After more than 18 years of litigation over water rights, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Friant Water Users Authority reached a settlement with the coalition of environmental organizations that filed suit in 1988. The settlement calls for restoring the river and reestablishing a sustainable salmon population while at the same time developing and implementing a water management plan to reduce the impact to agricultural and urban water users. The settlement resulted in the San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP).
Public outreach and stakeholder involvement is a vital but challenging part of developing the SJRRP restoration and water management plan, with more than 4,000 interested parties to engage. Circlepoint supported the Bureau of Reclamation and five state and federal agencies with the public outreach and stakeholder involvement effort. The team designed and helped implement a multi-level strategy to engage policy leaders, technical specialists and cooperating agencies, landowners, and the general public.
Circlepoint helped the Bureau of Reclamation maintain a transparent process by preparing informational materials about various aspects of the SJRRP and maintaining a robust website. Our web team led a redesign of the project website www.restoresjr.net that included reorganizing the site structure for more efficient maintenance and navigation, updating the user interface with a more modern look and feel and implementing a user-friendly content management system for more streamlined content updates.
