Institutional Dynamics and the Politics of Large-Scale
Ecosystem Management Networks: The Rise and Disintegration of the CALFED
Bay-Delta Program
Susan D. Lurie
Paper Presented at Maxwell Workshop on Organizations
& the Natural Environment
Sponsored by the Center for Environmental Policy and
Administration (CEPA)
May 22-24, 2007
** Do Not
Cite or Quote Without Author’s Permission**
The evolving practice of ecosystem management, especially at
the regional scale, has created a task environment of high interconnectedness
among organizations vested with natural resource management responsibilities.
No single organization has the technology, data, resources or authority to
create and implement ecosystem-wide policies and programs that form the basis
for true ecosystem-level planning and management. The condition of
interdependency calls for collaboration among a diverse array of organizations
and requires a new, complex organizational model—the network—to create and
carry out joint planning.
Increasing ecosystem and trans-boundary environmental
planning and management issues suggest that natural resource networks need to
be examined for their particular contribution to evolving public-sector network
theory and praxis. A good deal of writing to date regarding public-sector
organizational networks focuses on the domains of human services, education and
economic development. Those writings speak little to the influence of network
development and performance in a high-visibility, politically turbulent
environment characterized by intense external stakeholder conflict, lawsuits
and political maneuvering as well high technical and scientific uncertainty—an
environment that typifies so many natural resource management[1]
concerns (Lurie 2004).
What are some of the implications for organizations involved
in natural resource planning and management at the large ecosystem scale where
collaboration and network organizations are necessary for resolving and
managing complex environmental problems? Answering the question calls for
simultaneously examining process, organization and institutional issues. This
paper explores the interlinked subjects through a case study covering the
creation, implementation and disintegration of a large-scale collaborative
process and a network organization for regional-scale integrated water
resources management: the CALFED[2]
Bay-Delta Program (CALFED) and the CALFED Bay-Delta Authority (CBDA). In
addition to a variety of primary and second sources and gray literature,
perceptions regarding CALFED came from interviews taking place intermittently
between 2002 and 2007.
Theoretical Framework
Rapid
changes in the organizational environment over the past several decades have
increased interconnectedness and interdependency. Collaborative processes and
network organizations have progressively become the means to deal with such
conditions (Alexander
1995; Alter and Hage 1993; Gray 1989; Luke 1991). Much of the research on
networks has been in the private sector, in which organizations generally have
different incentives and viability standards. Increasingly, however, public
sector networks have been a study focus as part of the new public management in
an era of declining organizational resources and increased societal problem
complexity (Mandell 2001;
Agranoff 2007; Agranoff and McGuire 2003; Bardach 1998; Kickert, Klijn, and
Koppenjan 1997; Radin et al. 1996).
“Network”
is a broad concept which can be identified and defined in a variety of
ways. Agranoff points out that there is
a rich investigative history regarding social networks which are the subject of
several chapters in this book regarding the presence of networks as an aspect
of civil society. He distinguishes between social networks—those characterized
by patterns or sets of iterative social linkages inside or outside of
organizations but which may serve organizational as well as social needs—and
the more formal aspects that mark organizational networks which “…not only have
real live interactions but have identifiable structures and actions” (2007:7).
The
Institutional Environment and Natural Resource Management
The
task environment for public-sector organizations is different than that for
private-sector entities, and it is an environment can complicate joint decision
making. Private-sector organizations typically respond to their predominantly
technical/competitive environment by maximizing cost-benefit efficiency to
ensure survival. Public-sector organizations, by contrast, operate in an
institutional environment in which survival depends on conformance to socially
sanctioned rules, procedures and requirements that establish, maintain and
enhance legitimacy and support imposed by external actors (Meyer and
Scott 1992; Powell and DiMaggio 1991; Scott 2001). The situation for public-sector
organizations is further complicated as they must react to two conflicting sets
of values in order to establish and maintain legitimacy: administrative
requirements for efficiency and effectiveness, and legal values of
representativeness and responsiveness (Alexander
1995; de Bruijn and Ringeling 1997; Heffron 1989; Ring and Perry 1985).
Institutions
tend toward stability although they can also act as mediums for opportunity and
change (Scott 2001;
Powell and DiMaggio 1991). The
inclination toward inertia often creates lags between traditional institutions
that support turf defense, hierarchy, competition and boundary maintenance and
the contemporary reality of interdependence requiring horizontal authority
structures, knowledge sharing, mixed technologies, and turf- and
boundary-spanning behaviors (Luke 1991;
Scott 2001; Yaffee 1999; Kettl 2006; Goldsmith and Eggers 2004).
Most
organizations with natural resource management responsibilities were created
during the Progressive Era as hierarchical, functionally organized
bureaucracies. They were closed, unitary decision making systems responding
primarily to changes in legislative and administrative obligations which were
often influenced by organizations’ dominant constituencies (Brunner 2002;
Kettl 2002). Natural
resources were managed in a fragmented manner by agencies with narrowly focused
missions reflecting utilitarian values. Policies and institutions promoted
commodity production on a closely delimited cost-benefit basis with little
regard for impacts beyond economic gain (Bryner 1998;
Burch 1971; Vig and Kraft 2000; Cortner and Moote 1999).
Societal values regarding public resources began to change
after World War II. Parallel to the growth in urban populations, Americans
became more aware of pollution issues and more interested in the recreational,
aesthetic and restorative significance of unspoiled open spaces. In spite of new cues in the organizational
environment,[3]
natural resource management entities were slow, and in many cases disinclined,
to respond to due to institutional inertia (Cortner and
Moote 1999; Brunner et al. 2005).
Despite the history of fragmentation and insularity for
natural resource management, there have been institutional changes that have
opened the doors to greater collaborative potential (Agranoff and
McGuire 2003; Bardach 1998; Gray 1989; Hoffman and Ventresca 2002; Thomas 2003;
Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000; Yaffee 1997). Globalization, devolution,
problem complexity and societal demands for participatory decision-making have
created more interdependency, along with increasing needs for project and
knowledge related work. The phenomenon is diffusing bases of expertise and
breaking down organizational boundaries in ways that require different
structures and processes in both the private and the public sector (Reich 1991;
Lipnack and Stamps 1994; Agranoff and McGuire 2003).
When sufficient contradictions with the environment and
“exogenous shocks” disrupt the reproduction loop, institutions become
vulnerable to change (Scott 2001; Powell and DiMaggio 1991(Scott 2001). Some natural resource policy
observers have borrowed from evolutionary biology language and study to
describe long periods of stability interrupted by short-lived but intense
episodes of innovation as punctuated equilibrium (Repetto 2006). The environmental movement of
the 1970s is one such illustration. A flurry of law making then returned to
policy incrementalism and, in various cases, what critics might categorize as
lackluster administrative success (Hoffman and
Ventresca 2002; Repetto 2006).
