Protect Our Waters FAQ

Yes, you can still join. Although we have a select few priority states where we have funding to resource local groups on state legislative efforts, we have campaign members from many states across the country. The campaign provides a place to seek and share advocacy advice, access to technical experts, share networking resources, plug into federal advocacy efforts, and more. If you learn more about the Campaign and think it is a good fit for you even though your state is not a priority state, we encourage you to see if you are a good fit to join!

Joining the Campaign does not obligate you to any specific time commitment! There are many parts of the Campaign to engage with, ranging from information sharing to movement building to building and sharing of technical and legal resources. That being said, we strongly encourage prospective Campaign participants to evaluate if they have the capacity to engage in more than a passive way (i.e. just joining to receive emails and information), and are happy to discuss ways in which campaign leadership can help prospective participants get the most out of becoming a participant through active participation, even with limited time and staff capacity.

At this time, Campaign participation is only open to organizations. Once an organization joins, any individual working for that organization will also have the opportunity to join. We loosely define “organization” – the entity you represent does not need to be a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit, but you do need to represent something beyond yourself. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Jeni Collins at collinsj@nwf.org.

Yes, absolutely. The campaign’s ultimate goal is to significantly strengthen federal clean water protections, but the campaign is working to generally strengthen the political power of the movement for clean water and to fight for access to clean water for all. In that effort our work aligns with and is strengthened by collaboration with social justice, public health, pro-democracy and many other issues. If you agree with our Campaign Policy Principles, we welcome you to bring your organizational perspective to the Protect Our Waters Campaign.

Yes, absolutely. The campaign’s ultimate goal is to significantly strengthen federal clean water protections, but the campaign is working to generally strengthen the political power of the movement for clean water and to fight for access to clean water for all. In that effort our work aligns with and is strengthened by collaboration with business partners. We know that healthy water systems are good for the economy and business and are excited to work with partners to tell that story. If you agree with our Campaign Policy Principles, we welcome you to bring your business’ perspective to the Protect Our Waters Campaign.

Yes, absolutely. The campaign’s ultimate goal is to significantly strengthen federal clean water protections, but the campaign is working to generally strengthen the political power of the movement for clean water and to fight for access to clean water for all. In that effort our work aligns with and is strengthened by collaboration with academic institutions. We have collaborated successfully with academic institutions on research, outreach, events and public education. We are excited to work with you to strengthen water protections through any of these avenues and to brainstorm other ways to partner to bring the fight for clean water to future generations. If you agree with our Campaign Policy Principles, we welcome you to bring your business’ perspective to the Protect Our Waters Campaign.

The Clean Water for All Coalition works to advance equitable policies that promote and increase clean water protections, access, and affordability across the country. The Coalition has three main  buckets of issues that we work on: advancing water protections, investing in water infrastructure, and limiting pollution from agriculture. This includes the issues at play in the Protect Our Waters Campaign, but also goes beyond them. The

The Protect our Waters Campaign was created by Clean Water for All Coalition members, and is facilitated by Clean Water for All staff. It is a project of Clean Water for All, to improve protections for clean water across the nation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Sackett decision, which gutted federal Clean Water Act protections. We wanted to create a space for anyone who was interested in working on these issues could come together, without Coalition membership being a barrier. To join the Campaign, a much more simple participant agreement is required, versus the Coalition’s much larger Membership Agreement.

You can learn more about the issues that Clean Water for All works on here and check out our membership agreement if you are interested in engaging here

The campaign’s primary goals are legislative: to pass federal legislation significantly improving national clean water protections, and to strengthen state legislative protections across the country. However, the campaign also engages in significant strategic networking, resource sharing, peer education efforts, and communication and storytelling initiatives. Notably, the campaign also works to bring together water advocates fighting for different water causes, in order to strengthen the movement for clean water and to increase support for better water protections.

The Protect Our Waters campaign prioritizes a select group of states based on a decision-making process from a Governance Committee that is made up of founding members of the Protect Our Waters Campaign and who provide leadership, accountability, and oversight to the Campaign. The process weighs a number of factors including but not limited to: 

• How at risk the waters and wetlands in that state are based on geography and hydrology;
• How at risk they are given that state’s regulations (or lack thereof) concerning water quality protections;
• Whether state agencies in that state have existing resources to effectively implement existing protections;
• Whether that state has citizen-suit provisions for organizations to bring lawsuit over failure of a state to adequately protect waters;
• The political dynamics of a state’s legislature and administration; and/or
• The presence of local organizing on the ground throughout a state working towards improving water protections. 

