Current Projects

After-Action Review of the Statewide Pandemic Response and Recovery

A legislative proviso directed Washington State’s Military Department and Department of Health to conduct a comprehensive after-action review of the statewide pandemic response and recovery. The Ruckelshaus Center, with assistance from WSU Extension’s Division of Governmental Studies and Services, has been providing process design and facilitation for an After-Action Review Task Force, comprised of 48 organizations, across all sectors and industries, including community-based organizations. The Task Force work and facilitation is focused on equity and social justice-related experience and is expected to lead to recommendations and leverage points to achieve systemic change. The Task Force will report its findings to the legislature by June 30th, 2023.

For more information, please contact Phyllis Shulman or Kevin Harris.

Cascadia Coastal Hazards Resilience

The coasts of each state in Cascadia present unique conditions, cultures, and challenges affecting the adaptive capacity and resilience of their coastal systems and communities. Cascadia coastal communities face challenges from rapid coastal erosion and flooding, the vulnerabilities associated with rural isolation, and ocean changes that are already threatening incomes, lifestyles, and coastal community traditions and identities. Coastal communities have emphasized the need to improve linkages between researchers and communities as well as improving the accessibility and applicability of research and data. Achieving tailored multi-hazard solutions that align with the diversity of coastal areas and their needs requires co-production by a broad array of entities.

Since 2020, the Ruckelshaus Center has been working with university researchers on two National Science Foundation (NSF) funded efforts to build coastal hazards resilience.

Cascadia Coastal Hazards Research Coordination Network: The Cascadia Coastal Hazards Research Coordination Network (abbreviated to RCN) is a three-year funded effort to bring together researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders who seek to mitigate the geohazards on coastal communities in the Pacific Northwest. The goal of the RCN is to co-develop research agendas and establish new collaborations that cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries. The Center is assisting the RCN in pursuing its mission through several activities and pursuits that bring researchers and stakeholders together, including:

• Facilitation of the RCN Steering Committee.
• Design and facilitation of community workshops.
• Helping coordinate activities and facilitate communication between research groups.

Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research HUB: The RCN is closely aligned with a parallel effort that the Center is part of – the Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research HUB (abbreviated to Cascadia CoPes HUB).

Led by Oregon State University and the University of Washington, the Cascadia CoPes HUB is a five-year collaborative research effort focused on increasing resiliency among coastal communities in the Pacific Northwest. The HUB is conducting research and engaging coastal communities with two overarching goals: (1) seek fundamental advances in convergent coastal hazard sciences that will transform our understanding of the risk faced by coastal communities in the Pacific Northwest, and (2) engage communities through the co-production of strategies that will increase adaptive capacity, broaden participation, and achieve equitable and just disaster risk reduction.

Five interconnected teams carry out the work of the Cascadia CoPes Hub:

• Team 1: Tectonic Geohazard Sources and Integrated Probabilistic Modeling
• Team 2: Exposure to Inundation and Coastal Change Hazards
• Team 3: Community Adaptive Capacity
• Team 4: Broadening Participation and Inclusive STEAM Education
• Team 5: Community Engagement and Co-Production of Coastal Hazards And Knowledge

The Ruckelshaus Center co-leads Team 5, coordinating the portfolio of community engagement and co-production activities across the hub. The team’s aim is to promote truly convergent science across all the research projects by supporting researchers in these efforts and by supporting community needs and being responsive to community requests, including direct facilitation of outreach to communities.

For more information, please contact Amanda Murphy or Phyllis Shulman.

Crisis Governing and Decision Making in Response to COVID-19

The Washington State Legislature provided funding for the Washington Military Department to contract with the William D. Ruckelshaus Center to compare the traditional decision-making systems in Washington State with other decision-making structures and to provide recommendations for future emergency responses. The goal of the project is to implement a comprehensive, cross-jurisdictional exploration of lessons learned from the pandemic about the dynamic between traditional emergency management decision-making systems and other ways decision making was structured for responses to the pandemic in Washington. This exploration will include exploring potential embedded or practiced biases and/or structures that impact considerations of equity, inclusion, and diversity. The project will engage participants in developing a set of recommendations for decision-making systems utilized in governments, universities, businesses, and other entities.

You can learn more about the project here.

You can read the most recent report, “Crisis Governing and Decision Making in Response to COVID-19: Lessons and Reflections Across Washington State,” here. You can read the companion report, “A Question of Emergency Response Regionality,” here.

For more information, please contact Phyllis Shulman or Jed Chalupa.

