Nooksack Watershed Management Project

Developing the Plan

Beginning in the summer of 2001, participants in the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project collected ideas for ways to manage water resources, such as water conservation, desalination, stream buffers, and so on. These ideas, which are very general in nature, were assembled into a catalog of management options.

The WRIA 1 project team--the Initiating Governments, the Planning Unit, the caucuses, and consultants--narrowed down the catalog to the most likely options and added details, such as possible locations where they could be implemented.

Because of financial and time constraints, the 2005 watershed plan focuses on pilot projects that will test the effectiveness of various management options, as well as some WRIA-wide programs (general recommendations for the entire WRIA). The plan will also include an implementation strategy (including proposals for funding, performing, and managing programs and projects), a long-term monitoring plan, a process for selecting instream flows, and other elements.

In a future version of the watershed plan, the WRIA 1 project team will work to package the options into various "scenarios"--groups of management options designed to work together to address water quantity, water quality, instream flow, and fish habitat in a particular drainage and/or economic sector. The scenarios will be run through the Decision Support System to study their benefits and trade-offs relative to one another. The project team will also look at the scenarios' potential impacts on the environment and the local economy .

The County Council held public hearing on the plan. In the early summer of 2005, it was approved by the County Council and the other Initiating Governments elected councils.

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