ORGANIZATION OF THE WATER POLICY PROCESS “FROM THE BOTTOM UP”: THE RED RIVER VALLEY OF THE NORTH EXPERIMENT1

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The water policy process should weight and integrate a full range of social, economic and environmental considerations in defining the public interest. In practice, isolated elements of this process are performed by the existing legislative, administrative and judicial processes. Neither individually nor together do they do all of it. Until the political process defines the public interest, perceptions will persist that we do not have national water policy or a unified process for developing it.We have yet to mount a legitimate organizational attack on the problem of policy coordination and institutional fragmentation on a national scale. Experience with the U.S. Water Resources Council and Title II river basin commissions taught that we must develop a better understanding of the roles of public policy and policy leadership in a democratic society. We must specifically go beyond putting administrative agencies together to talk about water management to putting the main constituencies together to talk about water policy.The political and economic leadership of the Red River Valley of the North have undertaken to provide unified policy direction for water use and management for their 60,000‐square‐mile region. The guiding concept was provided by the author, who also intervened in the role of organizer. An enthusiastic constituency formed for the process when it was established that the process began at the local level and it was the Valley's own responsibility to make it work.This paper describes the approach used to organize the policy process in the Red River Valley and analyzes the response. It concludes that the bottom‐up philosophy of this administration will readily take root if prototype initiatives like the Red can be undertaken elsewhere and if our political and economic leadership, who must take the initiative, receive guidance and support at the local level and on a regional scale, It concludes that the “basin approach” will prove valid if “local statesmen” acquire the means to institutionalize it.