How building community trust can help foster long-term watershed management: A St. Louis River Estuary case study

Community members are the long-term stewards of our lakes, rivers, and watersheds, and they have powerful stories to tell. While major actions like the Clean Water Act and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), both introduced in 1972, are often recognized as significant milestones, it is equally important to acknowledge the vital role of communities. The collaboration among community members, scientists, elected officials, and other stakeholders helped shape the original shared vision for clean water and healthy ecosystems. This collective effort was instrumental in achieving these landmark accomplishments.

In this blog, I will share some of the strategies that we have learned and are utilizing in our watershed management planning that center on our community’s knowledge and leadership, on building trust with stakeholders, and on creating a lasting advocacy. Whether you are part of a local nonprofit, an agency team, or a resident who cares deeply about your watershed, I hope these lessons will spark ideas for how you can strengthen stewardship of your waterways.

An Example: The St. Louis River Estuary

Today, the GLWQA continues to focus on ecological restoration by prioritizing actions within Areas of Concern (AOC): geographic locations where significant impairment of beneficial uses, like fish and wildlife, water quality, and recreational opportunities, have occurred due to human activity. In my community of Duluth, Minnesota, the St. Louis River Estuary was designated as an AOC in the 1980s. As of 2024, nearly 80% of the required management actions are either complete or require no further action, which means the estuary is moving steadily toward being delisted as an AOC. Delisting the estuary represents a major achievement. It signals that the area has recovered to the point where it no longer meets the criteria for concern. This will be the culmination of decades of layered conservation work, driven by science, shaped by community, and carried out through interagency coordination and deep local knowledge.

But let’s be clear: delisting the St. Louis River AOC is a milestone, but it’s not the finish line. The question now is, how will we continue to protect, preserve, and revitalize the estuary after delisting? How will we continue to engage the people who live and work here in the long-term care of this ecosystem? That’s the true test of success, and one that may require a different kind of strategy moving forward.

The Solution: A Trust-Based Framework for Ongoing Watershed Management

Watershed management leaders can use four foundational principles – trust, knowledge, leadership, and ownership – to engage communities and maintain long-term conservation actions. This can apply to large scale projects, such as delisting an AOC, or small scale projects, such as maintaining outcomes after the completion of a small grant-funded project.

Trust

Trust begins with showing up and meeting people where they are, acknowledging that whoever is in the room is exactly who needs to be there. Trust also means creating space for local concerns, traditions, ecological knowledge, and community values, even when they challenge the initial planning assumptions. When we lead with trust and remain open and adaptable, we unlock authentic participation and shared ownership.

What does this look like in practice? In our watershed work, neighborhood-specific planning teams are more effective than relying solely on watershed-wide committees. We design these localized meetings to be intentionally welcoming and lightly educational. The focus is on building relationships, not just reviewing predetermined plans. Early sessions are opportunities for open dialogue, including space-to-air concerns and competing priorities. Follow-up meetings build on this trust through inclusive, open-ended activities designed to guide the group toward shared understanding and collaborative problem-solving. This process builds on lived experience and lays the groundwork for more resilient, community-supported outcomes.

Knowledge

When people feel heard and respected, they’re more likely to share what they know, whether it’s monitoring data, field observations, or lived experiences that may never appear in a formal report. Honoring this input means more than simply collecting it. It means documenting it accurately, returning it to the contributor for review, and being transparent about how it will be used. This practice builds trust, reinforces community ownership, and results in better, more complete information to guide watershed decision-making.

What does this look like in practice? During the development of the Tischer Creek Roadmap to Resilience, a HUC-10 watershed plan supporting the St. Louis River AOC and the delisting of an E.coli impairment, more than 55 stakeholders contributed data, knowledge, and local insight to identify stream health priorities and resilience strategies. We compiled all this information into a public-facing ArcGIS Hub Site that outlines the surface water and habitat management process, provides full access to the data used, and links to resulting projects and resilience scores. By making the information transparent and easy to access, contributors could see their input reflected in final decisions and use the same data in their own conservation work, turning knowledge-sharing into a two-way, contributor-driven process.

Leadership

Sustained collaboration requires thoughtful, humble leadership, not just technical expertise. It means committing to relationships across agencies, disciplines, and communities, even when those relationships are complex. We stay in the conversation when it’s uncomfortable, and we embrace continual learning as part of the process. Leadership grounded in mutual respect and humility helps us navigate challenges, adapt to change, and stay focused on long-term goals.

What does this look like in practice? In our facilitation of watershed plans, we serve as a neutral convener, amplifying voices, connecting dots across agencies and stakeholders, and ensuring no one is left out of the conversation. We listen carefully, provide timely follow-up, and work behind the scenes to mediate misunderstandings or tensions when they arise. Our role is not to lead with answers, but to support collaborative leadership that brings forward the best thinking from everyone involved.

Ownership

People protect what they feel connected to. That’s why building a diverse, inclusive team, from community members and scientists to regulators, nonprofits, and businesses, is essential. A planning process shaped by many perspectives results in more transparency, more credibility, and greater resilience. When people are genuinely engaged, they don’t just support the plan, they take responsibility for its success and carry the work forward.

What does this look like in practice? Ownership shows up after the planning is complete, when community members and partners continue the work by seeking new funding, updating goals, and initiating new projects based on the original vision. It’s evident when a city seeks funding from a stream restoration project from a Roadmap plan, or when a local nonprofit leads volunteer days to maintain native plantings from a previous project. Ownership is the difference between a plan that sits on a shelf and one that lives on through continued stewardship, action, and investment.

When we lead with trust, share knowledge openly, and invite people to take ownership, we create more than a plan; we build a community that’s ready to protect and care for its watershed now and into the future. If this sounds like the kind of approach you’d like to bring to your work, contact me.