It is often difficult to convince natural resource agencies to integrate and merge their formally mandated plans into the citizens directed planning effort, and inevitably, some dualism has remained in planning efforts. Forming a Technical Advisory Committee Technical committees not only provide critical knowledge and insight from multiple agencies and interest groups, they also broaden the potential representation base among stakeholders. Most councils formed a technical advisory committee as one of their first activities, to incorporate local and agency technical expertise into the evaluation and study process. Most council watershed efforts have been funded for rather short terms, with only promises for long-term support. The short-lived Watershed Health Program focused on two areas of the state with far more money than could be efficiently spent in the two year period allotted.
Watershed restoration is a long-term proposition.
Continued communication and cooperation across agencies can lead to strengthening and expanding partnerships allowing many projects to be pursued collectively that can't be accomplished individually, especially in an era of shrinking budgets. There is a mountain of environmental information in every watershed, but most of it unorganized, incomplete, or not amenable to easy retrieval. Interagency cooperation can be fostered by the council serving as a 'clearing house' to collate and disseminate information about basin wide environmental actions. The council gains legitimacy when it can serve as an information source to agency technicians. This effort can be relatively inexpensive, performed only periodically, and simple in design and presentation, but immensely valuable to other resource managers.