Despite the tendency toward stability, policy institutions
that influence organizing are dynamic systems which respond to change through
positive (de-stabilizing/change reinforcing) and negative (stabilizing/status
quo reinforcing) feedback. Forces occurring at critical points can favor change
over inertia (Repetto 2006). Positive feedback forces characterizing the
environmental movement were a combination of building momentum punctuated by
significant events coming in fairly rapid succession. Rachel Carson’s book Silent
Spring, published in 1962, is cited as a consciousness raising
mechanism regarding toxic industrial impacts on the environment. Graphic
magazine and television images of incidents such as the highly polluted
Cuyahoga River outside Cleveland catching fire, and Santa Barbara, California
oil-drenched beaches and wildlife after an offshore drilling rig blowout in
1969, added to public concern over the consequences of unchecked industrial
development (Cortner and
Moote 1999; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000) . The cumulative effect of those
events set the stage for a spate of environmental laws beginning with passage
of the National Environmental Policy Act, which was signed into law January 1,
1970. It was quickly followed by further federal environmental regulations: the
Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act 1972, and the endangered species act
of 1973 (Kraft and Vig
2003).
Since that time, legislative and political support for
environmental policies and administrative accomplishments have been spotty
based on national attention to other matters such as the economy and national
security and shifts in political party dominance. Although short-term policy
stagnation and even reversals have occurred, public awareness and support for
environmental protection is not receding; rather, incremental institutional
shifts continue to take place. (Kraft and Vig
2003; Hoffman and Ventresca 2002).
The environmental policy and management arena is nevertheless one of
ongoing conflicts that influence advances and setbacks.
From Conflict to Joint Decision
Making Processes
Administrative achievements beyond the environmental
lawmaking stint of the late 1960s and early 1970s were unimpressive due, in
part, to lack of consensus regarding management standards for the nation’s
natural resources. As people increasingly valued natural areas for their
nonconsumptive uses, conflicts over management priorities escalated (Bryner 1998;
Cortner and Moote 1999; Steel and Lovrich 1997). Declining trust in government,
greater opportunities and requirements for public involvement, a population
explosion of interest groups, and expanded public access to scientific
information added to policy and management gridlock and undermined traditional
agency authority and isolated decision making (Rauch 1999;
Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000).
Increasing policy impasses beginning in the 1970s created
fertile ground for innovative decision-making approaches through environmental
conflict management and collaborative decision making processes. Stakeholders,
including natural resource agencies, pooled resources and entered dialogues to
jointly define problems and assess information needs to develop solutions as a
new model of natural resource governance (Daniels and
Walker 2001; Fischer 2000; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000).
Environmental
problems typically span multiple political subdivisions and levels of
government requiring the collaboration of various agencies and organizations.
Collaboration is the process; the organizational structure for bringing
together different interests and implementing joint decisions is often the
network. This frequently creates a situation in which there are two sets of stakeholders
with contested interests and goals: those utilizing the resources, who are the
external stakeholders; and the agencies who are trying to control management
decision making, who are the internal stakeholders. Natural resource oriented
collaborative decision making therefore creates a web of potential conflict
interfaces (Lurie 2004).
Network Organizations for Joint
Decision Making and Implementation
Collaborative
processes and network structures are vital to environmental problem solving due
to the high complexity and uncertainty characteristic of integrated resource
management efforts. If the collaborative process and the network organization
cover a large area or long time frame, such arrangements are all the more
essential. They are also likely to be more technically and politically
complicated. Despite the competency-enhancing promise of networks that would
tend to favor institutional change (Scott 2001), there are a number of public
sector environmental characteristics that act as powerful disincentives and
constraints to both the formation and viability of networks, discussed
elsewhere, such as institutional and organizational inertia, political cycles
and funding (Kettl 2006;
Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006; Baumgartner 2006).
During the Progressive Era, establishing public agency
neutrality and accountability was a high priority. Hierarchical structures,
narrowly delineated objectives and technologies, and expert decision making in
relative isolation from other entities fulfilled these requirements, at least in
theory. Institutional environments
therefore constrain organizational models that do not comply with legitimating
characteristics favoring bureaucratic structures, tight boundaries and
segregated decision-making authorities.
Networks more typically have horizontal structures and are
further distinguished from traditional organizational models by voluntary
participation as well as broad missions and intensive involvement among
partners to develop interdependent strategic actions While a network characteristically
has supraordinate goals, it is nevertheless an amalgam of organizational actors
with different goals and perspectives that can affect collaborative capacity.
It consequently requires new management knowledge and strategies (Agranoff and
McGuire 2003; Alter and Hage 1993; Kickert, Klijn, and Koppenjan 1997; Mandell
1990).
Contemporary public sector joint problem solving presents a
significant organizational dilemma. It involves complexity that requires boundary-spanning
perspectives and actions; however, such problem solving is being conducted by
organizations “imprinted” with structures conforming to prevailing legitimating
features at the time of their creation (Scott 2003) and conforming to long-standing
institutional norms of legitimacy.
Accountability
has a significant influence on the perception of public sector organizational
legitimacy. Traditionally, it generally meant the absence of corruption;
however, accountability as a concept has evolved since the development of
public administration as a practice. There is no precise definition or set of
criteria for public-sector accountability, and several scholars have noted its
equivocal character (see, e.g., Behn 2001: 2-5). As public expectations and
demands change, the standards and the mechanisms to achieve accountability
continually change, as well. For instance, as part of the New Public Management
movement, public demands include performance in addition to traditional absence
of corruption as signs of accountability (Radin 2006;
Weber 2003; Behn 2001). The expanded
framework for accountability creates what Behn calls “the accountability dilemma—the
trade-off between accountability for finances and fairness and accountability
for performance” (2001:11). This can
place public-sector organizations in a politically volatile position,
especially if the stakes in policy or management changes are high.
Performance
as an aspect of accountability expectations in networked problem solving and
program implementation presents challenges above and beyond those of unitary
organizations. Joint decision-making across agencies and among government and
other non-governmental entities potentially alters decision-making boundaries
and traditional chains of command and responsibility. Applying traditional
standards of accountability to networks makes determinations of whether or not
entities are performing to expectations ambiguous. As joint decision making
expands concepts of organizational models, it also expands concepts of how to
think about accountability standards and how to achieve them (Agranoff
2007; Radin 2006; Weber 2003; Behn 2001; Radin and Romzek 1996; Frederickson
and Frederickson 2006). It is
unclear, however, to what extent thinking about accountability among those who
demand it has caught up with the reality of the current context.
