Sonoran Institute opens office in Glenwood Springs
New program links water and land use
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| Clark Anderson |
The nonprofit Sonoran Institute recently opened a new office in Glenwood Springs as a base for its Western Colorado Legacy Program. Founded in 1990, the institute works across the rapidly changing West to conserve and restore natural and cultural assets, and to promote better management of growth and change. Its community-based approach emphasizes collaboration, civil dialogue, sound information, local knowledge, practical solutions and big-picture thinking.
The Western Colorado Legacy Program, one of four regional programs the institute has initiated throughout the Intermountain West, focuses on helping communities plan for growth in a manner that protects the region’s natural heritage while shaping vibrant communities and resilient economies. The institute has hired Clark Anderson, a native of Eagle County, to direct the program. Before returning to Colorado, Anderson’s work focused on the interface between water and development in fast-growing California, where he ran the Local Government Commission’s Water and Land Use Program.
According to Anderson, the connection between water and land use planning is also a central element of the institute’s work in Colorado. “How and where we grow has everything to do with the future of our watersheds and the water they provide. Water quality, quantity and reliability, local stream flows, infrastructure needs, and the overall health of watersheds are all impacted in significant ways by local land use decisions,” he said, “but water and development are rarely planned in concert.”
To address this disconnect, the institute created the Confluence Initiative, a training and technical assistance program designed to help communities in western Colorado bridge land use planning and community design efforts with water management and watershed protection goals. The program aims to build awareness, increase coordination between key stakeholders, and encourage land use patterns and development practices that minimize the impacts of development on water resources.
The program begins this spring with a one-day workshop for community teams from the Yampa, Upper Colorado and Gunnison basins. The workshop, which is being planned in partnership with AWARE Colorado, the Colorado Watershed Assembly and local partners, will provide information and tools, and engage participating teams in dialogue to develop action steps for their communities. A specific date and location for the event will be announced in the coming weeks, along with a simple team application for teams that wish to participate.
Key topics in the first workshop include:
- Basic connections between water and land use planning
- Local and state policies affecting land and water decisions, and the connections between them
- Opportunities for coordination between water and land use agencies
- The state’s role in supporting water and land use integration
- Planning and design strategies communities can use to protect and conserve water resources
- Aligning land and water policies and programs at the local level
For more information, contact Clark Anderson at 970-384-4364 or canderson@sonoraninstitute.org.