A collaborative approach to groundwater protection: The Rural Water Quality Program for Waterloo Region

Abstract

Source water protection (SWP) efforts in many jurisdictions focus primarily on protecting municipal groundwater wells through a highly technical process known as wellhead protection planning (WHPP). Less attention has been given to implementing a broader approach for protecting groundwater supplies both within and outside municipal wellhead protection areas through stewardship and other approaches that engage diverse stakeholders. Technical approaches to drinking-water safety are necessary, but increasingly it is recognized that they are not sufficient in the context of a complex problem such as groundwater protection. There is growing recognition globally that solutions to complex problems require decision-making processes that involve the integration of expert science, local knowledge and community beliefs and values. In this paper, the example of groundwater protection in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, is used to illustrate how collaborative approaches can facilitate the integration of scientific and local knowledge with existing community beliefs and values. Factors drawn from the academic and empirical literature are identified and used to evaluate the contribution of stakeholders to program development and implementation.

Pour plusieurs juridictions, la protection des sources d’approvisionnement en eau souterraine est essentiellement basée sur la protection des aires d’alimentation des puits municipaux selon un programme de protection technique appelé « Protection des puits d’approvisionnement ». De manière générale, une attention moindre est consacrée à une démarche de protection au sens large des ressources en eau souterraine à l’intérieur et l’extérieur des aires d’alimentation des puits municipaux. Les divers approches de protection de l’eau potable sont nécessaires mais on reconnaît, de plus en plus, qu’elles ne sont pas suffisantes pour un problème complexe comme la protection des ressources en eau souterraine. Il y a une reconnaissance mondiale que les solutions à ces problèmes exigent un processus décisionnel nécessitant l’intégration des connaissances scientifiques avec le savoir et les enjeux locaux ainsi que les croyances et les valeurs de la population. Cette article présente un exemple de protection de l’eau souterraine situé dans la région de Waterloo en Ontario. Cet exemple a été choisi pour illustrer que les démarches collaboratives peuvent faciliter l’intégration des connaissances scientifiques avec le savoir et les enjeux locaux en tenant compte des croyances et des valeurs de la population. Une revue de littérature a permis de recenser différents critères d’évaluation qui ont été retenus afin d’évaluer la contribution des différents intervenants au développement et à la mise en œuvre du programme de protection.

Introduction

Source water protection (SWP) is a process for ensuring that the quality and quantity of sources for human water supplies are not diminished by land-use activities (Peckenham et al. 2005; Ivey et al. 2006; Patrick et al. 2008). Experience has shown that the benefits of avoiding the contamination of a drinking water supply far outweigh the financial and social costs of implementing protective measures (Simpson and Myslik 2005). For instance, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA 1996) evaluated seven community case studies and concluded that remediating a groundwater supply may be 30 to 40 times more expensive than preventing contamination; for one small rural community in the US EPA’s study, the costs of remediating groundwater contamination were 700 times greater than the costs of implementing a basic wellhead protection plan. At the same time, the costs of replacing a water supply may be much higher than the costs of protection; in some situations it may in fact be difficult or impossible to replace a water supply if the groundwater source becomes contaminated.

Challenges associated with SWP are complex because of the high degree of indeterminacy that exists (i.e. ambiguity, complexity, uncertainty) and, because source water protection has no clear end-point, it requires ongoing societal involvement. As a result, SWP is a good example of a problem where decision making is “quasi-scientific” (Turner 2004). Decision making in relation to complex problems requires the blending of knowledge from different sources (scientific and non-scientific), and the incorporation of social beliefs and values (Renn 2008).

Despite recognition of the fact that decision making in relation to complex environmental problems requires multiple forms of knowledge, the technical nature of many of the threats to drinking water sources ensures that scientific knowledge and technical expertise predominate. Community involvement in such technical decision-making processes is therefore often limited to providing comments on technical work once the scope of the project has already been determined. In contrast, experience with watershed management – another setting in which many decision makers rely on different kinds of knowledge – suggests that land owners who have been involved more fully in the development and implementation of a local watershed management plan will value and take action to protect the quality and quantity of water proactively (National Research Council 2000; Conservation Ontario 2001). The involvement of people such as landowners in SWP processes provides an opportunity to share their risk perceptions, to incorporate their concerns into the scope of the SWP process and to engage them in the implementation of the resulting source water protection plan.

