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Confluence: April 2002, Vol. 4, No. 3
Interesting Individuals

John Meagher has served for the past 21 years as the Director of EPA's Wetlands Division, which administers the Five-Star program as well as various grants to aid in wetland protection and has responsibility for regulatory authorities under the Clean Water Act. Meagher, who holds and undergraduate degree in civil engineering and a graduate degree in environmental engineering, has spent 29 years with the EPA. He recently spoke with CONFLUENCE about the value US EPA places on partnerships and the future of partner-based organizations.

CONFLUENCE: Developing and nurturing partnerships is becoming a common practice for government agencies. Many federal grant programs encourage the formation of partnerships and many locally-led organizations seem to be composed of aggregations of organizations and agencies seeking a common goal. What are the advantages, from the agency/granting side of the equation, to encouraging partnerships?

MEAGHER: Solutions to many of the nation's environmental challenges will require more of a partnership approach now than it has in the past. Problems such as what landowners apply to farms or lawns and what landowners do with important resources, such as wetlands, on their property mean that we can no longer rely exclusively on a top-down federal permitting approach. We need to bring in people at the local level such as landowners, corporate sponsors, citizen groups, members of the academic community, and local governments who will be the most effective in solving these problems and developing a vision for their watershed. Working with local partnerships increases the federal government's responsiveness to local needs.

CONFLUENCE: What sorts of successes can the Five-Star program cite as indications that partnerships pay off?

MEAGHER: One of the indicators that we rely on to track our progress is acres of wetlands lost per year. Through the mid-1970s we were losing 460,000 acres of wetlands per year. Through the late 1990s that figure was down to 60,000 acres per year. While we don't have the information base to gauge how much of this is attributable specifically to partnership programs, restoration programs, or regulation at the federal, state, or local levels, we can say with some confidence that a combination of these tools has enabled us to make this fairly substantial progress.

CONFLUENCE: From the agency perspective, is there a downside to encouraging partnerships?

MEAGHER: We can't rely on partnerships as a panacea in terms of all environmental problems. There has to be an investment made by each partner as well as an understanding among partners of their differing perspectives. It of course takes a great deal of time and effort to reconcile many different points of view. But despite these potential difficulties, partnerships are nonetheless proving to be extremely beneficial, especially as a way to offset limits in funding and staffing in federal, state, and local governments. In a partnership, no single party has to contribute such a major amount of funding or staff as they would have to working alone.

CONFLUENCE: From your experiences, what can locally-led groups do to strengthen their partnerships and encourage greater participation from their partners?

MEAGHER: Outreach is important for the success of these projects. Groups must let community members know what they are doing. Restoration projects can serve as a nice focal point in a community because different people in the community will appreciate various aspects of the project. But in order for this community support to gain a foothold, groups must first make an effort to inform and educate the community. Setting up tours, meeting with local officials, sponsoring activities and events related to the watershed, and notifying the local press are all great ways to achieve greater community support and involvement.

CONFLUENCE: Are partnerships a fad or are they here to stay?

MEAGHER: Restoration projects have been popping up all over the country. All of these projects require very dedicated people. While it is difficult to maintain commitment to a project in a busy world, the EPA hopes that these projects will continue, and believes that the partnership approach is taking root as a way to do business in the US.

As a final note, it is important for people to realize that the EPA looks to partnerships to respond to an array of challenges, including monitoring wetlands, commenting on regulatory processes, restoration, watershed planning, and clean-up projects. The role of watershed groups in all of these activities is critical for the successful management of environmental issues.

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