1) Problem Statements

• No one can tell if the individual projects collectively amount to progress. The Bay Institute Scorecard is moving in the right direction
• Timelines for grants do not promote actual concrete water quality and habitat improvement. Project horizon 5-10-100 years (like stop smoking campaigns): tools and building blocks need to be considered concrete steps
• We need to develop targets that are measurable: people targets and restoration targets
• No general agreement on targets among funders and agencies
• The target that needs to be defined is Watershed Health
• Accountability leads to demonstrated success which leads to more funding

2) Solutions

• Historical ecology is a promising area of investigation
• Linking water goals to other community goals (e.g., low-income housing) is a good direction to go
• Common goals allow us to communicate with the public.
• Targets can balance goals and make clear how they are interconnected.
• Define “watershed health” to include historical ecology, people, and aspects of the watershed beyond the riparian corridor. Think about whether the framework for grants can allow measurable goals. Need group to do.
• Improve communication with local governments – make sure indices that exist are incorporated. The more targets, the more communication, the easier to get funding.

3) Mechanisms

• Participate in general plan developments
• Use the State’s watershed indicator framework
• Use “design charette” style goals-setting summit. Include wide variety of expertise, educate one another, need a methodology. Model: ABAG Smart Growth process?
• Extending tidal wetland Baylands Habitat Goals to Upland and to whole Bay
• Any process needs to be accountable to participants to continue the process
• Define framework for measuring watershed health
• Need to develop targets for both restoration and for outreach, education and other building blocks. People are part of watershed health.
• The process by which this is done needs to be centralized regionally and done locally, in parallel
• Targets need to be a mix of Bay-area wide standards and local-specific, in parallel

4) Examples of Targets:

• Level of “x” bad thing cannot be higher than “y” % disturbance of pre-disturbance conditions
• Level of community participation/awareness
• Level of interaction between decision-makers
• % of serpentine plant communities under protection
• Bay Institute’s scorecard expanded to watersheds

5) Next Steps:

Define watershed health

• Framework for assessment including all elements (cultural, socio-economic, science, etc.) with concrete long-term goals. Includes public awareness and education
• Communications need to be alert to systems and indicators existing at the local level (business indices, etc.)
• Centralized effort: small group develops prototype, whole audience convenes to work with proposed model.
• Look for other models, nationally and from other countries
  
• Targets need to be both Bay area-wide as well as local (vertical integration)

6) Post-Meeting Suggestion of Follow–up Actions for the Working Group:

Form a working group of those involved in developing regional scale systems for recording the conditions of watersheds and creating measurements of watershed health and how the landscape changes over time.  This working group could be sponsored by SFBJV as the lead because of the history of their engagement with this issue for wetlands. The lead needs to be determined, but logical participants include the CCMP, SFEI and The Bay Institute.