeholders in the region, especially Sunnyside Gold Mine, would resist more stringent water quality standards forced on them. In the late 1980s, Sunnyside Gold, the largest employer in the region, had conducted its own studies to substantiate the poor quality in the region. As a result, the WQCD feared that if it imposed higher standards, Sunnyside would counter with its own data and argue for lower standards. Foreseeing a regulatory deadlock, the WQCD was loath to engage in legal and technical battles that would leave the watershed no better off despite great expenditures of resources.

The second option for the agency was to use community-based environmental management, involving local stakeholders, including the gold-mining industry, in a process to determine collectively what standards would work best for the varied interests in the watershed. In this manner, the WQCD might avoid a data war and foster a more workable outcome. But no group or organization existed that could coordinate such an effort.

The problem facing the WQCD was how to craft a community-based process in an area where no organized community existed. The technical nature of determining water quality standards meant that those participating would need to devote significant time to the process and commit to mastering the expertise needed for sound management. States often perform a use attainability analysis (UAA) to determine the specific uses for a water body, and the institution that shapes water body use is a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program. A TMDL is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still meet water quality standards, and an allocation of that amount among the pollutant's sources.

To initiate the collaborative endeavor, the WQCD retained the services of the Colorado Center for Environmental Management (CCEM) to coordinate the creation of the Animas River Stakeholder Group (ARSG). A list of stakeholders was assembled by the CCEM and the WQCD for the first time in early 1994 (Table 7-1). From the outset, defining who constituted the relevant community for the process was a challenge. San Juan County has only about 500 permanent residents, so the initial local community from which stakeholders could be drawn was small. Additionally, because of the high percentage of public lands in the Animas watershed, various public agencies responsible for the management of those lands were designated as important members of the relevant political community that needed to be involved in a successful effort.

Absentee landlords own many of the mines in the region, and local people were apprehensive about the collaboration, as it involved the EPA and was coordinated by an unknown outside group, the CCEM. The initial participants coalesced around the process only after the state of Colorado made it clear that the standards would be determined with or without their involvement, and the EPA intimated that it otherwise would invoke the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and designate the area a Superfund site (Broetzman 1996). The threat of Superfund designation made WQCD's collaborative proposition seem comparatively appealing. Seeing the alternatives framed in this manner, the stakeholders exercised enlightened self-interest to undertake the collaborative ARSG process, which would more directly involve the populations most affected by new standards.

Table 7-1. Animas River Stakeholder Group Members

After the ARSG met for the first time in early 1994, its members had seven months to demonstrate to the WQCC that they could develop a reasonable regulatory alternative to a top-down, imposed standard (Parsons 2001). In September 1994, the WQCC held a hearing in Silverton, which was extraordinarily well attended by the stakeholders. After that meeting, the WQCC decided to grant authority to the ARSG to characterize existing sources of pollution, determine the feasibility for remediation, demonstrate the appropriate use classes and standards for implementation, and begin remediation (Simon n.d.). Without formal regulatory authority, the ARSG was to provide technical expertise and community-supported recommendations to regulatory entities—the WQCD, WQCC, and EPA.

The WQCC set a three-year deadline for the ARSG to accomplish its objectives, and the ARSG devised a three-phase plan to accomplish its goals (McAllister 1999). First, the ARSG wanted to establish baseline data for water quality in the upper Animas basin. The results of the 1991–1993 sampling program pointed to metal loading and acidity as the main factors limiting aquatic health and habitat (Simon n.d.). In 1995, the group began a long-term program to establish or reestablish gauging stations along the various stretches of the Animas to provide reliable water samples and flow determinations. Second, the ARSG sought to prioritize the most serious sources of contamination for cleanup. In 1995, the group began a program to determine sites that were the most significant loaders of metals that limited aquatic life and habitat. Prioritization of sites was an ongoing process that depended on various criteria, including feasibility, funding, cost-effectiveness, and overcoming regulatory disincentives for cleanup. Third, the group wished to undertake remediation projects. In 1998, when the initial deadline was reached, the necessary work had not yet been completed. But the ARSG was making good progress, and the WQCC extended the deadline to 2001.

GOVERNMENTAL IMPACT

Government played a dual role in the ARSG. Government was an actor, present in the form of different federal- and state-level agency personnel within the collaborative effort. Government also was present as institutions influencing the framework of rules and laws within which the ARSG stakeholder process played out.

