‘One bite at a time’

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Feeling overwhelmed with a big project, I once asked a friend how she had accomplished a similar one. She said, “Well, you know how you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!”

For the League of Women Voters (LWV), faced with the challenge of identifying meaningful and effective ways to address the problem of nutrient pollution (the excess nitrogen and phosphorus affecting the quality of drinking water and creating the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico), the Watershed Game has helped us line up some well-placed “bites!”

Developed in 2006 by educators at the University of Minnesota Extension and Minnesota Sea Grant, the Watershed Game provides a hands-on opportunity to learn about water management strategies.

Participants are challenged to use their resources to improve water quality and meet clean water goals. It’s a perfect tool for an organization like the League that encourages collaboration and cooperation to face and fix problems that transcend political boundaries and purely partisan approaches.

In 2014, members of our local League (LWV-Jo Daviess County) and of LWV-Dubuque first broached the idea of forming an “inter League organization” to address water management issues in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed. On Oct. 24, 2015, delegates from 52 local LWVs in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin met at the Grand River Center in Dubuque for the first meeting of the LWV-Upper Mississippi River Region Inter League Organization. We all played the Watershed Game.

Since that first meeting, we’ve organized three Watershed Game “facilitator” trainings with participants from throughout the four-state region. Facilitators lead participants through the game and a follow up discussion.

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We continue to encourage community leaders, local officials and interested citizens to play the Watershed Game. We know that making decisions and policies to protect and improve the health of our water isn’t an easy job.

Water quality is only one of several local priorities, resources are limited, and understanding laws and regulations about clean water isn’t easy either. Every community and every watershed is different.

Rather than prescribing a “one size fits all” plan, The Watershed Game introduces options and illustrates the importance of working together across different land uses.

The goal is to help us make informed, cost-effective decisions about how to best protect and improve public water resources.

We have purchased games locally with versions related to rivers, lakes and streams. There is also a classroom version.

Trained facilitators can check them out from the Jo Daviess County Health Department (when the current public health crisis has passed, of course!) for anyone who would like to play the game with their organization or group.