In this paper, the challenges associated with integrating scientific and other forms of knowledge are explored using the example of groundwater protection in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (RMOW, or the Region), Ontario. First, a summary of insights from the theoretical and empirical literature concerning decision making for complex environmental problems is given. The conceptual framework developed through this review provided benchmarks for evaluating the contribution of collaborative approaches to addressing environmental challenges. These benchmarks are applied to the case of the RMOW to explore how state actors can work collaboratively with non-state actors such as citizens, landowners, and business operators to develop and implement a SWP program. The paper concludes with conclusions and implications for the practice of source water protection.

Approaches to source water protection

Numerous approaches exist to protecting sources of water that supply drinking water systems. In this paper, the focus is on approaches that are especially relevant in the context of groundwater sources. These include wellhead protection (as an example of a highly technical approach) and watershed management (as an example of a more holistic approach). Challenges associated with integrating scientific and other forms of knowledge exist in both approaches.

Wellhead protection is a process for preventing contamination of the recharge area and groundwater for a water supply well or well field. In a municipal setting, development of a wellhead protection plan (WHPP) often includes activities such as forming a stakeholder team or committee, delineating the protection area of the local well(s), identifying potential contaminant sources, and developing and implementing a local management plan (US EPA 1993). These actions help the community to identify the land area that provides groundwater recharge to the well(s), potential contaminant sources within the recharge area(s) and options for minimizing potential impacts on the well(s), such as pollution prevention, monitoring and treatment where necessary (Simpson and Myslik 2005).

The WHPP approach is a powerful tool, but it has limits. For example, in a review of European groundwater protection efforts, Skinner (1985) emphasized that changing wellhead protection areas based on new information can be difficult; focusing on wellheads often occurs at the expense of the resource as a whole, and the technical challenges associated with delineating wellhead protection areas can be burdensome, especially when actual or potential threats are poorly defined.

Engaging citizens in WHPP is challenging because the process tends to be dominated by technical staff, with limited opportunities for public input. As a result, there is little awareness, let alone opportunity, for affected community members to help establish the scope and process for developing a WHPP. This means that citizens can feel disengaged from the problem and the process, and thus see little need for action. At the same time, in many WHPP processes, there are limited opportunities for community members to contribute local knowledge that may improve the WHPP process; an example of such knowledge is the location of historical industrial sites that may pose a threat to groundwater supplies, but which are not documented in official records. The problem, therefore, is not that WHPP is a technical approach. Rather, the concern is that by not taking advantage of the knowledge that community members may have, conventional WHPP approaches can miss critical information. This can lead to ineffective SWP.

Watershed management is a second broad approach to addressing threats to drinking water sources. Conventionally, watershed management is defined as a process that considers environmental, social and economic needs within the context of the hydrologic cycle at the watershed and subwatershed scale (Watershed Planning Initiative 1995). Watershed management arose formally during the latter half of the twentieth century when the environmental and social impacts of ongoing river engineering efforts began to be widely observed (White 1998). The current conceptualization of watershed management is closely linked to the concept of integrated watershed resource management (IWRM). IWRM has been defined as a process that “promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in an equitable manner… without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems” (Global Water Partnership 2000).

Like wellhead protection planning, IWRM has also been the subject of critiques. For example, Biswas (2004) and Blomquist and Schlager (2005) have pointed to concerns such as a narrow focus on one component of the watershed, a belief among technical staff that increased stakeholder involvement can undermine integration, and the political nature of many watershed management decision-making processes.

Neither traditional wellhead protection approaches nor conventional watershed management approaches appear to be entirely appropriate relative to the challenge of protecting groundwater sources. However, together, the two approaches provide building blocks that – when joined effectively – can lead to more effective groundwater protection. In the next section, some thoughts are given on how collaborative approaches to decision making can provide a basis for more effective decision making.

