SCOPE: Center for Excellence for Watershed Management FY 12: Floyd's Fork Stakeholders Engagement Project (State)

Background research – initial research will be performed to document and categorize information and data about the Floyd’s Fork watershed. This information will be summarized and used in support of the stakeholder interview process. • Stakeholder identification and interviews – an initial list of potential stakeholders will be solicited from the Division of Water. This list will be augmented using a snow-ball interview process. Individual stakeholders will be interviewed to determine stakeholder: 1) values, 2) concerns, 3) issues, 4) vision, 5) data needs, 6) trusted data sources. • Vision identification- following the stakeholder interview process, the identified visions will be catalogued and used to develop an initial set of different visions. Additional research to support a proper description of each vision will be performed. Summaries of each vision will be prepared which will include both narrative and visuals aids/maps. • Stakeholder focus groups – following the stakeholder interview process, individual stakeholders will be assigned to different focus groups. Separate meetings will then be conducted with each focus group. During each meeting, the participants will be asked to identify relevant community values. The participants will also be asked to evaluate the developed set of potential visions through the use of anonymous key pad technology. Following the data collection session, members will be asked to discuss what they liked and disliked about each vision. This will help to identify relevant concerns and issues with each vision. Finally, participants will be asked to identify any additional data needs as well as trusted sources for such data. The effectiveness of the meeting process will be quantified through quantitative metrics. • Public informational meetings – based on the data needs identified through the focus group process, relevant information will be researched and assembled. This information will then be posted on a project website for review by all the stakeholders. A public meeting will then be conducted in which relevant information will be presented through an interactive process. The goal of this step of the project will be to: 1) assess the community’s knowledge with regard to relevant project facts, 2) minimize misunderstandings or erroneous ideas associated with relevant project facts, 3) expose community members to the interactive engagement methodology, 4) provide information potentially relevant for use in supporting stakeholder’s ability to indicate preferences with regard to future visions. • Informational Website – In order to facilitate the distribution of relevant project material to the local stakeholder community, an informational website will be constructed similar to one used for a previous stakeholder engagement project: www.paducahvision.com. • Public Vision Meeting – following the stakeholder focus group meetings, a set of final future visions will be developed. These visions will then be shown to the participants at a vision evaluation meeting and the participants will then be asked to indicate their preferences for each vision. This information will then be documented and summarized in a final project report. • Data Analysis and Final Report – following the completion of the data collection, the information will be analyzed and summarized in a final project report. A summary of the findings will then be presented at a public meeting. • Submit draft meeting announcements, meeting materials, and website content to the Division of Water for review and approval