Communicating River Data to the Public: the Animas River Community Forum Monitoring Gaps Analysis Committee Chara J Ragland, Ph.D., Querencia Environmental Ann Oliver, Animas Watershed Partnership 2nd Annual Conference on Environmental Conditions of the Animas and San Juan Watersheds with Emphasis on Gold King Mine and Other Mine Waste Issues 21 June, 2017

Common Themes: Response to Gold King Mine Spill Breakdown in notification chain – from initial to internal to external notification Multi-agency coordination groups facilitate response Public information responses vary Thus….

Animas River Community Forum In response to the Gold King Mine spill incident, the Animas River Community Forum came together. It’s purpose is to: promote communication, coordination and collaborative action; foster public confidence; support resiliency in our communities; and enhance planning, improved public safety and health for the future All while honoring the institutional authorities and decision making of governmental and community organizations.

Animas River Community Forum: Members

Animas River Community Forum: Outcomes to Date Emergency response improvement Capture lessons learned and facilitate dialog Web page development Monitoring Gaps Analysis Committee * Community and Stakeholder Engagement and Education Committee

Monitoring Gaps Analysis Committee: Purpose A collaborative process: To identify and make available timely, useful, accessible information for decision makers and the public; and To tell accurate stories about our resources and community in order to build a resilient community that is able to respond to avoid and/or respond to disasters that impact the environment, economy and quality of life.

ARCF Gaps Team Big Picture Process to Get to Information/Decisions/Stories Define Scope 1 Existing/Gap 2 Obtain 3 Access 4 Analyze 5 Communicate 6 Create Monitoring Collaboration Geographic Scope: Animas Watershed Data Objective: Baseline Replicable Resilient Community - Response Adequate to Avoid Disaster Data to Information to Decision/Story Survey to identify monitoring questions… Final report... Data Swap…

ARCF Gaps Analysis Committee: Define Scope Data Objective: Baseline information to address questions related to public health, public concerns, and ecosystem resilience. Geographic Scope: Animas River (including tributaries) to the state line. Temporal Scope: Inventory baseline information both historical and current. Identify priorities for new monitoring based on questions. Initial step: Survey designed to define baseline questions.

ARCF Gap Analysis Survey How do you use the Animas River? What segment of the Animas River are you most concerned about? How would you rate the health or resilience of the Animas River? Why? What concerns do you have about the Animas River regarding: public health; health or resilience of the river; and other concerns? What information would help you evaluate those concerns? How would you prefer to access information about your concerns? Who should be included in this conversation?

Who responded to the survey…. Female: 41% Male: 59% 188 total responses

Primary concerns… Number of coded responses to questions of public health, river health or resilience, and general concerns.

Public Health Concerns… I am concerned about: “heavy metals” “exposure” “long term effects”

River health and resilience concerns… The Animas is “getting loved to death” “she is a tough river”

Survey Results: Monitoring Priorities Monitoring data should serve various purposes: river use (daily and weekly); river health (quarterly or yearly); and agricultural use (quarterly. Short term priority: Is the river safe? - for river users in real time. Long term priority: Is the river healthy? - overall health of physical and biological parameters. Trends over longer periods of time (e.g. decades). - address changes in the river. Quality of life questions should be addressed through monitoring.

Survey Results: Communication Priorities Data sharing: cooperative and collaborative. Transparency of monitoring methods: multiple sources and reliable. Accessibility of data: online, news media, understandable. Usefulness: what does it mean for people’s use and enjoyment of river, and what are the ‘implementation’ factors?

Monitoring Exchange: Goals To develop a monitoring collaboration and information system that makes relevant data available to keep our community resilient (avoid crises) and able to respond to a crises (beyond Gold King spill). Use existing resources and efforts to build community capacity. Provide the right information to the right people at the right time for timely response and retain quality of life.

Monitoring Exchange Objectives Opportunity to learn from each other regarding current and on going monitoring efforts Share about this effort with data providers Gather the information today or soon from data providers for this effort on

Report: 10 Questions and Potential Monitoring Indicators

Summary: ARCF Monitoring Gaps Analysis Committee ARCF Gap Analysis is a community driven process to communicate relevant information and data Long term process. This is the beginning of something that can expand to larger boundaries Building community through collaborative network Goal is no longer response to Gold King Mine spill, but working towards watershed resilience