Methodology

A case study of groundwater protection in the Region of Waterloo (Figure 1) was used to explore how state actors can work collaboratively with non-state actors such as citizens, landowners and business operators to develop and implement an SWP program. A case study approach was selected for three reasons. First, the case study allows a phenomenon to be investigated in depth at one place, and has been the basis for theory-based empirical research regarding environmental policies and governance concerning water resources (Castree 2005). Second, the case study approach provides for the use of prior knowledge when undertaking research, and builds on rather than approving or rejecting theory (Burawoy 1991; Babbie 2001). This consideration was especially important given the first author’s direct involvement in the case study as a professional employed by the RMOW, and subsequently the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Third, a case study approach provides for the integration of data collected using different research methods (Yin 2009; Cresswell and Plano Clark 2011).

Figure 1. Waterloo Region with its three cities and four rural townships, also showing the Waterloo Moraine (shaded grey).

Data were drawn from two sources. The first source included published documents concerning the case study. The most important documents were minutes from project meetings that were prepared by Water Services Division staff members with the Region of Waterloo. The second source included personal observations of the first author concerning specific events that took place during the project; as noted previously, these took place during the time the first author was directly involved in the case study as a professional. Potential conflict-of-interest concerns were addressed through carefully following the conflict-of-interest policy of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, which requires employees not to use their positions as public servants in an inappropriate manner.

A conceptual framework developed through a review of literature relating to collaboration, knowledge and complex environmental problems (presented in the next section) provided the benchmarks used to evaluate the Region’s program. Data were analyzed to determine if the decision-making processes used were consistent with the principles of stakeholder engagement and knowledge integration developed in the conceptual framework outlined in the next section. Data from different sources were interlinked to promote comprehensiveness, credibility, reliability and validity of the research process and its results (Hoggart et al. 2002; Morse 2003; Bogason and Zølner 2007; Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009).

Conceptual framework

Increasingly, it is recognized that effective governance is an essential prerequisite to environmental problem solving. Governance is concerned with the “regulatory processes, mechanisms and organizations through which political actors influence environmental actions and outcomes” (Lemos and Agrawal 2006, 298; see also World Resources Institute 2004). The concept of governance is relevant to SWP because integrating different kinds of knowledge frequently requires more open decision-making processes that are designed to engage community members (Reed and Bruyneel 2010). Achieving a broader approach to groundwater protection will require that a number of different factors – cultural, economic, political and social – be taken into consideration during the decision-making process. Collaboration is an approach to governance where diverse stakeholders (often including government officials) come together to make decisions collectively through consensus. Power and responsibility are typically shared in collaborative processes, and relationships tend to be long term (Innes and Booher 2010).

Collaborative approaches to addressing shared environmental challenges are particularly well suited for addressing questions that are local in scale and practical in scope, because they can provide a forum for involving local stakeholders and incorporating their knowledge into the decision-making process (Raymond et al. 2010). For instance, land owners who have been involved more fully in the development and implementation of local water protection efforts will value and take action to protect the quality and quantity of water proactively (National Research Council 2000). However, involving stakeholders, such as landowners, in effective collaborative processes is not straightforward. Factors that are important determinants of successful stakeholder involvement in the development and implementation of SWP initiatives are briefly reviewed below. Collectively, these provide useful benchmarks (Table 1) for exploring the challenges associated with integrating scientific and other forms of knowledge in collaborative processes.

Table 1. Benchmarks for evaluating knowledge integration in collaborative processes.

	Key considerations
Partnership building	Commitment to building partnerships between state (government) and non-state actors Quality of interaction and relationships in partnerships
Capacity	Presence of capacity for action and capacity for self-determination Existence of explicit processes and mechanisms for building capacity
Social capital	Opportunities for development of trust and connectedness that facilitate collaboration and knowledge co-production
Vernacular knowledge	Use of and respect for knowledge that has been negotiated through deliberation among technical experts and lay people Extent to which social and technical concerns are jointly considered
Stakeholder agency	Extent to which non-state actors (e.g. community members) are engaged in key activities such as risk analysis “Front-end” questioning of processes used permits re-thinking processes

Building partnerships between stakeholders involved with the development and implementation of SWP plans, and with the broader networks that committee members may represent, is recognized as an essential determinant of effective stakeholder engagement. Partnering with stakeholders, particularly with industry, has been a critical factor for facilitating water management efforts and, where absent, was perceived as a significant constraint (National Research Council 2000; Ferreyra and Kreutzwiser 2007; Patrick et al. 2008). An important function of partnerships is to encourage stakeholders to share and integrate scientific and local information from their different perspectives (Bellamy et al. 1999; Lach et al. 2005), and to discuss value-based issues (Turner 2004; Cash et al. 2006). This co-production of knowledge will promote greater rigour in the project outcomes (Cash et al. 2006; van Wyk et al. 2007) and can help participants to reach decisions that might otherwise appear to compromise their perspectives and expectations (Lach et al. 2005).