Governmental actors were essential to group creation. The WQCD played a seminal role in the formation of the ARSG, as did the EPA. The WQCD had been through several conflict-ridden mine cleanups in the recent past and was seeking a new approach to cleanup efforts (Robinson 2000). To remove itself from a leadership position, it sought out a neutral party that could facilitate the initial meeting of the group and pull the stakeholders together. The WQCD envisioned itself as another stakeholder rather than the main driver of the process and wanted to create a situation in which it could make a credible claim to this role (Parsons 2001).

Governmental institutions, such as the CWA and the TMDL framework, provided a broader, rule-bound context in which the collaborative effort of the ARSG operated. These rules were necessary to mesh the community-based process with the larger regulatory schedule and operations. While the ARSG was deliberating its actions during the three years it had to determine use standards for the watershed, the existing ambient standards remained in place. When the three years ended in 1998, the ARSG process came up for review before the WQCC. The ARSG had not yet completed its UAA, so it could not make any determinations about setting use-designation standards. The group asked for an additional three years to continue to collect data to complete the UAA to make appropriate use-designation standards. The WQCC agreed unanimously to give the ARSG until March 2001 to come up with its recommendations (McAllister 1999, 41). If the ARSG could not provide adequate standards in 2001, then the WQCC would impose numerical standards. Because the ARSG was granted no formal authority for rulemaking, the final decision to accept its UAA and recommendations rested with the WQCC. At some level, because an external authority maintained control over the final regulations, the group ran the risk of having its recommendations rejected.

One of the largest challenges for the group was reconciling the existing and external environmental statutory structure suggested by the institutions of government with a cooperative, community-based structure embodied in the ARSG approach (Robinson 2000; Johnson 2001). The standards that emerged from the stakeholder process have been politically acceptable to the stakeholders, but they have been less well received by some within the WQCD, which is the regulatory entity responsible for the long-term management of the resource. Changes, turnover, and reorganization within the WQCD meant that the staff who originally participated in the ARSG effort in 1994 had left by the conclusion of the process in 2001. Without these governmental actors in place as part of the stakeholder effort, opportunities to mesh the investigation and findings from the ARSG process with the institutions of governance were lost. Much as was the case in the Albemarle–Pamlico Estuarine Study (Chapter 6), as government personnel changed, the expectations for what the ARSG process would produce also shifted. For example, the ARSG had to adhere to the formalities imposed when putting together a UAA, and different government staff had different expectations for this process and its product (Johnson 2001).

Likewise, the group was required to stay within the regulatory boundaries imposed by the CWA. A fundamental lesson here is that a politically acceptable process in the form of a stakeholder group and its outcomes can diverge from what is acceptable within the existing regulatory structure. Although this divergence has not been insurmountable in the ARSG case, it does underscore the difficulties of meshing two different cultures within a community-based but regulatory-approved process.

Liability issues related to cleaning up abandoned mines in the region have been an additional institutional influence on the group. Regulations associated with the CWA and CERCLA mean that the third-party provision of the CWA may curtail abandoned mines from being cleaned up voluntarily (Broetzman 1998). Recently ARSG has begun to deal with this problem by pursuing a Good Samaritan Provision that would permit third-party cleanups of historic mines and would limit liabilities for these volunteer cleanups to gross negligence and misconduct (Butler 2001).

CERCLA also played an important role in coalescing the group. Hanging over the group was the EPA's threat that the area could be designated a Superfund site. Superfund designation would have meant that different types of resources could be harnessed to tackle the water quality issues in the basin, and it also would have changed the focus of the group from a self-determined strategy of remediating the watershed as a means to serve varied interests to a more litigious one that gave decision control to lawyers and the courts. In other words, EPA used the threat of CERCLA regulations to rally the group, fortifying the ARSG's resolve to find a solution more positive than a Superfund designation (Parsons 2001).

State and federal agencies were responsible for following different institutional mandates, and the ARSG needed to adhere to these legal frameworks to produce effective and valid standards. Having stakeholders within the group who were knowledgeable about the various statutory requirements and bureaucratic machinations helped the ARSG members learn about and navigate these institutional requirements. Having regular contact within the group with the agencies responsible for the external rules reduced the possibility that expectations would go unfulfilled, especially early in the process. As the ARSG process unfolded over time, staff turnover and changes meant that expectations diverged, although not so severely as to jeopardize the final outcome of the process.

