Christine Feurt presents at Maine Water Utilities Association Drinking Water Protection Seminar

Christine Feurt, Ph.D., in the Department of Environmental Studies and director of the Center for Sustainable Communities at UNE, presented a talk on collaborative watershed management at the Maine Water Utilities Association Drinking Water Protection Seminar in Augusta on September 18, 2012.

“Common Interests, Shared Solutions” was the theme for the 6th annual seminar. Feurt’s talk, “The Salmon Falls Watershed Collaborative: Working Together to Get Things Done,” shared lessons learned from formation and work of the award winning Salmon Falls Watershed Collaborative.

The Collaborative, whose partnership is facilitated by Feurt, received the 2012 U.S. Water Prize from the Clean Water America Alliance. The Prize recognized two years of focused effort to build a collaborative partnership among municipalities, drinking water providers, watershed groups, land trusts, and state and federal partners to protect drinking water in the communities of the Salmon Falls Watershed, which encompasses portions of Maine and New Hampshire and which drains to the Piscataqua River.

Feurt reported on important lessons learned about the challenges and benefits of forming and sustaining the partnership and elements of successful collaboration discovered as a result of this work.