A second important factor concerns the capacity and expertise of state and non-state actors to participate in decision-making processes (Carolan 2006). Ivey et al. (2006) indicate that capacity and capacity building can take two potentially opposed forms. The first is “capacity for action,” where individuals or groups work to meet externally imposed objectives (e.g. regulatory compliance). The second is “capacity for self-determination,” where individuals or groups seek to “establish and achieve their own goals and agendas” (Ivey et al. 2006, 946). This is not to say that non-state actors concerned with the latter do not support the overall goals of SWP, but rather that they may not completely agree with the SWP process as envisioned by the state. Building both types of capacity depends on and promotes the development of contributory and interactional expertise. Contributory expertise enables a stakeholder to share knowledge, either local or scientific, while interactional expertise enables a stakeholder to understand and share information between different knowledge communities (Carolan 2006). Increasing capacity and expertise can help different state and non-state actors to share perspectives and work together to integrate different types of knowledge, to achieve a balance between their own and external motivations, and to provide a forum to make necessary concessions through the SWP process.

A third factor concerns the importance of developing social capital (e.g. trust, connectedness) by stakeholders, which will facilitate collaboration and co-production of knowledge during which stakeholders discuss and develop an understanding of each other’s positions. Social capital involves building relationships that promote connectedness, common rules, equity, mutual empowerment, shared values and trust, and reciprocity (Carr 2004; Mitchell and Breen 2007). Social capital is important because it enhances the sort of collaborative thinking that is needed to achieve the tangible results that are sought in source water protection (Falkenmark 2007; Mitchell and Breen 2007).

A fourth factor concerns building and applying “vernacular” knowledge, knowledge that is negotiated through a participatory process of deliberating environmental problems (Orr 1991; Bartel 2013). The resulting vernacular knowledge integrates scientific expertise, local knowledge, and community beliefs and values (Lee 1993; O’Riordan and Rayner 1993; Fischer 2000; Lach et al. 2005). Promoting the development of a vernacular knowledge encourages reasoned debate, promotes social learning and builds capacity to better deal with value-based problems (Carr 2004; Lach et al. 2005; van Wyk et al. 2007). Researchers have found that the process of creating vernacular knowledge can help to eliminate power differentials between actors, promote the discussion of value-based issues and build social capital (Mitchell and Breen 2007; van Wyk et al. 2007). This also helps to address the challenges of indeterminacy (Jasanoff 2003), and to ensure that both societal and technical aspects of risk are considered (Rees 2002).

A final consideration concerns the agency of stakeholders, and how non-state actors can be engaged in determining the nature and extent of local source protection efforts. The deficiencies of risk analysis may be addressed by involving these actors at the outset in environmental initiatives, and by encouraging a front-end questioning of what the process should achieve and how it should be structured (Wynne 2002; Jasanoff 2003). This will be important for the development of social capital, whereby stakeholders need to discuss and develop an understanding of each other’s knowledge and perspectives. This is consistent with the greater involvement of stakeholders in collaborative governance, and could lead to an outcome that is less divisive and more likely to be accepted by the broader community (Renn 2007).

A community-based approach to groundwater protection in the Region of Waterloo

Several locally based rural water quality programs have been developed by watershed-based conservation authorities across Ontario. One notable example is the Rural Water Quality Program (RWQP), which celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2013. The RWQP is a municipally funded cost-share program, the first of its kind in Ontario and possibly Canada. It has the objective of improving and protecting groundwater and surface water quality (Ryan 1998). The RWQP is widely seen as a success (Ryan 1998). In the first 15 years of operation it has provided grants of approximately $7 million, and landowners have contributed more than $14 million, to implement more than 2190 projects (Grand River Conservation Authority [GRCA] 2013). The RWQP has also been deemed a success in popular and technical publications at a local, provincial and national scale (e.g. Romahn 1998), and has attracted positive coverage from the farm press (e.g. Lammer-Helps 2004).

