Page 181 - Yucaipa Sustainable Groundwater Management Agency - Yucaipa SGMA

Relevant Experience Mojave Integrated Regional Water Management
 Public workshops Plan Update, Mojave Water Agency,
 Identified community needs and San Bernardino County
concerns regarding water resources
Working closely with the Mojave Water Agency (MWA), as a
Active Dates: 2013‐2014 subconsultant to Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, to update the Mojave
Budget: $106,995 Region’s IRWM Plan, MIG led the public outreach component of the
planning process. This process was a collaborative, stakeholder driven
Reference:
effort to manage all aspects of water resources and to develop a vision
Ms. Yvonne Hester for at least a decade of water management in the Mojave Region.
Director of Community Outreach and
Cultural Relations A series of seven public workshops were held throughout the Mojave
Mojave Water Agency Region to engage community members in the planning process and
identify their community‐specific concerns and needs relating to water
760.946.7067 resources. Four of the public workshops were intended for any and all
yhester@mojavewater.org
members of the public and three additional meetings were geared
Key MIG Staff: specifically for residents of disadvantaged communities. Since the intent
of the outreach effort was to identify the water‐related challenges and
Mark Sillings and Esmeralda Garcia
opportunities of the Mojave Region at the community level, both the
general public workshops and the disadvantaged community meetings
were designed to provide the same information and have similar formats. A benefit to making the meetings similar was
that it allowed flexibility for people to attend a meeting at the most convenient time and location and so ensure that there
were no gaps in the information provided across the region. All the workshops were publicized on the project website, with
flyers posted in public areas, distributed via U.S. mail, and advertised in local newspapers. Despite the geographic size of
the region, most of the meetings were well attended.
All workshops and meetings had an interactive
format consisting of a brief information
presentation followed by prompted dialogue
between project team members and
participating community members. Workshop
attendees were then gathered into smaller
groups for discussion sessions. Five common
areas of concern emerged during the small group
discussion sessions of all the workshops:
 Rising cost of water
 Declining water quality
 Limited water resources
 Limited funding resources to address water‐related needs
 Need for regional collaboration to carry‐out projects
Information gathered through these workshops was subsequently used to help design IRWM Plan objectives, projects and
programs, which took shape in a series of nine stakeholder meetings held at MWA headquarters over an 18‐month period.
MIG also provided support and documentation for these meetings. The planning process was successful with the Final 2014
Mojave IRWM Plan being adopted by all stakeholders during their final meeting together in June 2014.

MIG

Yucaipa Sustainable Groundwater Management Agency - August 9, 2018 - Page 178 of 208