RE: What stakeholders/citizens need to participate

[Mark McCaffrey <mm@bcn.boulder.co.us>]

Dan et. al.

Our BASIN project, funded through an EPA EMPACT grant ( see www.basin.org or http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin ) has worked with several different stakeholder groups in developing our pilot project that uses the web to provide public access and meaningful background information about the local/regional environmental systems, particularly water-related systems.

We've been working with several "early adoptor" groups including schools (especially those that already have programs like River Watch), local agencies and environmental groups (such as the local watershed initiative) and, most importantly perhaps, voluteers from the local Boulder Community Network, mainly high-tech people who have good skills and background in information technology but perhaps don't have much environmental background.  They've provided us with invaluable feedback on what works and what doesn't in terms of presentation, look and feel of the website, etc.

The issues you bring up about quality of information and awareness of the issues have certainly come into play with our project. 

After struggling to get visitors to our site, we're now getting some 10,000 "distinct hosts served" per month, many of them from outside the immediate area but who are apparently interested in the local environment and/or our community-based, interdisciplinary approach.

The web is certainly not the magic solution to all environmental information dissemination problems...and there's many political and practical issues that are challenging in terms of acquiring, translating and presenting the data online (which people have identified in this dialogue) but there are obviously huge opportunities, some of which we are only now beginning to recognize.

Mark McCaffrey
BASIN 
Communications Coordinator