The RWQP was initiated by the Region to implement Beneficial or Best Management Practices (BMPs) to protect surface water resources in the Grand River and several of its watersheds, and groundwater resources in the Waterloo Moraine, which is shown in Figure 1. The RWQP model was subsequently expanded by the GRCA across the Grand River watershed to include the neighbouring Wellington and Brant Counties, and the City of Brantford. The RWQP has been used as a model in other parts of the province. Examples include the Clean Water Program for Oxford, Middlesex and Perth Counties, the Cities of London and Stratford, and the Town of St. Mary’s, which includes portions of eight watersheds.

The Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA), one of Ontario’s largest and best-resourced authorities, has jurisdiction over the Grand River watershed, which covers parts of 34 municipalities and the entire Region (Veale et al. 2014, this issue). The GRCA manages surface water flows, monitors surface waters and groundwater, implements local rural water-quality programs (e.g. providing financial incentives for adopting agricultural BMPs), facilitates local drought management and engages in modeling, planning and research within the Grand River watershed (Ivey et al. 2006).

The RMOW is an “upper-tier” municipality that encompasses seven “lower-tier”, or area, municipalities: the largely rural townships of North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich, and the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. The RMOW is the tenth-largest urban area in Canada, and the fourth-largest urban area in Ontario. Its population is expected to swell to 712,000 by 2029 (RMOW 2013). Through its Water Services Division (WSD), the Region operates a system of 125 municipal water wells in rural and urban areas and a surface water intake drawing from the Grand River, from which water is sold wholesale to the seven municipalities, which in turn distribute it to retail customers. Municipal wastewater is collected and treated at seven wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) that discharge treated effluent at a number of locations to the Grand River.

Regional officials have learned first-hand that the benefits of avoiding the contamination of a drinking water supply far outweigh the financial and social costs of implementing protective measures. This awareness came in part through having experienced significant contamination of its Elmira wells by the chemical N-nitroso demethylamine (Sanderson et al. 1995), and having undergone a waterborne contamination event involving Cryptosporidium at its Mannheim Water Treatment plant (Hrudey and Hrudey 2004). The impetus for developing the RWQP reflects these experiences, and relates directly to the following six factors:

• The Region’s Water Resource Protection Strategy (an initiative that identifies various contamination threats to municipal groundwater and surface water supplies) included mitigating rural non-point sources (RMOW 1994; Ryan 1998).

• Expansion of capacity at the Region’s WWTPs was constrained by water quality in several reaches of the Grand River (RMOW 1997).

• Surface water loadings of microorganisms, phosphorus and sediment increased in rural reaches of the Grand River that could not be attributed to WWTP effluent discharges (Draper and Weatherbe 1995; Ryan 1998).

• Previous federal-provincial program entitled CURB (Clean Up Rural Beaches) had resulted in surface water-quality improvements by funding improved rural land-use management practices (RMOW 1997; Ryan 1998).

• Cost of removing 1 kg of phosphorus using advanced wastewater treatment processes would be 17 times more than the cost using agricultural management practices – a potential savings of $1 million in capital upgrade costs at each of two WWTPs (RMOW 1997).

• Overall goal of improving surface water and groundwater quality throughout the Region for health, recreational and ecological reasons (Ryan 1998; RMOW 2008).

In 1997, WSD staff sought and received approval in principle from Regional Council to develop and fund the RWQP in cooperation with relevant agencies and organizations. WSD staff then invited representatives from local land provincial agricultural and commodity organizations, the GRCA, provincial ministries (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs [OMAFRA] and Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy [OMOEE]) and a federal department (Agricultural and Agri-Food Canada) to form a Liaison Committee that would provide advice on program development and implementation. It was realized by WSD staff at the outset that

the success of the [forthcoming] program depends on the support and participation of farm organizations and local farmers… [and] it was essential that these groups be given an active role to play in guiding the program direction, structure, and implementation. (RMOW 1997, 7)

A larger steering committee was then formed that included representatives from more than 20 local and provincial agricultural and commodity organizations, four levels of government (upper- and lower-tier municipal, provincial and federal) and the local watershed conservation authority (Ryan 1998).