While the issue of accountability is clearly different and
more complicated in networks (Agranoff
2007; Radin and Romzek 1996), the problem may be somewhat
inflated in most networks as legal authority is limited and, with it, the
ability to alter policy in any significant way (Agranoff 2007). The foregoing should be viewed with an eye to
context, however. Agranoff’s network typology consists of four different types
networks with varying degrees of authority to affect policy. Action networks are the most directly
involved with potential policy changes. It stands to reason, given the
foregoing, that the issue of accountability escalates as policy influence and
responsibility increases. And, as the case of CALFED illustrates, lack of
attention to the imprecise but critical concept of accountability is, indeed,
perilous.
Public-sector organizations’ institutional environment
includes two other significant factors that need to be taken into account.
Agencies typically develop dominant constituent groups soon after their
creation and depend on them for political support that can influence access to
resources. Such groups tend to reinforce the status quo since it generally
works in their favor (Selznick
1949). Network efforts are also highly vulnerable to
political cycles and differing agendas that translate into substantial funding
uncertainty which threatens network participation and stability over the long
term (Kettl 2006;
Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006). As a new organizational model
for natural resource governance, there is still much to be learned about the
institutional factors influencing network formation and sustainability.
Institutions
for water management are among the more complex, fragmented and insular in the
domestic natural resource policy arena. It has historically been divided
between quality and quantity issues as well as between surface water and
groundwater supplies. Water was seen as a commodity to be moved through
engineering achievements to serve development purposes with little or no
thought to its critical importance to in situ cultural and natural
systems (Hundley 2001;
Reisner 1993; Worster 1985; Ingram 1990).
Water’s
regulatory landscape has been equally fragmented; spread over dozens of federal
agencies, programs, appropriations committees and subcommittees and subject to
hundreds of laws, regulations, and rules (Hundley 2001;
Reisner 1993; Worster 1985; Ingram 1990; Rogers 1993). Regulatory authorities are
divided among the federal government and the states and local governments. The
federal government dominates authority for issues of navigation, power supply,
regional flood control and water quality and pollution control. States have responsibilities similar to those
of the federal government; however, states have the bulk of authority over
water allocations (Rogers 1993).
Ingram
(Ingram 2006) noted that water development may
be thought of as path dependent: once various institutional mechanisms and
technical approaches are put in place, the transaction costs of change make it
less likely over time that new approaches will be considered viable, even if
existing systems are suboptimal for problem solving. The high political and
financial costs of water development systems make it more feasible to effect
changes or alterations at the margins of either projects or policy rather than
pursue significant transformations. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of
cascading—small, and perhaps random, but important institutional changes—can
build momentum for larger changes in policy, implementation or other management
aspects (Baumgartner
2006).
The
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Delta) in northern California is the heart of
the state’s water supply system, providing drinking water to two-thirds of the
state’s population, currently estimated at approximately 36 million.[4]
It is where two of California's major rivers come together, eventually flowing
out through San Francisco Bay; hence, the reference to California’s Bay-Delta.
It is ecologically important because of its habitat significance to a variety
of terrestrial and aquatic species, some of which are listed as either
threatened or endangered. The Delta houses two of the world’s largest water
diversion projects that deliver water to urban and agricultural users: the
federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project. The State Water
Project involves an interbasin transfer system, pumping water over the
Tehachapi Mountains and into the Los Angeles Basin (McClurg 1997;
McClurg and Newcom 1998; Hundley 2001).
Disjointed state and federal water
development and institutions, a rapidly growing population, and increasing
Delta environmental problems such as water quality and species decline created
intractable conflicts in multiple arenas. Northern Californians consistently
viewed any project that included water diversions to be sent to southern
California as attempts to “steal” water from the north. There was an expanding
reservoir of public resentment regarding perceived water grabs by agribusiness
at the expense of urban and environmental water needs. Agricultural interests,
a powerful political force, added to issues with its own infighting (Hundley 2001;
Gottlieb 1988). Numerous
groups and coalitions increasingly caused policy impasses and filed court
actions. There were also conflicts, including lawsuits in some instances, among
different configurations of agencies: between state agencies, between federal
agencies, and between state and federal agencies. Interagency conflicts included
issues such as water quality, water supply and ecosystem concerns (Hundley 2001;
Reisner 1993).
Despite different efforts at consensus
among various sets of stakeholders in the early 1990s, gridlock over water
quality, water supplies and environmental issues continued (Lurie 2004). In the early 1990s, a coalition
of environmental groups sued the federal government over failure to enforce
Clean Water Act standards (Hundley 2001;
McClurg 1997). The federal
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) subsequently announced its intention
to implement a water quality plan that would include federal control over water
allocations, historically an area of state primacy, with final adoption to take
place December 15, 1994.
The
state had already made it clear it could not produce a Delta water quality plan
fully consistent with federal Clean Water Act requirements within the time
frame set by the EPA. The federal government, despite its announcement, came to
the conclusion that it probably could not override the state’s authority
despite the regulatory hammers imbedded in the Clean Water Act. The situation
provided the incentive for a pair of agreements that set the stage for CALFED (Rieke 1996). California Governor Pete
Wilson, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, and U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency Administrator Carol Browner directed the state and federal agencies
under their respective authorities to form a collaborative planning and
management partnership.
The CALFED Bay-Delta Program was
created in 1995 in an effort to put an end to the decades-old “water wars”. The
program had three general goals: adopting water quality standards acceptable to
both the state and federal governments; coordinating federal and state water
project operations in the Delta to protect endangered species and implement
water quality standards; and developing a long-term plan covering four common
program areas: levee system stability, ecosystem restoration, water quality,
and water supply (McClurg 1997).
Creating the foundation for CALFED was a two-step process.
Eleven state and federal agencies signed the Framework Agreement in June 1994
focusing on three Delta issues: developing final EPA water quality standards by
December 1994; coordinating SWP and CVP operations to help achieve the comply
with water quality, ESA and CVPIA requirements; and developing a joint
state-federal process to forge a long-term Bay-Delta management solution (CALFED
Bay-Delta Program 1994; Rieke 1996).