Issue Definition

Issue definition in the ARSG effort was influenced by government both as an actor and as an institution. WQCD personnel, as governmental actors, identified the need for a stakeholder group to improve water quality in the region. Consequently, WQCD members promoted the formation of the ARSG. A watershed biophysical scale was imposed through a problem definition that encompassed the entire watershed. In this manner, government led the creation of a collaborative effort. Government also played a role in encouraging collaboration through the EPA's threat of a Superfund designation. In this way, the EPA also shaped the way the problem was framed by providing a clear alternative, which was rejected by the residents of the watershed.

Resources

A variety of resources were crucial to the ARSG in accomplishing its goals, and some resources mattered more than others at different times during the group's development. Initially, the ARSG used financial resources to leverage human resources toward accomplishing its goals. As the group matured, it relied on relationships to leverage extensive technical resources among its member stakeholders. Because of the dominant presence of multiple governmental agencies, the group's legitimacy ultimately was called into question.

Financial Resources. The ARSG channeled a total of $19.2 million dollars to the watershed, including $5.9 million on watershed characterization, $13.1 million on reclamation, and $200,000 on cultural mitigation. Of this, Sunnyside Gold Company contributed the largest amount, with $10 million in its own reclamation effort, or 54 percent of the total, and the federal government contributed 40 percent (Robinson 2000). Thus it is fair to say that government did not dominate in the provision of financial resources, and private industry in particular played an important role in this regard.

Because it was the brainchild of the WQCD and the EPA, the ARSG had access to governmental financial resources that otherwise might not have been forthcoming. In this respect, the ARSG relied most heavily on financial resources from the EPA's Rocky Mountain Headwaters Mining Waste Initiative to fund its work. The EPA, in conjunction with the WQCD, also funneled money to the ARSG though the Section 319 program.² In 1999, the ARSG received nearly $450,000, a full 35 percent of the EPA's Section 319 grant money for the state of Colorado (McAllister 1999, 59). Technically, the EPA makes Section 319 grants to the WQCD, which then designates the moneys for use by the ARSG (Butler 2001). These financial resources were used to leverage human resources for the ARSG.

Other governmental agencies also contributed to financial resources through direct or indirect means, but they did not play as dominant a role as the EPA or WQCD. The Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Colorado Division of Wildlife provided funding to the ARSG effort. San Juan County donated office space to the group. Local mining corporations and the Southwest Water Conservation District underwrote a small portion of the administrative costs. In recent years, the Southwest Water Conservation District has picked up a portion of the tab for the salary of the watershed coordinator (Butler 2001).

Human Resources. Governmental agency members were important participants in the ARSG, but they worked with nongovernmental actors to achieve their objectives. A core group of approximately 30 stakeholders met monthly to share their understanding about the state's water quality control standards and regulations, as well as new knowledge they had gained about factors contributing to the contamination. The ARSG has been notable in its success at building a well-functioning network of stakeholder members. Many of the original members remained involved, attending at least two meetings per year. Some were more active than others, with some members playing leadership roles. Representatives of federal and state governmental agencies were the most persistent members, along with some individual community members who served as representatives from local governments, nonprofit organizations, and industry.

Additionally, in 1994, the ARSG submitted a grant proposal to the EPA with the assistance of the WQCD and secured funding to hire Bill Simon as the watershed coordinator (Broetzman 1996). A longtime resident of the basin with a mining and environmental background, Simon was a good choice for the position and oversaw many administrative and fund-raising tasks while also acting as a spokesperson for the group. He participated in research and data collection for the UAA and the TMDL framework that was submitted to the state in 2000 (McAllister 1999). To help him handle his many activities, the ARSG obtained additional funding in 1998 from the EPA to hire a staff assistant, and several members of the group volunteered to head up various committees.

In 1999, the EPA began to reevaluate its financial support for these staff positions. Preferring instead to support remediation projects, the agency backed away from providing support for human resources, citing that the positions should be supported by the community or through other resources (Butler 2001). Since that time, the ARSG has lost its staff assistant but has managed to scrape together funding for Simon's position from various local sources. In this manner, the EPA has encouraged other community members to support the effort.

