INNOVATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY EDUCATION THROUGH COALITIONS: THE GROUNDWATER POLICY EDUCATION PROJECT

Conservation Society and the Freshwater Foundation. It was one of eleven projects funded from 1988-92 by the Innovative Public Policy Education Program of the Kellogg Foundation and Farm Founda-tion. This program's theme was: that advances in education and pol-icymaking on controversial issues could be enhanced through forma-tion of coalitions of diverse organizations committed to balance and objectivity. Project Goals and Strategies The overall goal of GPEP was to enhance state and local decision makers ' abilities to formulate public policies for improved manage-ment of groundwater resources through formation of coalitions. Spe-cific objectives were to: 1) broaden views of groundwater issues and policy alternatives; 2) increase support and resources, primarily of an informational nature, available to state and local decision makers; and 3) increase decision makers ' understanding of the social, behav-ioral and institutional dimensions of groundwater issues. In order to accomplish the above objectives, a set of educational resources on rural groundwater management and policy was cre-ated. These materials included: the March/April, 1990, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, a special issue entitled "Rural Ground-water Quality Management: Emerging Issues and Public Policies for the 1990s " published by the Soil and Water Conservation Society; the Groundwater and Public Policy leaflet series published by the Freshwater Foundation; and a pilot project leaders ' handbook. These materials were utilized in pilot projects developed and con