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Skagit Riparian Buffer Incentives Pilot Project

23 August 2023
Skagit Riparian Buffer Incentives Pilot Project

Client: Skagit Watershed Council 

Case Study: Peak evaluated a range of riparian vegetation incentive programs used in Skagit County. These programs aim to provide agricultural landowners with funding and assistance for installing riparian buffers along waterways. Our team conducted research and interviewed a diverse pool of individuals working in the conservation field to assess the value, influence, and potential improvements of riparian vegetation incentive programs for state agency consideration. We worked with the Skagit Watershed Council and the Skagit Conservation District with funding from the Washington State Conservation Commission.

Our process included a review of relevant literature about current programs and existing incentive programs. We also incorporated Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) strategies in extensive landowner and practitioner outreach. We incorporated local government, tribal, and stakeholder feedback in developing our report and recommended program improvements for consideration by the state agencies.

Peak examined the challenges in contacting and engaging landowners, the alignment between landowner goals and program offerings, and questions property owners have regarding whether their property conditions are impacting aquatic health. We also looked into the impact of insufficient financial incentives for riparian planting and insufficient funding for general program operations, maintenance, and labor. Additionally, we examined complex enrollment processes and/or regulations, messaging about riparian “buffers,” trust issues for public programs, riparian vegetation width requirements, and lack of success with current incentives.

Impact: Our team assembled a comprehensive package of recommended program improvements for consideration by the state agencies that administer the riparian vegetation incentive programs. Effective riparian management is important to salmon survival. Trees provide shade, retain sediment, improve water quality, and increase biodiversity. Additionally, encouraging voluntary programs that plant and maintain vegetative habitats assists with climate adaptation.

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Waste recovery, reuse, and recycling

Searching for ways to improve how you capture value through waste prevention and reduction, recovery, and reuse?

Peak’s Sustainability Team engages your organization in systems thinking. We can inform pathways for securing ethical resource inputs, capture carbon offsets, add value using regenerative inputs, rethink packaging, and minimize your environmental and carbon footprint. We can engage your team in examining ways to incorporate circular supply chains and capture value through your recycling and waste reduction efforts.

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Environmental impact analysis

Measure, track, and analyze your business’s water consumption, energy use, carbon emissions, waste streams, and other key metrics. 

Use this information to identify opportunities that will increase efficiency, cut emissions, lower costs and save money, and improve your impact. 

 

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It’s a data-driven world, but the benefits of data are in identifying trends or revealing emerging problems. Presented visually, data can support or challenge perceptions. This process leads to a more accurate awareness of an evolving situation. Data interpretation gives you an edge when working in a competitive market and enables faster, more informed decisions. Good data opens up conversations that inform better business, client, and stakeholder relationships. Strategic conversations allow you to inform strategy and enable productive decision-making. In a world of risk, data identifies pitfalls and strengths and results in early action which can improve your future outlook. We can help you use this data to point the way.

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Calculate and interpret the carbon footprint associated with your business.

This can include Scope 1 (direct emissions), Scope 2 (indirect emissions), and Scope 3 (supply chain emissions).

You’ll be able to use this information to inform sustainability initiatives, emissions reductions, carbon offset purchases, and carbon neutral goals.  

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Our team will work with you to develop specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals.

You’ll be able to focus on elevating the environmental and social impact of your business. 

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Gain insight into your specific system dynamics to inform planning and operations decisions with an eye to sustainability.

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Identify key leverage points to optimize positive impact, build resilience, and sustainable prosperity. 

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Jump-start your climate planning. Include your leadership and community in the process. Our Climate Resilience Roadmap™ is a robust and cost-effective community engagement process to support small Pacific Northwest cities seeking to address climate change impacts and risks. Our team incorporates the best-available climate science, community engagement strategies, and analytic tools to assist communities in prioritizing climate projects and charting a course towards greater climate resilience. We walk your community through a defined and succinct process with the following final outcomes:

  • Climate Hazard Analysis
  • Decision Maker Meetings
  • Community Workshop
  • Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimate
  • Final report

The process will result in proven GHG emission reduction strategies and recommendations for building community climate resiliency based on hazard ranking and prioritizing climate actions specific to your jurisdiction.

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Don’t have staff time to research the best mitigation and adaptation strategies for your jurisdiction? We have you covered. We can inform your efforts to develop adaptation measures that lower the negative consequences of climate change in your community and develop mitigation strategies to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Peak Climate Team can inform your process and translate your climate planning efforts into action. Our team pulls from the best available strategies and the experience of communities and businesses around the world and applies targeted strategies for your local context to develop a short list of the best ways to prepare for climate impacts and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We will help you develop a detailed implementation plan for the top climate resilience strategies.