Technical Resources. State and federal governmental actors clearly dominated in the provision of technical resources in the ARSG. Because the ARSG possessed capable human resources, there was little need to search for additional technical resources apart from the immediate stakeholders, whose networks provided important technical resources (Steelman and Carmin 2002). In addition to Simon's technical training in mining remediation and environmental issues, various state and federal agencies conducted the initial stages of research in the upper Animas. In 1995, the Colorado Division of Mining and Geology began a study of one of the tributaries of the upper Animas, Mineral Creek. The EPA funded this effort with Section 319 moneys, and the Forest Service and the Colorado Geological Survey (CGS) provided technical assistance. In 1996, the ARSG initiated a similar study on another tributary, Cement Creek. Also that year, the ARSG began an evaluation of the Animas River Canyon to determine aquatic habitat limitations (McAllister 1999, 40). The Forest Service, which manages most of the federal lands in the watershed, provided technical help and contracted with the CGS to conduct an inventory of mines on Forest Service lands. The Forest Service has conducted biological studies in the area, as have the BLM and CDW.

GROUP STRUCTURE AND DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

The structure of the ARSG was defined by the group itself, with little influence from the EPA or WQCD, other than as actors within the group. Governmental actors are notable in this case for not having exerted undue authority on the collaboration. Agency members influenced how the group would be structured, but only as stakeholder members, not as entities driving the process. Consequently, governmental actors facilitated the development of structures and processes that served the group, rather than the government. The biggest impact the WQCD had on the structure of the ARSG was the role it played in contracting the CCEM to pull together the salient participants in the group.

The ARSG created three working groups and several subgroups, including the Monitoring Work Group, which coordinated the collection, assessment, and management of the watershed characterization information and the identification of source areas contributing to heavy metal contamination; the Feasibility Working Group, which conducted feasibility studies to identify alternatives for remediating mines and implementing remediation projects; and the Regulatory Working Group, which tracked the changes in relevant statutes and regulations and provided information about the group's work to various regulatory agencies, such as the WQCC.

The full group, as well as the working groups and subgroups, met on the third Thursday of every month in Silverton, Colorado. Working groups met immediately before the monthly meetings, and then presented action items to the group at large. A fourth group met in Denver, where many of the technical and agency staff were located, to coordinate multiagency activities and disseminate information to those who could not attend the regular stakeholder meetings in Silverton (Robinson 2000). Typed minutes from each monthly meeting were sent to all stakeholders and interested parties to inform those who had not been present. To encourage the inclusion of all stakeholder interests, decision making was by consensus rather than more formal majority-rule voting.

COLLABORATIVE OUTCOMES

The UAA provided the basis for determining standards for water uses in the watershed, and it was heavily influenced by an institution of government, the regulatory process of the WQCC. In January 2001, the ARSG completed the UAA, a composite of all studies conducted in the basin. Because of various revisions and the need to make all of the data available for adequate review, the WQCC postponed the hearing from March until May 2001. At that time, the ARSG submitted its work, and the WQCC took preliminary final actions to accept the proposed regulations while asking for clarification on a few remaining items (Frohardt 2001). On October 9, 2001, the WQCC formally accepted the ARSG's UAA. This was a victory for the ARSG in two ways: A diverse stakeholder group had agreed on use standards, and because of this agreement, the standards stood a much greater chance of being implemented by the various stakeholders involved in the process.

Environmental Outcomes

The ARSG was the catalyst for approximately $20 million spent on site characterization, prioritization, and remediation projects within the watershed (McAllister 1999, 40). Since 1995, the ARSG coordinated or participated in nearly 50 individual site characterization studies of the geology, hydrology, and biology of the region in conjunction with various state and federal agencies (McAllister 1999, 65). One of the notable findings from the site characterization studies was that a relatively small percentage of mines out of the 1,500 in the area actually contributed significant acid and metal loading to the watershed. Consequently, only about 100 mines were targeted for remediation, significantly fewer than initially anticipated (Robinson 2000). In addition to site characterization and prioritization, the ARSG has channeled remediation projects to the area. Nearly 35 projects have been completed already, and more are planned (Robinson 2000). Nonetheless, remediation is anticipated to take another 20 years or more.

Following the remediation projects, fish populations in the area are showing improvement. In 1996, naturally reproducing trout were recorded in the lower Animas River for the first time. Electrofishing surveys conducted in 1992 and 1998 indicated that trout populations had increased in the cleaner segments of the upper Animas watershed (Robinson 2000).

Social Outcomes

As a social outcome, the ARSG created trust among the various stakeholders. Having the government involved in the form of stakeholder members changed the perceptions of some nonagency participants. As one ARSG member recalled, “I used to see the federal government and state government as very much obstructionist. Now I hear their very legitimate concerns. They want to do the right thing” (Belsten 1996, 172–73). Moreover, trust worked as a catalyst to accomplish other goals or reduce friction that may have prevented some from reaching out to others. Another ARSG participant reflected, “I think this process [has] ... built up a lot of trust. Solutions are locally generated. And I know I can pick up the phone and talk with anyone in the group between meetings” (Belsten 1996, 174).

