About the WATER Institute

In 2004 OAEC established the WATER Institute (Watershed Advocacy, Training, Education & Research) to promote an understanding of the importance of healthy watersheds to healthy communities. OAEC’s WATER Institute builds upon our many years of regional watershed research, restoration, advocacy, community organizing, and activism.

The activities of the WATER Institute are guided by the principles of Conservation Hydrology, an applied science being pioneered by OAEC and characterized by the following key concepts:

• Human development decisions must be mindful of the need to move from a “dehydration model” to a “rehydration model.” It is essential that all development agendas insure the health of watersheds and the availability of water.

• Land use management strategies must thoroughly analyze the impact of human activities on the functioning hydrologic cycle, and how these impacts affect species, communities and ecosystem dynamics.

• Democratic, regionally controlled decision-making processes are essential for the preservation and protection of diverse, vigorous, resilient ecosystems and hydrological systems.
  

The WATER Institute includes four interrelated and equally strong program components:

i. Advocacy and Policy Development

The WATER Institute serves as a regional resource for networking and policy development and analysis. In collaboration with others, we successfully advocated for the inclusion of a Water Element in Sonoma County’s General Plan — one of the few of its kind in California — to unify policy regarding the impacts of human development on water quality and quantity, as a stand-alone element. Several other counties have referred to Sonoma County’s Water Element as a model for their own General Plan revisions.

A critical WATER Institute role in recent years has been interpreting and facilitating an understanding by municipalities, developers and landowners of how to effectively implement and be in compliance with the storm water regulations of the new Clean Water Act Phase II. The innovative perspective and “win-win” approach inherent in the WATER Institute’s Conservation Hydrology principles have resulted in a number of requests for presentations to various city staff and engineering community members, educating them about Conservation Hydrology solutions to water problems related to human development.

ii. Training and Support

Between the years 2000 and 2009 the WATER Institute’s Basins of Relations program trained 150 participants representing 45 watersheds in Northern, Central and Southern California. These trainings helped foster the formation or supported the existing work of over 30 community based watershed groups, many of which have raised thousands of dollars to do critical restoration work, organizing and education in their watersheds. The WATER Institute continues to provide technical support, site visits, consultations and networking to sustain those groups that have attended these trainings.

In order to reach a broader community, we conduct other training and education activities such as providing expert testimony and educational presentations at public meetings, conferences and for the media; providing consultation services to landowners, agencies and organizations; and, providing resource referrals to landowners, farmers, contractors, and schools wanting to implement restorative practices.

iii. Education and Demonstration

The WATER Institute has already implemented several watershed restoration examples on OAEC's 80-acre property, and we are currently in the process of developing and implementing a long-term Conservation Hydrology Plan for the OAEC demonstration site. We are focusing our on-site restoration activities on affordable, restorative practices that are applicable to the situation faced by most private landowners — those who retain the majority of land holdings in Sonoma and several other Northern California coastal counties. This demonstration will be essential in our ongoing educational activities and trainings, and will be well-documented and presented at public speaking events.

The WATER Institute has acted as consultant, educator, collaborator and/or fiscal sponsor in such projects as the Salmon Creek Middle School Watershed Restoration project, the Salmon Creek Estuary Study and the Watershed Divide and Creek Signage Pilot Project. We are currently involved with the Salmon Creek Middle School's Salmon Creek Falls Environmental Center.

iv. Research

After considerable research and consultation, we have concluded that the most important and relevant focus for our watershed research is to develop a practical, replicable methodology for assessing the Water Budget of a watershed, as well as detailing measurable, human-scale, low-budget practices to improve the amount of water available within a watershed. California Department of Fish & Game’s draft “Coho Salmon Recovery Plan” specifically lists as a primary research need for Russian River Coho Salmon recovery the determination of impacts from water diversions and withdrawals in the Dutch Bill Creek watershed (where OAEC is located) and adjacent Green Valley watershed. This issue is also a priority for the Russian River Watershed Council’s management plan. In an effort to understand the hydrologic cycle on the very land where we live and work we have installed a computerized weather station and groundwater well-monitoring equipment. These devices help to correlate rainfall amounts with the recharge of groundwater reserves, and the enhancement of well production and sustained yield. This monitoring will provide data to help develop an OAEC Water Budget, and will be useful as a model for larger projects in the Dutch Bill Creek Watershed and the Russian River Basin.

For more information about OAEC’s WATER Institute, contact Brock Dolman at (707) 874-1557 ext. 206 and visit our website at www.oaecwater.org .