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We bring best practices and experience to help you confidently navigate lower carbon priorities, policy, and actions. Several approaches can be taken to reduce the carbon footprint and GHG emissions in our communities. Peak Affiliates are experts in their field and provide the following expertise:

  • Evaluate options, costs, and best fit actions for your municipality
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  • Integrate knowledge of successful case studies and examples from within Washington State, regionally, or nationwide
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  • Bring to the table options such as: micro-grids for municipal electrification, back-up power options
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  • Examine hurdles to implementation and incorporation of actions into policy

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Determine what your significant sources of air pollutants are and target regulatory actions.

Examine emissions over time and conduct periodic updates to measure improvements or trends.

Measuring emissions creates information that can raise public awareness of the need for pollution controls and bolder climate change initiatives.

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Climate plans and policy development

For small cities or jurisdictions, time and resources spent in proper planning and prevention can reduce the impacts of a catastrophe especially for vulnerable populations.

Examine options from a short list of the best ways to prepare, adapt, and mitigate for changes in climate and the impacts.

Identify, develop, and prioritize policy language to incorporate into plans and departmental goals.

Climate Change

Community and stakeholder engagement

Communicating essential information about climate change requires finesse so that people understand and accept the possible impacts across society.

Bridge the gap between the science and research and what communities need to know to be proactive about climate change risks and impacts.

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Data analysis, measurement, and integration

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Measurement and data provide crucial clues about future conditions in a climate-changed world.

Making sense of that data can inform policy and actions that help organizations to adapt to and mitigate for climate risk and the adaptation that will be required with climate change.

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BMPs for watersheds, shorelines, and habitat

Applying best practices, we can help communities and organizations identify and integrate adaptation strategies, consider potential alternatives, and anticipate current and future threats resulting from the changing climate.

Climate change is an amplifier. It makes weather events longer, more damaging, more intense, and more dangerous so planning ahead to meet basic community needs is key.

Meeting basic community needs such as providing safe drinking water, fire and drought prevention, infrastructure protection and maintenance, and public health concerns become more complex.

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Facilitated processes make time for relationships and trust to grow. Facilitation allows all voices to be represented, decorum to be maintained, and solutions to be vetted.

Facilitated conversations enable sound decision making and engagement on issues such as land use, conservation, climate change, infrastructure, and sustainable, resilient communities.

You’ll see how neutral party facilitated processes free you up to participate fully and continue the conversation even when priorities diverge or issues are tough.

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Sort through the clutter and find the best route with a well-designed strategy for success. Pay attention to the details while managing the bigger picture and competing priorities.

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Engage effectively in creating a roadmap that enables the next steps. Engage in facilitation that builds relationships, fosters commitment, and creates a vision for the future.

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Public meetings engage a wide audience and allow for information sharing,increased awareness, input, and discussion on an issue or proposal.

Securing a neutral party allows the convener to participate more fully and effectively while engaging interest groups, gathering public input, and building community consensus.

We also build agendas, create surveys, conduct focus groups and interviews, as well as take the notes and summarize key takeaways from your event.

When done well, you’ll be able to build a stronger community with meaningful engagement.

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It makes a lot of sense to identify and build upon assets already existing in any given community.

When we mobilize people and organizations, the key is to tap into existing structures, relationships, and shared history. Communities can locally-initiate, identify, and mobilize existing unrecognized assets. They also benefit from the opportunities created by grassroots, community-based solutions.

Starting with a community’s common interest and history can launch a more resilient community response to change, disruption, or a crisis.

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Community Based Social Marketing

To address environmental challenges, it’s crucial to seek the adoption of sustainable behaviors. Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) offers a powerful approach to driving meaningful change and engaging individuals and communities in a collaborative effort toward a desired goal. CBSM transcends traditional social marketing by focusing directly on communities. It’s a participatory approach that fosters ownership and empowers individuals to become agents of positive change.

Our process goes beyond information dissemination by actively involving community members in understanding and overcoming barriers to sustainable practices. We bring to you the tools of the trade such as surveys, focus groups, interviews, case studies, literature reviews, and questionnaires. We can use powerful survey software offered through Qualtrics or offer very simple surveys. We also offer services that will help your organization develop a strategic messaging campaign and graphic design material based on input received during the process.

The CBSM Process

  1. Understand the Community: The process begins by deeply understanding the target community’s needs, values, and current behaviors related to the issue. This involves research, focus groups, and community outreach.

  2. Identify Barriers and Benefits: Specific roadblocks hindering sustainable behavior are identified by interacting with community members. This collaborative approach ensures solutions directly address community needs and communicates the benefits of adopting the behavior.

