EARLY COORDINATION. A. The Red River Watershed Management Board has agreed to modify the focus of its annual conference to serve as the workshop for the purpose of hearing presentations from watershed districts, resource management agencies, and non- governmental organizations regarding their top priority problem areas with flood damage or resource management needs that will be addressed by projects in the coming year. The focus is a holistic one concerning all aspects of watershed management and will be an opportunity to build partnerships among all participants.
B. The participants will include the watershed districts, state, federal and tribal agency personnel, local government officials, affected landowners and interested citizens and interest group representatives. State agency personnel will be assigned participation as part of their position description.
C. The Red River Watershed Management Board will consult with the Work Group to plan the conference.
D. At least 30 days prior to the conference the conference sponsor will send to all invitees written material that describes the presentations to be made regarding problem identification and possible alternative solutions considered.
E. Conference participants will be given the opportunity to discuss the problems or issues and the proposed alternatives for addressing them. In all cases, participants must seek solutions consistent with the broad goals for flood damage reduction and natural resource management as defined in the mediation process and in watershed management plans.
F. The outcome will be broad agreement on the problems to be addressed and the preliminary identification of feasible alternatives for further investigation. Concept documents, one for each problem area, will identify the problem to be solved, an array of potential alternatives, and a list of project team members.
G. The conference may also include status reports on specific projects that are further along in the approval/implementation process.
EARLY COORDINATION. FHWA and Mn/DOT CRU will perform early coordination and consultation with the SHPO on unusual or complex issues of evaluation, assessment of effect, and/or mitigation in order to identify problems early in the project planning process.
