A Decision Framework for Managing the Spirit Lake and Toutle River System at Mount St. Helens (2018) / Chapter Skim
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9 Applying the Decision Framework
9 Applying the Decision Framework
Pages 273-284
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From page 273... ...
. The report recommends that agencies and other interested and affected parties develop a shared understanding of the broader system, the alternatives for managing the system, and the ways in which those alternatives can be expected to affect the system.
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From page 274... ...
processes through which all interested and affected parties can participate in decisions regarding future management options -- processes that must take into account engineering constraints and issues, stakeholders' competing interests, and public concerns. Robust monitoring systems and the sharing of data among parties with a stake in the management of the system are recommended so that management decisions are informed by a common understanding of the factors that affect the system.
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From page 275... ...
(Chapter 6) Recommendation: Create a system-level entity or consortium of agencies to lead a collaborative multiagency, multi-jurisdictional effort that can plan, program, create incentives, and seek funding to implement management solu tions focused on the entire Spirit Lake and Toutle River system.
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From page 276... ...
The second phase would be focused on system-wide decision making and fully take into account upstream and downstream conditions, potential impacts, and affected parties. CHANGING MIND-SETS The volcanic, seismic, and meteorological setting of the Spirit Lake and Toutle River system has created a region subject to steady and rapid physical change punctuated by periodic cataclysmic events such as the 1980 eruption of Mount St.
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From page 277... ...
The analytical-deliberative decision process described in previous chapters provides guidance on how beneficial and broadly acceptable management actions might be identified and agreed to. Decision participants, with the help of their neutral decision support team (Chapter 6)
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From page 278... ...
It could be argued that the choice of constructing the Spirit Lake t unnel and the SRS merely delayed the inevitable transfer of sediment from the headwaters of the Toutle River at Spirit Lake through the Toutle River to the Cowlitz and Columbia Rivers and that perhaps a different mind-set than has heretofore been applied is required to manage sediments. Longterm management solutions might seek to facilitate an orderly transfer of sediment through the entire system in ways that also promote desirable long-term ecologic conditions, economic goals, and public safety.
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From page 279... ...
Whereas the USFS will likely be the agency to initiate the process, as decision making evolves and matures, the role of lead for any specific decision should be decided collaboratively. For a decision process to be perceived as legitimate by interested and affected parties, the lead must be accepted as an "honest broker" whose interest is in seeing a fair, even-handed process implemented in a technically competent manner.
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From page 280... ...
The lead agency will need to assemble a number of distinct skill sets as it prepares to walk through the decision framework as recommended in the preceding chapters. Along with specific technical skills, other necessary skills include: • Decision analysis capabilities.
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From page 281... ...
With input from the newly convened group and its neutral support team consisting of those with appropriate technical, facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and decision analysis skills, the lead should decide on the best means for applying the decision framework to the problem at hand (e.g., Spirit Lake) , with consideration given to the priorities of all interested and affected parties (see Box 7.1)
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From page 282... ...
The Spirit Lake and Toutle River system is similar to the applications of PrOACT-like processes described in Chapter 6 in that there are multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdictions; other interested and affected parties with lesser decision-making influence; large, but perhaps not completely defined, geographic boundaries for the problem; and multiple ways of defining the scope of the problem needing to be addressed. But the Spirit Lake and Toutle River system is notable for the number and extreme magnitude of the natural hazards as well as for the potential diversity of capital works as solutions to the decision problem.
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From page 283... ...
Some coordinating mechanism is needed among responsible agencies to identify management strategies that allow agencies to effectively carry out their respective missions and to engage with the concerns of other interested and affected parties in the region. Without some sort of long-term external influence to encourage and compel the needed coordination, individual agencies may not be able to manage the system in a coordinated manner.
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From page 284... ...
Such a body might inform and influence existing authorities and political leaders of the need to fund, coordinate, and develop system-wide risk management programs and plans, and then be responsible for regularly reporting about management decisions and the decision-making process to all interested and affected parties and members of Congress. Establishing such an entity requires resources and authority beyond that held by any existing agency with management responsibility in the region.
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