  3. Develop Effective Interventions: Utilizing proven social marketing tools and strategies, tailored interventions are designed to address the identified barriers and leverage the perceived benefits. Examples include community workshops, social norm campaigns, and incentive programs.

  4. Implement and Evaluate: The interventions are implemented in partnership with community stakeholders, building local ownership and promoting long-term sustainability. Continuous evaluation ensures effectiveness and allows for adjustments based on community feedback.

Benefits of CBSM

  • Sustainable Behavior Change: Addressing barriers and fostering intrinsic motivation promotes lasting behavior change within communities.
  • Community Ownership: Active participation fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility for achieving sustainability goals.
  • Culturally Relevant Solutions: Tailored interventions ensure they resonate with the community’s specific values and norms.
  • Cost-Effective Approach: Leveraging community resources and partnerships maximizes impact while minimizing costs.
  • Scalability and Replication: Successful CBSM initiatives can be adapted and replicated in other communities, fostering widespread change

By empowering communities to become active participants in solving environmental and social challenges, CBSM offers an effective too for change.

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Engagement

Task forces, work groups, committees, and commissions

Build community support when addressing issues related to community assets such as watersheds, broadband, water quality, parks, natural resource protection, energy, and restoration efforts.

Engage with a neutral partner that can serve as a facilitator for strategic discussions that reflect an inclusive approach to decision-making about what’s important to your stakeholders.

Set the table for productive internal and external community conversations that engage and build trust and credibility.

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Engagement

Science communication, public speaking, and education

The ability to clearly communicate the relevance and impact of science is more important than ever.

It enhances rather than clouds decision making and, when done well, can remove confusion and controversy.

Ultimately, you’ll be able to increase awareness, understanding, and application of science in making and communicating sound policy decisions.

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Ecosystems

Regulatory compliance analysis and program support

Knowing your responsibilities and staying ahead of changing regulatory requirements allows your operations to move forward with consistency and predictability.

  • NPDES stormwater compliance: Comply with requirements and prevent stormwater runoff from washing harmful pollutants into local surface waters.
  • Waste management, minimization, and beneficial reuse: reduce costs and potential liability related to non-hazardous and hazardous wastes. Reduce or eliminate wastes.
  • Regulatory analysis: Assess facility compliance, address “gaps” and develop strategies for sustained compliance.
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Our team stays on top of the current and upcoming environmental requirements. We can assist you with compiling reports, applying for and renewing permits, and effectively engaging regulatory agencies.

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Ecosystems

Engineering design review

Be proactive and get ahead of both documentation and system design to ensure your projects meet requirements and go as planned.

Examine, adjust, and prioritize plans on an ongoing basis.

Peak has expertise in value engineering and design review, which will likely save time, money, and keep projects rolling forward smoothly.

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Ecosystems

Stormwater system inspections

Maintenance of stormwater infrastructure is a regulatory mandate and is essential to maintaining water quality.

Landowners, businesses, and homeowner and condo associations (HOA and CA) get the expertise they need with qualified stormwater inspections.

We also work extensively with municipalities that need assistance catching up on a backlog of stormwater inspections.

We can complete reserve studies on stormwater infrastructure and conduct stormwater education for HOAs.

You can count on our specialized expertise in stormwater inspections to provide baseline information that guides stormwater facility plans, maintenance, and budgets.

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Technical field services

It can be hard to get qualified, objective, and reliable technical, science, and field expertise. Our team is here to help you.

  • Water quality testing: Adverse impacts to water quality can impair human health and the environment and get you into regulatory hot water. We provide sampling and analysis for permit compliance, source identification, baseline studies, wastewater treatment performance assessment and many other applications Testing provides the data required for better decision making.
  • Stormwater inspections: Our services include compliance reporting, safety and trespass analysis, maintenance evaluation and cost estimation, sediment sampling and disposal analysis, vegetation management plans, and habitat impact evaluation
  • Habitat assessments: Assess the presence, abundance, fitness, or productivity of wildlife populations and their ability to survive.
  • Aquatic surveys: Protect, restore, and manage fish populations with sound science and data collection, and inform fish conservation and management practices in aquatic ecosystems.
  • HIP (Homeowner Incentive Program): Lake Whatcom landowners can get help planning projects that protect the lake, reduce phosphorus, and enhance property values.
  • GIS mapping: Visualize, analyze, and interpret spatial data. See and understand patterns, recognize relationships, and make better, more-informed decisions. ​

Move confidently forward with Peak’s help and areas of expertise.

 

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Ecosystems

Landscape architecture and GIS

Plan, design, manage, and nurture built and natural environments.

Today, communities are increasingly concerned about the environment and sustainably designed buildings and open spaces.

Bring to life projects informed by mapping and landscape architecture to strengthen communities by enhancing the spaces we inhabit.

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