There were nevertheless lingering disputes among various
agency and water-use interests over implementation of a water quality plan as
part of the Framework Agreement. At the eleventh hour with regard to the EPA’s
implementation of its own water quality plan, and following a series of intense
negotiations, federal and state agency representatives, along with representatives
from various water use groups, signed what became known as the “Delta Accord”
on December 15, 1994. As part of the Accord, the organizations were to
collaborate and utilize public input to develop a long-term, comprehensive
plan. The plan would, for the first time, integrate previously fragmented Delta
policy and management domains by interlinking four main resource goals:
ecosystem restoration, water quality, water supply and Delta levee
infrastructure. Developing solutions in one area were to include alternatives
that would resolve problems in all four resource areas (Scoonover
1999).
Over
the nearly six-year planning process, conflicts were numerous and newspapers
frequently reported CALFED’s impending demise. Sometimes the highly public
conflicts were among the different interest groups with high stakes in CALFED
outcomes; other times, different levels of government or different agencies
were embroiled in disagreements requiring the intervention from the Secretary
of the Interior and the Governor’s office.
CALFED
delivered its Record of Decision, which exceeded 7,000 pages, in August 2001.
The plan had a time line of over 30 years and covered nearly the entire length
of the nation’s third largest state. The
process to reach that point included hundreds of public meetings in compliance
with Federal Advisory Committee Act regulations. In addition, there were round
tables, symposiums, and standing and ad hoc technical and other committees
reporting to a core group of stakeholder representatives comprising the CALFED
Bay-Delta Advisory Committee (BDAC). BDAC in turn made recommendations to the
CALFED Policy Group, composed of representatives from the partner
organizations. The Governor and the Secretary of the Interior made the ultimate
decisions regarding long-term policy recommendations sanctioned by the Policy
Group.
Organizing to carry out specific
directives and respond to public demands evolved as political, technical and
scientific issues surfaced throughout plan development. The four common
resource programs were set early in the planning phase. Over time, CALFED added
various program elements—eventually 11 total—within the four common programs.
In the beginning, CALFED had a one-size-fits-all approach to carrying out the
eventual plan. Over the six-year planning phase, it became increasingly
apparent that such a strategy was unworkable. CALFED subsequently developed
five regions based on the distinct geographic and water development
characteristics of different parts of the program area. Planning and coordination
became even more intricate as CALFED developed into a network within a network:
the 11 program elements within the four common program goals were to be carried
out differently in each of five regions, all overseen by the umbrella network
of agencies.
CALFED’s
various executive directors faced significant challenges staying on top of
communication and coordination needs in such a setting. “Feeding the network”,
as one executive put it, was a juggling act that had political as well as
technical and managerial ramifications. Any oversight could result in either
internal or external stakeholders perceiving that the program was trying to
hide its actions or favoring one set of interests over others.
Networks
typically represent a collaborative arrangement of autonomous organizations.
CALFED possessed a number of attributes typical of traditional organizations including an organizational chart, job descriptions, and a
physical location in downtown Sacramento. CALFED did not have its own budget,
nor did it have its own personnel. Much of the program’s funding came through
USBR and DWR budgets during the planning phase, along with money from state
bond measures.
Most of the staff working at the CALFED offices were on loan from participating
agencies. Perhaps because of its extensive on-site
staffing, CALFED also developed its own outward looking, adaptive
organizational culture. At various times, external stakeholders as well as
agency partners talked about “the CALFED way” as a distinct approach to
planning.
A
drawback for CALFED’s status as a network without statutory authority was its
inability to sanction non-cooperative behaviors in meaningful ways. The network
as a discrete entity nevertheless had tools it could use to create and impose a
certain level of collaborative behavior. Three features in particular moderated
traditional self-interested agency actions. First, CALFED had the imprimatur of
top government executives who intervened several times during the planning
phase as a show of commitment to the program. Second, CALFED’s public process
“daylighted” what had historically been a set of closed, obscure policy making
processes. External and internal stakeholder actions were subject to a higher
degree of public awareness and scrutiny. The third characteristic was an
outgrowth of the first and second. Any group acting in a self-serving manner
that interfered with the CALFED process was likely to receive harsh media and
public response. Any agency acting in the same manner was likely to be
subjected to not only public disapproval but executive rebuke as well.
When different interests come together to forge solutions in
order to reach supraordinate goals—goals that go beyond more narrowly defined
ambitions that benefit a particular sector or organization—the process can
reduce tolerance for more limited perspectives (Weber 2003). Through its joint
decision making process, CALFED acquired a synthetic authority it used to
enforce norms of collaborative behavior. It was synthetic in that, while it did
not replace or override existing legal authorities possessed by any of the
partner agencies, it represented a momentum and weight synthesized from the
consensus of a majority of partners that made it difficult for dissenting
organizations to hold out on decisions for arbitrary reasons such as turf
defense.
The Agencies as Network Partners
The mandated nature of the network likely amplified the
types of non-collaborative behaviors that occur even in voluntary networks.
Network partners do not necessarily have the same goals or perspectives, and
this condition can be the source of internal friction and behaviors that
complicate joint problem solving (Alter and
Hage 1993; Termeer and Koppenjan 1997; Clark 1997; Goldsmith and Eggers 2004). Disagreements among CALFED
partners were most often the result of turf defense behaviors, culturally
entrenched perspectives, and narrow interpretations of what might be allowable
under a given organization’s administrative and legal requirements.
Partners need to come to the table with a genuine commitment
to finding mutual gains and have a vision of the possible, and that requires
acknowledging interdependence (Alter and
Hage 1993; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000). Some CALFED partners did not
acknowledge their interdependence; only that, under the status quo, the future
likely held additional impasses, lawsuits, and resource losses. For those agencies, especially early in the
evolution of the network, collaboration represented an opportunity to come to the
table, make their positions known, and demand that the other partners support
their particular perspectives. In other instances, organizations engaged in
self-interested goal displacement (Clark 1997), “gaming” the network by
encouraging aspects that would favor them and trying to discourage elements
they disagreed with, ignoring CALFED’s supraordinate goals. As a CALFED
participant put it, “Just because you agree that the way you were doing it in
the past isn’t working doesn’t mean this proposed approach is the one that you
want” (Lurie 2004). Given the refusal to
acknowledge interdependencies, a mandated process and entity may have been the
only way to bring the various organizations together.
While bringing together personnel from various agencies into
a single setting increased engagement and had particular advantages, discussed
elsewhere, it also provided an opportunity for colleague organizations to
divest themselves of full engagement. The phenomenon may have had a good deal
to do with CALFED’s presence as an organization in its own right. Some agencies
viewed CALFED as a separate entity responsible for preparing plans rather than
seeing themselves as integral to the process. Whether this was the result of
not being familiar with the special requirements of network participation or
whether it was a convenient interpretation was not clear. One agency in
particular declined to comment or respond during the collaborative planning
effort, stating it would pass judgment consistent with its narrower mission
only after it received a full draft. It took a good deal of negotiation to
bring it into the process in a more appropriate role.