Many people in the group felt as though they understood not only the processes involved in standard setting, but also the data that accompanies such efforts. As one stakeholder noted, “It's a much more complicated issue than I think people initially realized. You do have to spend a great deal of time studying all the options before you can take any steps, finalize any solutions” (Belsten 1996, 172). In meetings and working groups, different participants expressed their concerns and preferences, and the other stakeholders took them seriously. Efforts at joint data gathering and research helped foster collective understanding of the problems (Belsten 1996). Over time, the group gained a better understanding of the implications of setting specific water quality standards and a greater appreciation for environmental technologies and cleanup strategies, as well as a more thorough understanding of the long-term consequences of applying standards, technologies, and cleanup strategies.

Government involvement led to questions about the ARSG's legitimacy as a “community” group. In 1995, some local citizens criticized the group because they felt overwhelmed by the many governmental agencies that were part of the stakeholder process (Broetzman 1996, 10; McAllister 1999, 50). In 1996, a report on the group encouraged the ARSG to “maintain continuous contacts with the local population at large and to seek expanded local participation and/or acceptance in the process” (Broetzman 1996, 12). Simon and others within the group promoted ARSG activities to involve more of the local public. Nonetheless, confusion about the intent of the ARSG and concern about the involvement of locals persisted. Attendance among locals increased whenever the group addressed controversial issues (ARSG 1999).

The charge of too little lay community involvement must be considered in light of who is appropriately considered to be in the community. Community can be defined in multiple ways (Hillery 1955). Members of a community may have similar identities, reside in a common geographic locale, or belong to a group that has related interests. An additional definition is those participants who are politically relevant to a decision or a decision-making process (Lasswell and McDougal 1992). Within the context of the ARSG, public agencies had a big stake in the designation of water quality standards, given the high percentage of public lands in the watershed, and thus rightfully were considered part of the community.

CONCLUSIONS

Government influenced the creation, activities, and accomplishments of the ARSG in important ways. Government, in the form of the WQCD, played a formative role in the genesis of the ARSG. Without the WQCD, it is unlikely that a stakeholder group would have formed within the watershed to address and improve water quality issues. In addition, both the WQCD and EPA played key roles in providing the group with initial financial resources, which the group used to secure a variety of resources that otherwise would have been more difficult to acquire, if not unavailable altogether. The financial resources allowed additional financial, human, and technical resources to be leveraged in generating important environmental and social outcomes. For instance, the EPA, WQCD, and other agencies contributed financial and technical assistance to provide the foundation for the UAA, site characterization, prioritization, and remediation studies, which have contributed to improvement in environmental quality in the region.

Although the ARSG was founded through an external process involving the WQCD and CCEM, internally determined group structure and processes such as regular meetings, consensus-based decision making, well-functioning working groups and regular interaction allowed varied parties to gain trust and attain common understandings about their surroundings and the many challenges involved in regulatory standard setting. Importantly, the WQCD did not impose external rules on the group, other than those necessitated by regulatory standard-setting practices. The WQCD relinquished its control over the process to give great discretion to the ARSG in determining its own rules for operating. This passive government involvement was just as important as the more active government involvement that led to the group's formation. Through the internal organizational processes, various participants learned to trust and learn from each other. Had an external government entity imposed these internal structures and decision-making rules, members may have had greater difficulty in trusting each other, thereby hindering their collective understanding of various aspects associated with establishing regulations.

In spite of the internally determined structure, the group's legitimacy was questioned based on inadequate representation within the broader local community. In this manner, government involvement may have left the group vulnerable to this claim, but it is unclear whether it had any detrimental impact on the outcome of the overall process. If the ARSG had been completely representative of the local community and lacked involvement of various governmental entities, the group would have been challenged to navigate the complicated terrain of regulatory and rule-making standards, likely making it less effective in the long run. The trade-off of more government involvement and resources for less representation by the local community was appropriate in this case, because the outcome was not compromised in the trade-off, and the salient political parties were involved to devise meaningful and workable outcomes.

The ARSG has demonstrated that a government-led, community-based effort need not be an oxymoron. The process was decidedly more community-based than if the WQCD had imposed standards. The WQCD did not dominate the process, but was an active participant in the process, as were other governmental and nongovernmental participants.