Applying the benchmarks

In this section, challenges associated with integrating scientific and other forms of knowledge are explored using the example of groundwater protection in the Region and the five benchmarks established in the conceptual framework.

Partnership building

In general, water management programs have benefitted from strong partnerships, within which stakeholders have been engaged and shared scientific and local knowledge from their perspective, and have resulted in more robust outcomes (National Research Council 2000; Cash et al. 2006; Ferreyra and Kreutzwiser 2007; Patrick et al. 2008). In this situation, the formation of the RWQP benefited from a number of pre-existing partnerships involving the provincial and local agricultural community, such as the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition (OFEC) and Waterloo Federation of Agriculture, and different agencies and organizations including the GRCA, OMAFRA and the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association. The Region had also built on these partnerships previously through initiatives such as the Rural Non-Point Source Working Group, which had developed a Rural Groundwater Awareness Program for farm and non-farm landowners (Simpson and Hodgins 2002; Simpson and de Loë 2012).

Specifically, the Steering Committee benefitted from these partnerships during the development and implementation of the RWQP. For instance, a GRCA staff member hosted a kitchen table meeting with eight farm organization representatives at her family farm to get comments on a draft terms of reference for the RWQP, and to gain insight from the agricultural community on the following related issues (Ryan 1998):

• What BMPs should be funded by the RWQP, and what options should be considered for compensation,

• How should the RWQP be linked with the Environmental Farm Plan, and

• What other items should be included in the RWQP.

This meeting provided an opportunity for farm organization representatives to speak candidly amongst themselves, and generated useful insights for the Steering Committee; these were incorporated into subsequent discussions concerning the development of the RWQP.

Capacity

The importance of different forms of stakeholder capacity and expertise for collaborative decision making is an emerging topic in the literature (Carolan 2006). The RWQP benefited from the integration and enhancement of stakeholder capacity and expertise in several ways. From a leadership perspective, the Region used an approach that balanced its goal of addressing groundwater and surface water quality concerns with incorporating the concerns and needs of the agricultural community. The agricultural community also provided leadership through the many members of the Steering Committee who had served as elected representatives in municipal government and with local and provincial agricultural associations. For instance, agricultural leaders demonstrated that they were familiar with the workings of a program committee, and worked to ensure a clear definition of its role and a process for its operation (e.g. terms of reference, application review process, appeals procedures) were formally accepted and documented.

Technical capacity was also represented widely throughout the Steering Committee. Technical information concerning groundwater and surface water was presented in or translated into a format that was understandable to the farmers by a conservation specialist from the GRCA, a hydrogeologist from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and a water engineer from OMAFRA. Conversely, farmers went to great lengths to ensure that WSD staff understood the relationship between the BMPs being discussed and their connection to farming. At one point, the GRCA conservation specialist produced a guide entitled Agriculture for Dummies (Loeffler n.d.) to help increase the level of knowledge among Region staff about typical agricultural concepts and practices.

Efforts were also made to increase technical capacity in the broader farm community to ensure that they were able to take advantage of financial incentives and implement BMPs associated with the RWQP. For instance, special Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) workshops were organized to ensure that the maximum number of farmers had an EFP, and that had been deemed acceptable, and were therefore eligible to apply for RWQP incentives. It was also decided that nutrient management plan (NMP) workshops would be organized by the GRCA for farmers who did not have access to a consultant who could prepare their NMP. The Steering Committee members were aware that farmers who prepared their own NMP, or were involved in the preparation of it, benefited most from the nutrient management planning process.

The application of leadership and technical capacity was supported by the provision of contributory and interactional capacity by both agency and farm organization representatives. Contributory expertise was provided by technical staff, particularly by representatives from the GRCA, WSD and OMAFRA who had considerable expert knowledge about agricultural, surface water and groundwater science. Farmers and farm organization representatives also shared significant contributory expertise concerning knowledge of local farming practices and the use of agricultural BMPs to address agri-environmental concerns developed through programs such as the EFP. Interactional expertise was demonstrated by both farm and government representatives, and was key to the development of the RWQP which integrates expert science and local knowledge from both agricultural and environmental science perspectives.

