Changing the Narrative in a Watershed: An Alternative to Watershed Restoration through Public Works

Johnson S¹*

1. Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

Johnson Creek is a small (54 square mile) urban watershed, home to 1 out of 10 people who live in the Portland metropolitan area. For most of its urbanized history it has been a hazard (flooding and pollution) to residents, and an intractable problem for government agencies. Over the course of 60+ years – from the 1930s to the 1990s–50 studies and plans had been produced to no avail. One government agency, Metro, Portland’s well known elected regional government, was almost abolished by angry citizens when it attempted to create a local improvement district.

It wasn’t until the 1990s, when government agencies adopted a revised policy of co-producing studies and plans alongside citizens, as well as working hand-in-hand with over 175 non-profit organizations to physically restore the watershed, that progress was finally achieved.

Progress in restoration of the watershed can not be easily measured in terms of traditional evaluation criteria. During the 1990s local government agencies spent at least $30 million to restore the creek. One fish survey in the late 1990s revealed 30 returning Coho Salmon. $1 million per fish is not an easy to justify use of public resources. However, if the return on investment is measured in terms of how the effort has changed, or in effect healed, people’s relationship to the stream and the impact is measured in terms of reduced governance costs then the investment is sound.

This way of evaluating cost-benefits is subtle. It involves understanding how restoration efforts can alter the story or narrative of a watershed. Changing the narrative – the story watershed residents tell themselves and others about what it means to live in the watershed – focuses practitioners attention away from engineered public works solutions to subtler but more cost effective and longer-term solutions to intractable problems.