Wyoming State Water Plan
Wyoming State Water Plan
Wyoming Water Development Office
6920 Yellowtail Rd
Cheyenne, WY 82002
Phone: 307-777-7626
Wyoming Water Development Office
6920 Yellowtail Rd
Cheyenne, WY 82002
Phone: 307-777-7626
General Guidelines for Basin Advisory Groups 1. Selection of the Advisory Group. (The model for the Bear River Basin Advisory Group)
b. If the basin planning process is to have credibility and be accepted as a legitimate product, it is critical that all water user groups are represented and feel free to state the position of the group that they represent. The planning process can not be the vehicle to advance the cause of any one special interest group, but rather provides the information and hard science on resource management to frame discussions among interest groups.
2. Functions and goals of the Advisory Group
b. The Basin Advisory Group reviews and comments on the work products relating to basin plan, whether generated by agencies or consultants.
c. The Basin Advisory Group provides a local reality check for review of state water policies and management options.
d. The Basin Advisory Group operates under a set of rules and requirements established by the group itself with guidance from the facilitator. This may include stipulations on voting, reaching consensus, going outside the group with publicity, etc. While the facilitator assists and gives some guidance, it is important that the rules be generated by the group and accepted by consensus.
3. Meeting tasks and procedures
b. Basic rules may be presented by the facilitator and validated by group consensus.
c. The group selects meeting times, dates, general locations. Planning staff makes the physical arrangements.
d. The Basin Advisory Group may elect to continue meeting after their water planning role is discharged to address other issues of local interest, such as TMDLs, or the development of watershed plans. Planning staff will coordinate with other state and federal agencies (DEQ, Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, etc) to determine interest in reformatting the group to meet other resource planning or management needs.
e. The basin plan template generated by Boyle during the feasibility study, and the issues identification by user sector generated by the Bear BAG should be used to assist new BAGs in the issue identification and prioritization process.
4. Expectations and time lines
b. The initial organizational meeting will be held about the end of March. Planning staff will contract with a facilitator to assist.
c. The Basin Advisory Group will have three monthly organizational meetings during the process to select the consultant to prepare the basin plan. Assume notice to proceed to consultant in June. Three additional monthly working meeting, one of which may be 6-8 hours, with the consultant present.
d. At the discretion of the Basin Advisory Group and depending on the needs of the consultant and the planning team, the Basin Advisory Group may elect to continue to meet monthly. However, after the first six monthly meetings, the Basin Advisory Group should consider moving to bi-monthly and eventually quarterly meetings. This schedule may be altered if another agency elects to use the group for other planning work, i.e., TMDLs.
5. Communication with Decision Makers
b. Key officials such as WWDC Director and State Engineer should meet at least once with the group during deliberations.
c. Local and state elected officials should be notified of and specifically invited to attend BAG meetings. Results of Basin Advisory Group work should be relayed to local and state elected officials.