Social capital

The role of social capital for supporting collaboration and co-production of knowledge, and the benefits for producing tangible results, have been extensively documented in the literature (Cash et al. 2006; Falkenmark 2007; Mitchell and Breen 2007). The RWQP benefitted from substantial social capital that had been generated between the provincial and local agricultural organizations and different municipal and provincial agencies and organizations. Two key examples of how this pre-existing social capital was employed strategically include the program model that was used to structure the RWQP, namely the CURB program, and the use of the EFP as an eligibility requirement for applicants to access incentives offered under the RWQP.

The use of the CURB model was a strategic use of social capital from two perspectives. First, the CURB model had been funded by the OMOEE and delivered in the Grand River Basin by the GRCA. As a consequence, in negotiating a new program to provide a reduction in phosphorus loadings from the Region’s wastewater treatment plants, the OMOEE would be familiar with the CURB model and its contribution to reducing agricultural non-point phosphorus loadings to surface water. Second, by proposing a model based on the CURB program, the GRCA would be in an excellent position to draw on social capital shared with the farm community in offering a new but similar program.

Adopting the EFP program as an eligibility requirement for access to incentives under the RWQP drew on, and reinforced, social capital that had been generated between the farm community and the provincial farm and government agencies and organizations responsible for its development and delivery. The EFP program had been developed by OFEC, an umbrella group representing 37 separate farm and commodity organizations in Ontario (Verkley et al. 1998; Fitzgibbon et al. 2004), with financial, logistical and technical support from AAFC, OMAFRA and the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA). Adopting the EFP as an eligibility requirement, in effect, facilitated the transfer of social capital from these organizations, and the six-year successful implementation of this program in Ontario, and led to recognition of the RWQP among farmers in the program area who had participated in the EFP program.

The Region was then able to build further on the social capital provided by using the CURB model and adopting the EFP program. This came in part from the collaborative environment that was established with the Steering Committee from the outset, which provided an open forum for farm community representatives to work actively with WSD and GRCA program staff to help develop the RWQP, and feel comfortable endorsing it to the members of the farm organizations that it represented (Lammers-Helps 2004).

Vernacular knowledge

Vernacular knowledge is being increasingly discussed in the literature as an important outcome of participatory environmental decision-making approaches (Simpson and de Loë 2012; Bartel 2013). In this instance, the RWQP program benefited from the integration of local and scientific input, along with the beliefs and values of the stakeholder groups, to create a vernacular knowledge. A key source of vernacular knowledge was the Review Committee. The Review Committee was chaired by a WSD staff member, a position that was filled initially by the first author. The Review Committee was composed of two farmers and an alternate, although all three farmers often attended meetings, and one representative each from OFEC and the Province of Ontario (i.e. OMAFRA). Funding applications were presented by GRCA staff anonymously to preserve applicant identity; however, the farmer representatives often were often able to guess the identity of applicants using their considerable knowledge of the local farming community.

The members of the Review Committee routinely combined different forms of agricultural and environmental scientific expertise with their local knowledge, beliefs and values during the assessment of each funding application. On many occasions, this vernacular knowledge was shared with program applicants through GRCA staff to help improve the applications, and to help them to qualify for support. The Review Committee also referred matters to the Steering Committee for clarification of issues that arose during the review of applications. One example involved a request that had been deferred by the Review Committee because it was realized that the proposed BMP was requested for an existing activity that violated provincial legislation. The Steering Committee agreed that applications should not be approved where a violation exists that relates to a BMP for which funding was sought. GRCA staff members were encouraged by the Review Committee to explain the circumstances to the applicant, and take the opportunity to work with the farmer to submit an expanded application that would bring the farm operation into compliance with legislation.

Stakeholder agency

Stakeholder agency has been recognized in the literature as an important contributor to the environmental decision-making process, by influencing the scope and structure of the decision-making process, which has led to outcomes that have been less divisive and more accepted by their communities (Renn 2007). The Steering Committee provided a working environment that facilitated collaboration. Agricultural leaders actively participated in the Steering Committee and worked to ensure that the forthcoming RWQP complemented programs that had been developed, or were under development, involving the farm community. A number of these initiatives, such as the CURB and EFP programs, have been discussed above. However, agricultural representatives demonstrated agency by bringing forth a number of changes during the development of the RWQP, either directly at the Steering Committee or indirectly by requests through the Review Committee.