If you are currently working or would like to start working on these types of water protections in a state that you think would benefit from Protect Our Waters engagement, please reach out to Kristine Oblock at oblockk@nwf.org to assess potential collaboration/coordination.

Clean Water for All staff are also working to fundraise for pass-through funding to provide support to organizations working in our priority states to add to their capacity to engage in and lead this important work. In the event that we are able to fundraise for pass-through money for a particular state, we would announce the opportunity to apply for funding with an RFP. Funding distribution is then decided by the Governance Committee, usually with a representative from the state that we have funding for if one does not already sit on the Governance Committee. The Governance Committee is the leadership and oversight body of the Campaign and will evaluate proposals based on factors including but not limited to the following:

• • Whether the organization exemplifies that they represent a constituency that would be impacted by lack of surface water quality protections within their state;
  • Whether the organization exemplifies a commitment to advancing environmental justice;
  • Whether the organization offers perspectives less typically represented in the fight for clean water;
  • Whether the organization has relationships, or the capacity to build key relationships, that will be beneficial to their advocacy success; and/or
  • Whether the organization has legislative advocacy capacity, organizing capacity, or communications capacity needed to advance the work in the state.

The Campaign utilizes equitable decision-making processes that focus on a consensus-building approach. If a disagreement over policy occurs, we will use a modified version of the DARCcI Decision Making Model for redress, which was created by Partners for Collaborative Change. DARCcI is a tool that can go far in establishing more democracy, transparency and equity in an organization or project. 

When a decision is made and someone, regardless of positional power in the organization, disagrees with the decision, that person may request a meeting to attempt to redress the decision if at least one of the following conditions are met:

Conditions for redress:

1. The decision made may risk funding
2. The decision made may cause mission drift 
3. The decision made may risk relationships or partnerships with others
4. The decision made significantly impedes someone’s ability to do their job or complete their work plan
5. The decision made is unrealistic (it won’t achieve the goals it purports to achieve, there is not staff capacity to implement the decision)
6. The decision-maker did not follow the DARCcI
7. Its un-strategic, or there are other more strategic priorities that change the original decision
8. There is something that has priority over this, and this would take time away from that

If the conditions for redress are met, we will use the following process for quickly resolving decision redress issues:

• The person who would like to redress the decision (the “redresser”), brings their concern with either: a work group lead, a Governance Committee member, or Campaign staff. 
• The redresser then communicates directly about these conditions and requests that they make a new decision that resolves the problem/ no longer triggers that condition.
• If the redresser brings forward a new decision that is supported by the broader Campaign work group/Governance Committee (the group is dependent upon the scale of the decision and/or where the issues is brought up), then the change is made. 
• If the redresser brings forward a new decision that is NOT supported by the broader Campaign work group/Governance Committee (the group is dependent upon the scale of the decision and/or where the issues is brought up) or does not have a solution, then we follow the longer decision guideline.. 

If that doesn’t work, or is not appropriate to the redress needed, we will use the Longer Decision Redress process:

• We will hold a conversation about the issue with all parties involved, Campaign staff or another third party assigned by the Campaign will facilitate the conversation.
• The redresser is responsible for:
• Explaining the reason(s) they want to redress the decision
• Developing a counter-proposal ahead of time 
• Giving people time to consider that proposal, prior to the meeting
• Everyone works together to arrive at a new decision that: 
• Removes the risk or concern
• Maintains and honors the core thinking behind the original decision
• Ideally has broad support
• Is strategic
• If no consensus can be reached, the original decision is upheld.

Many Protect our Waters campaign participants are members of multiple water coalitions.

Accordingly, for campaign-to-campaign collaboration, members are encouraged to propose to Protect our Waters campaign staff ideas for such collaborations.

Protect our Waters campaign staff would vet the idea with the Protect our Waters campaign’s Advisory Committee, and if there is enough interest than the same staff would reach out to leadership of the other campaign, with Advisory Committee assistance as needed, to develop details of any collaboration, before formally submitting it to the Advisory Committee.

If you agree with the Campaign Policy Principles and would like to join the Campaign, please complete the Participant Agreement below. We will follow up with more information about joining listservs and work groups when we receive your response.