The stakes were high for some external interest groups for
maintaining the status quo; for others, the stakes were high to produce new
policies and management decisions that would replace traditional power
balances. In many instances, the agencies were caught in the middle between their
dominant constituency groups[5]
and CALFED’s supraordinate goals. The concept of adaptive management[6]
was one such instance. It requires a level of management fluidity contrary to
more traditional, hierarchal management policies. Adaptive management can be a
politically dicey concept to advance due to lack of baseline ecosystem data
coupled with a perception that the strategy can be used to dodge accountability
and be a vehicle for unlimited spending.
Both external stakeholders and partner agencies were leery
of adaptive management; however, when CALFED embraced the strategy,
CALFED-as-organization acted as a buffer between agencies and skeptical
constituents. Agencies had an opportunity to work with the controversial
approach and be shielded by the explanation that it was a CALFED requirement
and not their own in-house decision.
There were times when CALFED benefited from the interplay
between external and internal stakeholders for enforcing collaborative
behaviors and moving agencies past potential impasses. For example, during the
planning phase, environmental groups pressured one of the agencies to adopt
more progressive policies regarding habitat management that helped the network
develop its ecosystem restoration program. Early after the Record of Decision
was signed, various external groups then used the plan to reinforce cooperation
among agencies by suggesting that the flow of benefits they were receiving
might be cut off as a result of a lack of cooperative behavior.
Despite instances of non-cooperative behaviors, CALFED was
an environment in which several agencies learned collaborative skills,
developed new perspectives, and forged new relationships. Several of the
internal and external stakeholder representatives had known one another and had
worked in different public- and private-sector settings. Their comfort level
with one another may have helped establish a progressive atmosphere and advance
collaborative norms. In addition, CALFED acted as a forum where people who
might not otherwise come to know one another became acquainted. As a
consequence, individuals became new resources for information and networking
beyond CALFED meetings, advancing norms of trust and reciprocity.
While
there was general agreement during the program planning stage that there needed
to be a formal entity in order to provide the program with some authority,
there was less agreement among various external and internal stakeholder over
how it could and should be developed. There were legal issues such as ensuring
equal state and federal voting participation without violating state and
federal sovereignty laws—an issue which was never settled—and political issues
in terms of representation on the entity’s advisory committee (Lurie 2004;
Little Hoover Commission 2005). At heart was the issue of
providing authority commensurate with responsibility.
The
determination was initially made that the State of California would go first
with legislation to establish a California Bay-Delta Authority (CBDA). The
federal government would then follow with similar legislation to create a joint
state-federal entity (Lurie 2004). After a first failed attempt, SB 1653
established the CBDA in 2002, and it became active in 2003 with sunset
provisions in the event appropriate authorization establishing the federal half
of CBDA’s state-federal co-governance structure did not ensue. Legislation
needed to authorize federal participation languished until 2004. When
legislation did pass, it did not provide federal agency voting authority based
on Bush administration resistance (Lurie 2004;
Little Hoover Commission 2005). At that point, there was a
distinct separation: CALFED was the massive, long-term program, and the CBDA
was the governance entity with two main objectives: oversight and coordination,
but with no authority to ensure compliance with program goals. Structural
design led to a number of fatal flaws, discussed below.
An
interviewee, asked to compare CALFED in 2000, when the Record of Decision was
signed, to CALFED in 2007, used the analogy of a skyrocket: “It took off
rapidly and achieved speed and altitude really fast and then sort of came
crashing right back down between 2000 and 2007.” It did so for a number of
significant reasons—political, financial, environmental, and organizational.
Moving from planning to implementation—from abstract, future-oriented functions
to on-the-ground action for carrying out visions—can be a rocky journey. CALFED
was no exception.
Federal
interest in CALFED changed in 2000 when George W. Bush became President (Lurie 2004;
Ingram 2006). It was not
clear how many of the CALFED partner agencies had truly embraced joint problem
solving, and several people perceived that no longer being under the watchful
eyes of a highly engaged White House and Secretary of Interior reduced
cooperative behaviors of some of the federal partners (Lurie 2004). One person
later reported that staff at one of the CALFED partner agencies stated, “Things
are different now. Under the former administration (Clinton), CALFED was
everything; under the new administration (Bush), CALFED is an interesting
idea.”
Different
interest groups did not seem able to maintain CALFED’s long view, and it was
not long after the ROD was signed that old patterns of distrust and accusations
began, followed by lawsuits and political maneuvering (Pitzer 2004,
2005). Despite
CALFED’s achievements, water contractors perceived that ecosystem restoration
was getting the lion’s share of attention and funding, while environmental
interests were of the opinion that CALFED was distinctly tilted toward upping
the amount of water to be pumped from the Delta (Pitzer 2004,
2005).
In
2005, things began unraveling for CALFED in a big way. Despite CALFED’s part in
a number of significant institutional changes, by 2005 the CBDA was being called
to task for expenditures of roughly $3 billion dollars when the various water
use sectoral interests were pointing to decreased Delta water quality and
serious issues with Delta smelt.
Early in the year, biologists’ reports indicated
that four Delta fish species were in decline. The Delta smelt, a protected
species under state and federal laws and considered a Delta ecosystem health
indicator, had dropped to its lowest recorded population level (Martin 2005). The report caught CALFED’s science program off
guard, leading to accusations that CALFED lacked accountability and appropriate
focus.
Budget
issues touched off additional accusations. CALFED’s original financing was to
be roughly split among federal, state and local funding sources. That plan did
not materialize. Instead, roughly 50 percent of the program’s funding for its
first six years came from state bonds and California’s general fund. Funding
from CALFED’s previous supporting bond measures were estimated to start running
out in 2006, and state support, which had been fairly solid during California’s
“tech boom,” dwindled along with tech industry revenue declines (Taugher 2005). As one interviewee put it,
CALFED was everyone’s Santa when its goodie bag was loaded; however, when there
appeared to be no benefits left to dole out, cooperation and support
deteriorated.