What criteria help determine whether an effort is truly community-based? To answer this question, it is instructive to consider why community-based approaches are preferable over a more command-and-control regulatory strategy. Drawing from the ARSG experience, Greg Parsons, the WQCD nonpoint-source coordinator who initiated the ARSG process, stated that community-based approaches are more appropriate for dealing with complex, unclear pollution sources that involve many actors, and that command-and-control rulemaking options “are no more appealing, because they just land you in legal fights and tie up the process through other channels ... If you have a clear point source of pollution, then you have adequate regulatory tools with which to establish your regulatory goals. However, if the situation is ambiguous then you need a different tool set.” As part of this new tool set, community-based efforts can result in more readily implementable solutions than can traditional command-and-control strategies. And yet how is it possible to determine whether an effort is community-based?

Four elements from this case are instructive. First, the temporal dynamism of the group has to be considered in any statement about the degree to which it is community-based. Over time, the ARSG became less an artificial creation of the CCEM and more of an authentic community-based group. As such, the ARSG started as agency-driven but grew into a more community-driven exercise. Just because a group starts out as a government-led effort does not preclude it from becoming more community-based over time. The opposite also can be true, with groups beginning as community-driven efforts but gravitating toward agency-dominated processes.

Second, community is an elastic term. The degree to which an effort can be considered community-based rests on who is considered the relevant community. Not surprisingly, the determination of who constitutes the community is a contextual decision based on the nature of the problem and the social characteristics that surround it. In this sense, the ARSG stretches the definition of community. Community can be defined by interests, geography, and identity. In the case of the ARSG, however, these definitions do not necessarily serve the goal of determining water quality standards in the watershed. Here community representation was embodied in those participants who demonstrated an active interest and willingness to be involved and possessed or cultivated appropriate expertise. Importantly, this definition of community is not exclusionary. Others were not prevented from participating if they were interested in joining the effort. Many people opted not to be involved because of other competing outlets for their time and interests.

Third, community-based is a relative term. An agency-inspired stakeholder process is certainly more participatory and community-based than is a process in which an agency determines use standards without any input from those who would be most affected by them. Although the legitimacy of the group has been questioned because of its close ties to the agencies involved with its formation and the lack of more lay community involvement, the legitimacy of the ARSG as a community-based effort can be understood only when compared with the other available alternatives in this case—imposing standards in a top-down manner by the WQCD and the WQCC or designating the area a Superfund site. Consequently, it may be more appropriate to discuss the varying degrees to which an effort is or is not community-based. In all cases, it seems fair to compare the existing effort with other regulatory alternatives that might be pursued.

Fourth, the role for an agency in community-based management is one of participant, not boss. Understanding the role the agency plays in the process is important to understanding the degree to which the effort is community-based. Formed in response to a request from the WQCD, the ARSG was tasked to devise water quality use standards for the Animas River. The WQCD played an active role in instigating group formation, but it did so in a deliberate way to ensure that its representatives were not controlling the process. Agency personnel sought out a neutral facilitating organization and were content to be a stakeholder member rather than the lead organization. They did not impose extraneous external rules but placed trust in group members to determine their own sound, internal structural resources. The EPA also played an important formative role in the creation of the ARSG through its funding and technical support. Likewise, the EPA understood the importance of remaining a low-key player. As recalled by Peter Butler, an ARSG member, “The EPA and the [Water Quality Control] Division were very sensitive to the need to stay in the background” (Butler 2001). In more metaphorical terms, the EPA and WQCD understood the importance of being a passenger on the community-based management bus rather than the driver.

In summary, government-led, community-based environmental management appears to have been an appropriate choice in this case, given the complexity of the environmental problem, the need to involve the stakeholders who were affected most by water quality standards, the specific nature of the task, and the thinness of the lay community around the issue. This does not imply that government-led, community-based environmental management is appropriate for all circumstances. Rather, it should be reserved for instances where the conditions suggest that alternative approaches, such as command-and-control regulations, might be less appropriate and potential exists for cultivating organizational capacity to initiate an effort within the relevant community. Some agency personnel no doubt have cloaked themselves in community-based rhetoric to accomplish their regulatory objectives at the local level in other places, but careful analysis reveals that this has not been the case with the ARSG. The sincerity of effort and respect for the process on behalf of the WQCD, WQCC, EPA, and other agency personnel kept the government-led, community-based ARSG effort from being a contradiction in terms.