Browsing by Author "Steiger-Meister, Kaitlin"

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    The Role of Local Stakeholders in Water Resource Management: Characterization and Diffusion of Minnesota Lake Improvement Districts
    (University of Minnesota, 2009-08) Steiger-Meister, Kaitlin; Becker, Dennis R.
    The Lake Improvement District Statute of 1976 (Chapter 378 MN Statutes 2005, § 103B.501 to 103B.581) and resulting Lake Improvement Districts represent one of Minnesota’s lesser-known citizen-driven water resource management initiatives. Loosely coordinated through the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) Division of Waters, diffusion of the program has been slow. MN DNR records from 2009 indicate that after over three decades there are only 32 active Lake Improvement Districts (LIDs) in Minnesota. Using LIDs as an inroad to study the connection between water policy and citizen participation in water stewardship activities, the project’s findings expose the strengths and weaknesses of LIDs in structuring citizen participation in lake management activities. These findings broadly inform future water policies aiming to have citizen participation in water resource management activities as a policy outcome. This research is timely as Minnesota, with the assistance of the University of Minnesota, begins to build a 25-year framework to guide the protection, conservation and enhancement of surface water quality and quantity. A key finding is that the citizens who attempted LID formation often found themselves attempting to be recognized stakeholders in a complex water governance system that they perceived to be as impenetrable as it was intimidating. As indicated by project interviews, it took a threat to either their homes or way of life to motivate citizens to overcome their aversion to policy and government to pursue formation of a LID and take responsibility for local lake management. Findings therefore provide a useful starting point for understanding citizen perceptions of the state’s water governance system and perceived challenges to actively participating in surface water management activities.
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    When ripples becomes waves : exploring the role of policy in the creation and coordination of citizen participation in Minnesota‟s water governance landscape.
    (2010-07) Steiger-Meister, Kaitlin
    The term "environmental governance" is used to describe the increasingly collaborative nature of environmental natural resource policy creation and implementation that incorporates a diversity of third party actors ranging from government agencies to the profit sector, nonprofit sector, and civic society. Though the definition of environmental governance emphasizes collaborative efforts that include citizen participants, there is still a lack of information examining what the citizen perspective and experience is in collaborative natural resource management activities. Moving away from an emphasis on the components of successful citizen groups, this project reframes the issue of creating and coordinating citizen participation as a function of the institutional arrangements in which they are situated. Specifically, this project examines how local governmental units created out of statutory law to address local fresh water resource management issues interact with federal, state, and county agencies working in the field of fresh water conservation. Special attention is given to Minnesota's Lake Improvement District program, one of the state's lesser known citizen-driven water resource management initiatives, to highlight barriers to citizen participation from a grassroots perspective. Using a qualitative case study approach that includes in-depth interviews with citizens, government officials, and agency representatives, this project seeks to develop environmental policies that better coordinate water management activities across varying spatial scales (local, regional, national). Project findings offer insight to policymakers regarding the potential institutional hurdles that may appear when attempting to implement citizen participation practices into a previously established water governance system.