One example involved a request from the Review Committee to the Steering Committee to change the geographic extent of the eligibility for a cost-share for expenses associated with implementing wellhead protection BMPs. Initially, wellhead protection BMPs, such as extending the height of well casings, or decommissioning (plugging and sealing) abandoned or improperly maintained water wells, were restricted to groundwater priority areas stipulated in the RWQP terms of reference. GRCA program staff supported the proposal to expand the geographic area of eligibility because they had been having difficulty promoting wellhead protection measures in only the groundwater priority area, and had been receiving requests from farmers located outside the groundwater priority area. Interestingly, this proposal from the Review Committee was opposed by Region WSD staff because it was believed that implementing BMPs to protect groundwater supplies in areas that were not sensitive to contamination was not a prudent use of funds. However, the Review Committee members argued that although the groundwater resource located outside municipal wellhead protection areas might not be under threat, the presence of an abandoned or poorly maintained well could act as a conduit for the contamination of an individual farm’s water supply and the broader aquifer. This request juxtaposed the WHPP approach to source water protection, promoted by Region WSD staff, against the watershed management approach to source water protection, endorsed by the Review Committee. The request was discussed at length by the Steering Committee, and it was decided that it made sense to expand the geographic extent of the eligibility for a cost-share for costs associated with wellhead protection. Although a minor point from the broader perspective of the goals of the RWQP, it was a very important point from the perspective of the farm representatives, which was acknowledged and supported by the broader Steering Committee.

Conclusions

The case study demonstrates the importance of collaboration between diverse actors for the successful development and implementation of a source water program that meets the respective needs of different stakeholders. Overall, the actors representing different stakeholder groups were able to create a forum that encouraged an open process for addressing a complex problem and integrated expert science, local knowledge and community beliefs and values. Forums such as this are recognized as essential to successful knowledge integration (Raymond et al. 2010; Reed and Bruyneel 2010). The formation of new relationships and strengthening of existing ones helped build social capital by promoting connectedness, common rules, equity, mutual empowerment, shared values, trust and reciprocity. As noted previously, social capital is another essential prerequisite to effective planning and implementation (Carr 2004; Turner 2004; Cash et al. 2006; Mitchell and Breen 2007; van Wyk et. al. 2007).

The open decision-making process helped to form new partnerships, which encouraged participants to share their concerns and needs, and helped them to bridge differences and reach decisions that might otherwise not have been achieved. Active participation of stakeholders in decision making increased the capacity of state and non-state actors for both action and self-determination, a key determinant of successful stakeholder engagement (Ivey et al. 2006), and promoted the development of contributory and interactional expertise (Carolan 2006). The co-production of vernacular knowledge helped promote reasoned debate and encourage social learning, which helped eliminate power differentials between stakeholder groups (Carr 2004; Lach et al. 2005; Mitchell and Breen 2007; van Wyk et al. 2007). Involving all stakeholder groups from the outset helped with the development of a program that addressed the needs of all stakeholder groups, and made sense to both state and non-state actors, which contributed to its acceptance and implementation within the broader community (Wynne 2002; Jasanoff 2003; Renn 2007).

The case study evaluated in this paper involved a community in which the local farm community and agency representatives had a substantial level of experience with participatory decision-making processes, had prior involvement with each other and had the support of other organizations with considerable experience with integrating different forms of knowledge as part of technical decision-making processes. As a consequence, the case study provided something of a best-case scenario, where a collaborative decision-making approach had a high likelihood of success. It would be informative to apply the same factors discussed in this paper to other scenarios with different contexts and circumstances. For example, prescriptive approaches are under development in Ontario, in other provinces in Canada, and in international jurisdictions where the decision-making process is constrained by a regulatory framework (Goucher et al. 2007; Kastens and Newig 2008; Taylor et al. 2012).

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Water Network, and thank the Special Issue Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and suggestions. Thanks are also due to Tracy Barry of Natural Resources Canada for drafting the figure. This paper has been revised and expanded from a technical presentation that was given at GeoHalifax 2009 – the 62nd Canadian Geotechnical Conference & 10th Joint Canadian Geotechnical Society and International Association of Hydrogeologists Canadian National Chapter Groundwater Conference, 20–24 September – Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.