Problems with National Watershed Planning Policy

Eugene Dashiell, AICP, Consulting Environmental Planner, Environmental Planning Services

Abstract

National watershed planning is a creature with two heads not often going in the same direction. One head symbolizes the EPA. The other head symbolizes the "water construction agencies" (USACE, BuRec, NRCS, TVA). EPA is driven by NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act, 1970) and the CWA (Clean Water Act, 1972) and distributes grants and guidelines for watershed planning which do not cover watershed problems like flood hazards. The "water construction agencies" are guided by the same laws as EPA and also by P&G (Principles and Guidelines for Water Resources Planning, 1983) and are tasked to plan, design and construct projects which solve watershed problems like flood hazards. It was the intent of Congress for EPA to not only make the nation's water's "fishable and swimmable" but also to stop the excesses of the "water construction agencies" which were perceived as hardening and damming every waterway with adverse environmental effects. In the seminar we will:

• Consider the effects of the two-headed national watershed planning policy with regards to solving real-world problems within watersheds and especially the Ala Wai Canal Watershed and Manoa Stream.
  
• Discuss the issue of national policy of "hands-off" local land use issues.
  
  
• Touch on land ownership issues on Manoa Stream where perhaps 175 residential parcels own the stream either to its mid-point or in some cases all the way across to the opposite bank.
  
  
• Ask why, five years after the UHM flood (October 31, 2004) with its $83 million dollars in damages, there is no proposed plan or design for a remedy and is it feasible for UHM to "go it alone" in addressing a remedy to the flood risk?
  
  
• Talk about the roles of the federal, state and county governments, and private owners in the Manoa situation.
  
  
• Mention the national effort to revise P&G and suggest that EPA be included in it.

Eugene Dashiell is a consulting environmental planner who has been involved with the Ala Wai Watershed investigations since the early 1990's. He is presently a sub-contractor on the Ala Wai Canal Watershed Study. He was the coordinator for and author of, "The Ala Wai Canal Watershed Management and Implementation Plan, two volumes, 1998" which was the product of a consent decree between the City and County of Honolulu and the State of Hawaii. His website www.pacificenv.com includes many references to federal policy documents and other reports related to watershed planning. He served with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Pacific Ocean Division prior to starting his own business and worked on several major flood control projects in Hawaii and other Pacific islands.