Itasca Waters
Report date
June 2020
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
We conducted a widespread community engagement process and learned from over 1000 Itasca County residents about ways in which the quality of water in area lakes, rivers and streams impacts their lives. We gathered input from a broad cross-section of the community through public surveys, focus groups, personal interviews and human-centered design ideation sessions. Targeted populations included elected public officials, community leaders, tribal members, business owners and managers, resort owners, lake associations, lakeshore property owners, fishing guides, realtors, and the general public.
These activities were important because the community engagement process was both a process and an outcome. The engagement process provided a way to learn about Itasca’s values and beliefs concerning the quality of the water in our lakes, rivers and streams. At the same time, it increases awareness and informs the community about the importance of creating a community-wide vision to protect the quality of our water. It is a way to uncover widespread thinking and beliefs that will help generate sustainable solutions to the challenges we face.
These activities were important because the community engagement process was both a process and an outcome. The engagement process provided a way to learn about Itasca’s values and beliefs concerning the quality of the water in our lakes, rivers and streams. At the same time, it increases awareness and informs the community about the importance of creating a community-wide vision to protect the quality of our water. It is a way to uncover widespread thinking and beliefs that will help generate sustainable solutions to the challenges we face.
We reviewed and mapped out the existing ways in which people are working to monitor and protect the water quality in Itasca County’s lakes, rivers and streams. We did this in order to fully understand the current initiatives and public policies intended to protect water quality. This was important because there are numerous federal, state, county, city and township agencies whose portfolios include monitoring or managing water quality to some degree. Identifying the resources and programs already in place helped us focus on designing solutions that build on existing efforts, identify and close gaps, and ultimately to create greater community collaboration around protecting our water. Another important component of this part of process was to gain a solid understanding of how people in leadership and decision-making roles view the issue of protecting water quality. This was important because often times people look to people in positions of power to lead important efforts such as protecting our water.
We developed a community-defined vision and action plan by leveraging newfound community awareness of the importance of clean water to people's livelihoods, and those insights helped identify actions needed to protect the quality of the water. This portion of the work is on-going. Initially we intend to put in motion ways to permanently elevate the importance of water quality within the community consciousness and inspire new action that includes mechanisms to measure impact. While piecing together the vision and action plan we asked ourselves: How do you actually change people’s perceptions, attitudes, and ultimately behavior? How do you understand people’s behavior in the differing contexts of their lives? How might we protect our water in perpetuity? And how do you measure the impact? Through the community engagement process, five elements of a community-wide plan, as well as action steps for each element to protect our waters emerged: Creating Shared Community Beliefs, Values and Behaviors; Encourage Advocacy, Education and Public Awareness; Cultivating Leadership Support; Enforcement & Implementation; Monitoring and Assessment.
Key lessons learned
We learned that it is easy for people who live and work in northern Minnesota to take clean water for granted. It is all around us. We can access its benefits year-round. Even during the coldest days of winter, we can head to a lake, drill a hole in the ice and catch fish for dinner. We learned that behavioral change research shows that people change their behavior based on their perceptions of risk and the potential benefits of their behavior. In this context, it means that since all the water around us is apparently clean, there is no perceived risk present. All stakeholders believe that the responsibility to protect water quality is broadly shared and see “everyone” as primarily responsible. Lakeshore owners and the business community see “everyone” as primarily responsible, while realtors and fishing guides put that onus on lakeshore owners and lake users. Government entities are close seconds on everyone’s list. The concerning observation about the responses to the question, 'who is responsible for protecting our water', is that when people expect “everyone” to be responsible, then perhaps it becomes no one’s responsibility.
We learned that across the county, the focus on water quality varies widely. Elected officials respond to issues that affect their constituents most directly and immediately. Localized issues (poor water supply and outdated infrastructure) appear to be much more critical for some portions of the county than others and when asked about voters’ perceptions of water quality, 40% of elected officials in the northwest region had not heard complaints about water quality or didn’t know what their voters felt about water quality. Two primary strategies to protect our waters were recommended by all stakeholders: education and enforcement. Education in this context means informing and explaining to various constituencies the effects of various behaviors on water quality along with myriad other actions. Resorts, fishing guides, the business community and realtors all suggested educating the public as the primary initiative for changing behavior. Lakeshore owners are the single stakeholder group who recommend substantial emphasis on enforcement rather than education. We learned we need to push the importance of protecting our water to the forefront of the collective community consciousness
Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving
All three of the elements were important. Inclusive practices allowed us to engage with over 1000 people throughout Itasca County. We used inclusive practices to conduct an in-depth community engagement process across sectors, socio-economic spectrums, and diverse group of people using a variety of methods such as, focus groups, interviews, human-centered design sessions, and surveys. The engagement work led to greater collaboration which helped Itasca County create shared meaning and ownership around the importance of putting a coordinated plan in place to protect one of our greatest natural resources: our water. The resourceful component came through the community engagement process as well, because we tapped into the brilliance of the people who live and work here to figure out how might we actually protect our water in perpetuity.
Understanding the problem
Our work has led us to see that changing behavior requires an understanding of the collective consciousness about water quality protection. We had to learn the answers to questions such as; What are people’s perceptions about water quality? Why is water quality important to them? How do they think it should be protected? And, who do they think is responsible for making sure it is protected? Learning the answers to these questions through the widespread community engagement processes has led us to much greater clarity and insights around how we might close the gap between best water quality protection efforts and behaviors of people. It also helped us identify the key elements of a solid coordinated community action plan to put us on a faster trajectory to protecting our water.
If you could do it all over again...
To trust the process and remember that if you are intentional and genuine about wanting to learn from people, take into consideration the context of their lived experiences, and tap into the brilliance within them, the answers will come. These things are always important to remember, especially when you are working on big projects and start to question if you are doing enough or the right things in the right ways, but if you have a have an inclusive, thoughtful process, the innovative solutions will come.
One last thought
The first year of this project has been amazing. We have learned so much from the people of Itasca County and are very exciting about implementing our action plan and seeing our water protected for future generations.