With
serious budget shortfalls ahead, CALFED worked with many of its stakeholders to
prepare a new 10-year, $8 billion finance plan that. The plan, however, lacked
solid funding sources. State legislators
went beyond criticizing the plan as being unrealistic; they cut CALFED’s
funding as censure for what one legislator charged as lack of fiscal
discipline. On the heels of the budget maelstrom, in May 2005, CALFED’s
director and its chief scientist both resigned. (Shaw 2005;
Nichols and Shaw 2005). Governor
Schwarzenegger proposed an audit of CALFED finances and operations as part of
his May Budget Revision for fiscal year 2005-2006. The audit was to comprise
three independent, cooperative reviews. By the last quarter of 2005, there had
been four CALFED reviews covering governance, budget and finance, and
stakeholder perceptions, priorities and expectations regarding internal
business practices (Legislative
Analyst's Office 2006).
When
the reviews were completed, the overall tone appeared to be that CALFED and the
CDBA had become rudderless. One interviewee referred to the CBDA as a “knitting
society,” implying that there was far more talk than effective action.
Nevertheless, there had been significant achievements, and there were
recommendations to strengthen and refocus the program according to The Little
Hoover Commission, an independent, bi-partisan state oversight agency, which
audited CALFED’s governance structure. Among its recommendations, the
Commission advocated that the CBDA be abolished.
Among
other critical observations, the report noted that CALFED participants assumed
the ROD was sufficient to guide solving Bay-Delta problems, leading to creation
of an entity fashioned for oversight and coordination but without policy
setting direction or program implementing authority. Furthermore, it lacked
authority to mediate disputes regarding direction and action among what had
expanded to a group of 25 implementing stakeholder agencies and myriad external
stakeholder interests. Lines of responsibility, authority and accountability in
the CBDA structure were unclear or non-existent (Little Hoover
Commission 2005). Underscoring
CBDA’s unfathomable authority structure, one Little Hoover Commission member
remarked during hearings, “I can’t find anybody to hang” (Furillo 2005).
A solution, according to the report, was to replace the existing
structure with one possessing “clear authority and consolidated responsibility”
(Little Hoover Commission 2005: Cover letter to governor).
Late
in 1995, the CBDA, following CALFED audit findings, voted to restructure itself
contingent on creating legislation to amend its 2003 enabling legislation (Weiser 2005). Over the next year, CALFED
issued a new action plan calling for dissolution of the CBDA that prompted one
state lawmaker to remark, "I think you probably turn the machine off and
harvest the organs…" (Taugher 2006). As part of 2006 budget legislation, the CBDA was defunded as
a state agency, although the board was left intact. The 71 CBDA personnel were
reassigned to a combination of CALFED implementing agencies and other state
agencies and would answer to the Resources Secretary. CALFED was subsequently
established as a California Resources Agency program (Taugher 2006).
Once
legislation created the CBDA as a state entity where dollars could go, it put
the CALFED program into a competitive position with the CALFED member agencies.
Using its quasi-authority for oversight and coordination added to rising
frictions. CALFED was empowered to review and improve budget change proposals
and demand that documents such as annual program plans follow its template and
schedule. Different state and federal agencies perceived these demands as turf
invasion and imperiousness leading to further resentment.
Interestingly,
CALFED and the CBDA created tensions when it should have been their objectives
to reduce them. An interviewee perceived that, absent a formal authority, the
agencies understood the need to “…roll up [their] sleeves to work together to
make this happen.” There was a tacit assumption that a formal organization
would act as a sort of collaboration monitor and director, but that did not
occur.
CALFED is now
a state-driven program. The strong
collaborative network and buy-in so essential to developing the 2000 ROD has
ceased to exist, although there is still a good deal of collaborative planning
and action. CALFED has receded in both importance and visibility not only
because of its loss of political and organizational status, but because new
threats and concerns not well addressed in the ROD have suddenly reached
prominence.
The Delta smelt crisis certainly
focused attention on the overall health of the Delta as the source of water
critical to California’s economy. At the same time, however, other elements
have become even more threatening in terms of economic disruption: climate
change and levee failure. One interviewee spoke of how little the impact of
climate change figured into CALFED discussions and the ROD. Although there was
criticism with regard to CALFED’s failure to anticipate the impact of these
issues on Delta resources (Little Hoover
Commission 2005), some believe
otherwise. One interviewee suggested it was not for lack of attention, but for
lack of information and understanding in 2000. Scientific understanding coupled
with modeling effects evolved rapidly since the ROD was signed. Public
attention to global warming has also evolved. This likely makes Delta impacts
as a result of changing precipitation and rising ocean levels more salient
across interest groups and in political arenas.
Levee
stability, one of CALFED’s original four objectives, received the least
attention and funding in CALFED’s approved plans (Pitzer 2005). Furthermore, in-Delta
agricultural interests used political channels to make original CALFED plans to
purchase and retire lands at high risk due to potential levee failure a
third-rail issue, despite warnings from various experts that catastrophic
failure due to earthquake is a high probability (Pitzer 2006). The graphic images of Hurricane
Katrina’s aftermath suddenly moved potential levee failure from low-probability
abstraction to urgent reality due to the state’s economic dependence on the
Delta’s water delivery system.
New immediacy
regarding Delta issues led to the governor’s creation of a Delta Vision blue
ribbon task force and strategic planning process in 2006. Its recommendations
will presumably go beyond CALFED objectives to include issues such as land use
and management practices. It was not clear from interviews just how the Delta
Vision process links with CALFED programs. One interviewee referred to it as a
sort of “son of CALFED” strategy.
Despite
criticisms leveled against it, various stakeholders still support the CALFED
vision and understand the necessity of a comprehensive, long-term, integrated
program for managing the Delta and protecting the heart of California’s water
supply system (Pitzer 2004,
2005, 2006). One
interviewee noted that those who point to crises such as the Delta smelt as
indicative of CALFED’s fecklessness overlook how much worse the situation might
have been in CALFED’s absence.
At
the heart of CALFED’s disintegration was, perhaps, a misunderstanding regarding
the critical dynamics of structural design. That observation, however, needs
qualification. The Little Hoover Commission (2005) reports:
…CALFED’s drafters worried that
agencies would retreat to their old ways when high-level attention shifted
elsewhere or when complex problems arose. The governance structure was intended
in part to keep agencies from closing off lines of communication, putting their
own priorities above CALFED’s goals, and resorting to turf wars to resolve
issues. The inoculation against these problems was a shared governance
structure charged with coordination, oversight and transparency. However,
legislation enacted to institutionalize that structure scaled back the strong
joint commission proposed in the ROD (p. 61).
State
statute gives the CBDA little authority over state agencies and federal law
gives it none over federal agencies. Federal law authorizes federal agencies to
participate in CALFED, but restricts their involvement in CBDA to that of
non-voting members (p. 63).
