AHR Kick-Off Meeting Summary March 5, 1997

AHR Kick-Off 

  Meeting Summary 

March 5, 1997

Introductions/Background: Dana Minerva opened the meeting by providing background on the American Heritage Rivers (AHR) Initiative.  In the President’s State of the Union report, he announced that he would designate ten rivers as American Heritage Rivers “to help communities alongside them revitalize their waterfronts and clean up pollution.”  In addition, the President has asked his cabinet to improve federal assistance to all river communities, including but not limited to those adjacent to Heritage Rivers.

EPA is represented on the interagency steering committee as well as a smaller core group of agencies that are on the steering commitee.  Because there is a lot of expertise, throughout EPA, that is useful to river communities, an internal EPA workgroup has been formed to integrate this expertise into the AHR Initiative.

Bob Wayland provided background on stakeholder meetings that will take place in the next two months to help shape the program.  A series of informal listening lunches and a one-day stakeholder meeting are planned to occur in March.  Thus far, the public particpation has been limited to within the DC metro area.  EPA and several other agencies are pushing to get this to extend outside the beltway.

Some of the products that the AHR Initiative will offer, which must still be developed, include a catalogue of tools that communities can use to help revitalize and protect their rivers, a smaller more focused “River Tool Box” which gets communities started with the basics to revitalize their river, a talent bank of people who can provide expertise, and a private call to action to get the private sector participating in and supporting Heritage Rivers.  EPA is the chair of the interagency tools team.  The EPA team members are encouraged to participate, particularly those outside of OW.  The first meeting is being held at 10:00am on Friday, March 7 in 709 Fairchild.  EPA has also established a hotline for the public’s comments on the AHR Iniative 1-888-40RIVER.

Discussion:  When the meeting was turned over to open discussion some good suggestions were offered, including:

• conduct regional stakeholder meetings, using EPA and other Federal facilites

• take advantage of the opportunity to get other agencies more involved in the watershed protection approach

• regional EPA AHR folks could collaborate with their counterparts in other Federal agencies.

• refocus Sustainable Development Challenge Grants to give priority to Heritage Rivers

• get States involved in AHR Initiative

If you have any suggestions or concerns regarding AHR Initiative, please feel free to email these to Louise Wise or Bob Wayland.

Summary of Assignments 

WHO

WHAT 

WHEN

OWOW

List of regional AHR representatives for other agencies

ASAP

OWOW

Final AHR talking points

March 14

EPA AHR Team

Email Chris Lewicki any additions to list of non Federal stakeholders for the public meeting.  Chris emailed you the draft list on March 5.

Thursday March 6, 12pm.  

EPA AHR Team

Email Chris Lewicki any comments on draft AHR principles and guidelines.  Chris emailed you these on March 6.

Friday March 7

WHO

WHAT 

WHEN

EPA AHR Team

Email Chris any suggestions you have for facilitators for the public stakeholder meeting in Washington, DC.

Wednesday March 12

EPA AHR Team

Email Chris names of any tools that you have (we need this especially from those outside of OW) that could be useful for communities trying to revitalize their rivers and surrounding watersheds.  Please break these tools down into the  categories that are depicted in the file attached to this message.   

Wednesday March 19

EPA AHR Team

Email Chris Lewicki any conferences, meetings, or other events (through December 1997) where there could be an opportunity to reach out to the public and discuss status of AHR Iniative and ask the public a series of questions to get their input into the AHR Initiative.  Please put these events into the Wordperfect table that Chris mailed to you on March 6.

Wednesday March 19

Regions

Email Chris Lewicki if you are interested in hosting a regional stakeholder meeting by mid April.  See post script, below, for more info.

ASAP

Next Steps

Next internal EPA AHR workgroup meeting is March 19 from  3:00-4:30 in 1209 East Tower.

Conference call code for next meeting will be emailed soon

Post Script

The Federal interagency steering committee has asked EPA to host regional stakeholder meetings to receive public input into the AHR Initiative.  These will be one day meetings and must be held by mid-April.  The meetings would consist of break-out sessions of 10-15 people each, where participants would be asked to answer several questions determined by the interagency core workgroup.  At the end of the breakout sessions, facilitators would report back to all meeting particpants on the results of each breakout session.  If any regions are interested in hosting such a meeting, please email Chris Lewicki, ASAP.  Region 5's, Bill Franz, generously volunteered during the kick-off meeting.  Thanks Bill!