The
original genius of CALFED was to provide a mechanism for agencies to coordinate
their actions and resolve disputes…But participants said the traditional
agencies now work within program elements that have become new silos—not
flexible or integrated in ways that would allow agencies to share talents,
resources and authorities toward a common goal. (p. 63)
An interviewee
seemed to confirm that formalizing the network—at least in the way it was
done—may have aided it its demise: “I think part of it is that people did not
think clearly through the evolution of CALFED as a idea and an organization. In
the pre-ROD days, and even for a while after the ROD, CALFED was this informal
organization that existed and was able to do things only because all of the
CALFED agencies collectively agreed to empower it to do so. It didn’t really
exist.”
Being
able to design a viable structure for providing authority commensurate with
responsibility is not just an organizational or a legal issue, it is a
political issue as well (Derthick and
Bombardier 1974). Based on
earlier interviews, there were concerns regarding the responsibility/authority
nexus for CALFED oversight prior to CBDA legislation, and even prior to the
CALFED ROD. It is more than likely that political power and resistance, as much as legal constraints, contributed to
the design of a governance structure that had fatal flaws.
Similar
political resistance and maneuvering led to program actions and ROD agreements
that could not be enforced or prevent post-agreement defection among
stakeholders. One interviewee spoke of each action becoming a mini-rod
requiring additional negotiation. When many ROD-sanctioned projects moved
forward, interest groups made new positional demands, as if pre-ROD
negotiations had never taken place. Another mentioned the tenuous nature of
CALFED’s “handshake agreements” rather than formal contractual agreements that
spelled out mutual dependencies in terms of benefits that would disappear if
one side defected, thereby providing mutual incentives to remain committed. The
Little Hoover Commission report (2005) noted the difficulty, reporting,
“…drafters of the ROD did not expect that negotiation to be the last difficult
task” (p. 37)
A
drop-off in political attention and expectations also influenced collaborative
attitudes and governance possibilities. As stated earlier, the Bush
administration made it clear it would not approve of any legislation giving
federal agencies voting power in the CBDA. Although federal authorization in
any form was absent in 2002, post-ROD splintering had already begun, prompting
a stakeholder to suggest, “We need the Governor and the Secretary of the
Interior cracking a whip over the rest of us, reminding us that the ground
rules have changed” (Water
Education Foundation 2002).
CALFED was somewhat unique among collaborations in that it
had a combination of dedicated and on-loan staff from participating agencies
until the CBDA was abolished and staff was reassigned in 2006. One interviewee
spoke how having CALFED staff on loan from partner agencies, and then changing
that dynamic, likely influenced collaborative behaviors: “I think it was partly
structural, because their own agencies were putting them in there, so you
really did have a mixing of all the different agencies. They had an investment
in the program because it was their own people they were loaning. And those
people were reporting back to their own agencies, so there was kind of almost
automatic buy-in because it was a collaborative effort of donated people from
different agencies. Once you had CALFED, they weren’t working for their
agencies anymore; they were working for CALFED. So, you kind of lost that
stake. It was kind of like, ‘Well, here’s CALFED, and here’s me.’ Now they’re
two separate entities, instead of ‘I’m a shareholder’ or ‘I’m a partner in this
enterprise.’ And they started complaining about CALFED.”
The
CALFED story illustrates how a number of cascading events can work as positive
feedback that gathers momentum for creating new institutional arrangements (Baumgartner
2006). It also
demonstrates how a new set of variables, coupled with persistent institutional
tendencies to undermine network sustainability (Bryson,
Crosby, and Stone 2006), can stop
momentum and diminish or unravel innovation.
All
of those interviewed agreed that the CALFED program is much diminished compared
to early expectations, power and performance. There was disagreement over
whether it will eventually collapse altogether. The network has effectively
disappeared, and the program is scaled down from its original vision, but the
CALFED legacy casts a meaningful institutional shadow.
Reports and interview responses indicated that many partner
agencies had snapped back to pre-CALFED turf defense behaviors, stiff-arming
collaborative efforts. Nevertheless, some partner agencies, such as the
California Department of Water Resources and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, have established extremely good working relationships, replacing
historical distrust and hostility, as a direct result of CALFED.
The Environmental Water Account (EWA)[7] is a CALFED innovation
standout. As with many aspects CALFED, it has been controversial. New
understanding of the Delta ecosystem, and perceived lack of efficiency given
the costliness of account water, especially at public expense, has created
detractors. Nevertheless, different interests believe it will survive and
become more efficient and effective as science and technical improvements
refine its function.
The CALFED independent science program is a other innovation that
will likely continue. As with the Environmental Water Account, the science
program has critics. Part of the criticism may come from those who rely on what
one person called “combat scientists” – those who advocate for a particular
perspective. One interviewee explained, “They’re using more peer review…you’ve
got to do it according to scientific standards if you want to be taken
seriously…That’s a lasting accomplishment of importance.”
Much of CALFED’s
legacy to date is in the form of technical accomplishments, but they need to be
viewed in the context of other important institutional changes. CALFED has
added to water supply reliability through conjunctive use, [8]
additional groundwater storage and other cooperative programs and efficiencies
that translate into hundreds of thousands of additional acre-feet of water. One
interviewee suggested some might argue that certain efficiencies would have
occurred in CALFED’s absence, but that CALFED accelerated those gains through
coordinated actions and funding. CALFED’s Ecosystem Restoration Program,
another technical accomplishment, is responsible for many funded conservation
actions that have improved habitat and species’ health.
Many
CALFED achievements are the result of institutionalizing systems thinking
regarding the Central Valley river system and beyond as a substitute for
traditional incremental, uncoordinated project design and implementation among
Delta administrative and regulatory agencies and their constituents. An
interviewee noted that this new, CALFED-initiated systems approach means that
planning, project implementation and expenditures will occur in a smarter and
more integrated way than would have taken place in the absence of CALFED.
The
Lessons of CALFED
CALFED richly illustrates the paradoxical view that
institutions act as mediums of both opportunity and constraint for network
organizations, particularly those operating in institutional environments where
conformance with protocols that demonstrate legitimacy to outside actors is
critical to survival (Powell and DiMaggio 1991; Scott 2003; Bryson, Crosby, and
Stone 2006).
There may be additional factors influencing long-term sustainability with
respect to natural resource management networks, such as high conflict
potential at multiple internal and external interfaces, political visibility,
problem complexity and scientific and technical uncertainty.
Despite institutional changes that provide opportunities for
new ways of organizing, networks face a number of external and internal issues
affecting sustainability. Changes in political party dominance and agendas, or
what voters will back through funding instruments, means institutional and
financial resources can be highly unstable, undermining network linkages and
performance (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006). CALFED’s early, heady days included strong political
interest at high levels during a time of federal and state financial prosperity
and significant voter supported bond approvals. Over time, however, all of
those elements changed—political interest and support waned, government
deficits rose and revenues plummeted, and bond monies began to run out. At that
point, CALFED lacked institutional support to pursue different revenue sources.
Network creation, participation and management require
different skills and perspectives. Networks’ strengths comprise knowledge
management; relationship building, which not only reduces mistrust but
translates into expanded knowledge-as-resource availability; resource and
authority pooling for potentially greater efficiency and effectiveness; and
producing new approaches, processes and alliances for framing problems and
creating solutions (Agranoff and McGuire 2003; Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006;
Keast et al. 2004; Lurie 2004; Kettl 2006; Kickert, Klijn, and Koppenjan 1997).
Due to the interlinked nature of planning and action,
failure to understand fundamental differences in many network functions,
dynamics and outputs may lead to continued policy and management expectations
that hinder network performance (Keast et al. 2004; Kettl 2006). CALFED management and the creation of the CBDA demonstrate
how this lack of understanding regarding distinctive network performance and
needs can misguide and potentially cripple network action.
Institutional environments that confer legitimacy through
adherence to legal, regulatory and normative demands and expectations are
particularly challenging for collaborative processes and structures (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006). Setting aside the rigidity of legal and regulatory
requirements, networks can run afoul of legitimating conformance to
accountability and structural standards. Accountability appears to be a
significant and ongoing challenge for non-hierarchical, shared decision-making
processes and entities (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006; Weber 2003; Kettl 2006). It is often unclear to both internal and external
stakeholders who is in charge. One of CALFED’s most serious legitimacy
breaches, and the one that led to the CBDA’s elimination, was its
accountability. That stemmed, in part, from misunderstandings regarding what
sort of structure was needed to guard against questions of accountability.
Another legitimating norm is structure. Hierarchy and
autonomy, or boundaries, signify unitary decision-making authority, stability,
reliability and accountability. These attributes are hallmarks of public-sector
organizations (Kettl 2006; Kettl 2002; Wilson 1989). Complex, interlinked problems require complex, interlinked
organizational forms with fluid, flexible boundaries, which currently fly in
the face of institutional norms for organizational structure. This can threaten
network viability: “The network or collaboration is not automatically regarded
by others—insiders or outsiders—as a legitimate organizational entity because
it is less understandable and recognizable than more traditional forms, such as
bureaucratic structures” (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006). The probability that traditional bureaucratic structures
will be replaced anytime soon is unlikely (Agranoff 2006). Again, CALFED and CBDA represented structures
that neither insiders nor outsiders readily understood, which probably
contributed to malfunctions and sustainability threats (Lurie 2004).
The CALFED/CBDA experience suggests that, as visibility,
responsibility and perceived power rises, so does the demand for institutional
requirements of accountability. Those involved with such efforts therefore need
to be highly cognizant of the need to ensure structures can provide this
critical element.
Theoretical
Implications
Powell and DiMaggio (1991:188) writing about institutions,
asserted, “Our contribution to the study
of organizations will be greatly enriched if we are able to discern the sources
of institutional patterns, their subsequent elaboration and potency, the degree
to which these forces are sustained, and the kinds of setting where they
operate with the greatest resonance. This agenda is consonant with the core
insights of the institutional approach: modern organizations are more likely to
arise, expand, and survive in those settings where the social environmental
creates and sustains the basic building blocks of formal, rational
organization.”
Networks put a new wrinkle in institutional elements of
rational organizations. There is still much to be learned about how
public-sector networks navigate both the persistence and vicissitudes of their
institutional environment. Natural resource management networks may occupy a
niche that carries challenges beyond those of other networks, especially where
the size of the ecosystem to be managed further increases organizational and
management complexity. More research is needed into how issues such as
geographic scope, problem complexity, scientific and technical uncertainty with
regard to problem framing and solution development, high visibility and high
stakes with attendant political wrangling and maneuvering, and additional
conflict interfaces affect natural resource policy and management networks in
ways that, perhaps, do not affect other public-sector networks. As the CALFED
experience demonstrates, despite exogenous shocks, or punctuated equilibrium,
that opens institutions to new ways of organizing, other factors can reverse
gains and/or develop a new equilibrium between the old and the envisioned new.
Understanding the particular interplay of those factors in natural resource
networks may help predict problems in ways that help natural resource network
designers and managers.
There can be little doubt that networks are making inroads
with respect to natural resource problem solving and governance; however, they
face significant institutional challenges. Perhaps the most significant
challenge is a fundamental mismatch: The need for complex structures with fluid
boundaries and dynamic adaptation capabilities has bureaucratic structures
reflecting the imprint of another era as network building blocks. Even if
better structural models are available from competitive/technical environments,
it is highly unlikely that they will displace current structures (Agranoff 2006).
Scholars and practitioners can benefit from an ongoing
research agenda focusing on the institutional mismatch aspect of natural
resource management networks. A robust inventory of case studies examining the
institutional influences on both success stories and failures may go a long way
toward understanding these competing institutional demands. Doing so will add
to understanding how to better sustain natural resource networks through
careful and well informed design and management.
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[1] For purposes of this paper, the term natural resource management is assumed to include ecosystem management.
[2] CALFED stands for the CALifornia state agencies and the FEDeral agencies with regulatory or management authority in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta of Northern California.
[3] In contrast to the biophysical environment, which is the focus of resource management agencies, the organizational environment referred to here is defined as the range of outside influences with which agencies interact that affect how they set goals and carry out activities (Scott 2003; Morgan 1997).
[4] In 2000, California’s population was projected to nearly double to over 63 million by 2040 (McClurg and Newcom 1998).
[5] For example, the federal Bureau of Reclamation tends to be dominated by agricultural and urban interests while the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service has environmental interests as a dominant constituency.
[6] Adaptive management acknowledges uncertainty during planning and treats management decisions as experiments. As new knowledge is developed in the course of implementation, actions are adapted accordingly. (Cortner and Moote 1999; Gunderson, Holling, and Light 1995).
[7] Under an agreement made part of the Record of Decision, five CALFED agencies purchased water from willing sellers, mostly south of the Delta, to create the original EWA assets. When the water is wheeled to the Delta to make up for low flows at critical times that might otherwise require shutting down the pumps and limiting water contract allocations in order to protect threatened and endangered fish species.
[8] The coordinated use of surface and ground water systems, managed such that groundwater storage is maximized to be draws on during dry conditions when surface water supplies are under stress or unavailable.