K-12 Pandemic Impact

This project combines the unique skillsets and approaches of the William D. Ruckelshaus Center (the Center) and the Washington State Academy of Sciences (the WSAS) to support researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and others to better address the impacts of Covid-19 on Washington’s children and apply lessons learned to future emergencies.

The project emerges from two separate, but complementary, areas of work conducted by the Center and the WSAS. The Center and the WSAS will partner in a follow-on project that implements one of the recommendations from the Learning from Responses to Covid-19 in Washington State Project (see below) initiated by the Center and builds on the convenings and proceedings of the last two WSAS annual symposia focused on Covid-19, with an emphasis on understanding and mitigating the impacts of the pandemic on children.

The pandemic dramatically interrupted K-12 education for all students across the state and led to a range of academic, social, physical, and mental and behavioral health impacts. The disruptions caused by the pandemic disproportionately impacted students and families that are low-income, from historically disadvantaged communities, immune compromised, and/or special needs.

The Center will utilize lessons learned through its interviews with leaders around the state who were deeply involved in the pandemic response to bring together policy makers, practitioners, researchers, advocates, and others to understand what is working and what is not, to share experiences and strategies, and to identify or develop initiatives and successful interventions that can best support children’s social, emotional, physical, and academic health and recovery. WSAS will identify the research base that identifies what is already known about the impacts of the pandemic on children, as well as what is still needed to be known to inform new policies, strategies, and programs. Ultimately, the project aims to inform policies and practices needed to improve the long-term social, emotional, and educational outcomes of students, especially those disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic in Washington State.

For more information, please contact Tye Ferrell or Phyllis Shulman.

Pathways to Housing Security in Washington 

Recognizing the many challenges related to housing in the state, and how these challenges were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Washington Legislature has tasked the Ruckelshaus Center to clarify the current state of housing instability and homelessness in Washington and to facilitate discussions to inform desired principles, options, and recommendations for a statewide strategy to improve services and outcomes and create a pathway to housing security (Section 6 of House Bill 1277).

Read the Year 1 report here and the Year 2 report here. The final report will be available on December 1, 2023.

For more information, visit the project page.

Recreation Impacts on Tribal Treaty Rights Working Group

Project Purpose: To develop and convene a collaborative process/forum for Washington treaty tribes and federal agencies to explore and better understand recreation impacts on treaty rights and to develop a path forward towards action to prevent, mitigate, or remove recreation impacts on treaty-reserved rights and interests.

Project Overview: On September 30, 2016, nine federal agencies and cabinet departments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) creating the Puget Sound Federal Task Force (PSFTF). A five-year action plan primarily focused on recovery of salmon and associated aquatic habitat was adopted in late 2016, with implementation underway through 2021. Leaders of tribes met during Tribal Conference meetings to review treaty rights and risks (TRAR), provide comments on the relative success of the initial action plan, and provide comments and requests identifying issues to be addressed in the next action plan. Findings from the conference, provided during a meeting in November 2021, identified recreation visitation and associated impacts as an impact on treaty rights in need of action.

Federal members of the PSFTF presented a proposed 2022-2027 action plan to leadership of all 20 Western Washington treaty tribes on February 24, 2022. Recreation impacts on treaty rights were noted as a topic of concern in the action plan, however, were not deemed ripe for addition to the plan itself. Meetings in February of 2022 with tribes and PSFTF partners made it clear there is much work to undertake together, and in the spirit of co-management, to: clarify the requests made by tribes, create a shared understanding of recreation-associated impacts on treaty rights, and chart a path forward towards action to mitigate or remove recreation impacts on treaty rights.

The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest (MBS) agreed to play a principal role in establishing a recreation impact on treaty rights working group (RITR) as a forum for tribes and federal agencies to begin work towards action to address the requests made by tribes. The MBS met in April of 2022 with an informal working group of tribes, already established by the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, to address recreation impacts. Tribes identified two key elements necessary to ensure a higher likelihood of a successful outcome:

• A mix of meetings with both tribes and federal partners present as well as a desire for facilitated meetings among tribes separate from federal partners.
• The need for a third party coordinator to work as a go-between for tribes, federal agencies, and between both groups.

On behalf of the Puget Sound Federal Task Force, the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest will partner with the Ruckelshaus Center (the Center) to design and execute a collaborative process between and among representatives of approximately 20 treaty tribes of Western Washington and nine federal agencies who compose the Recreation Impacts on Treaty Rights (RITR) Working Group.

• During Phase I of this effort, the Center will conduct a convening assessment and will develop a collaborative process to facilitate the identification of a set of priority issues related to the impacts of outdoor recreation on the reserved rights and interests of Western Washington tribes.
• During Phase II, the Center will provide project management and facilitation for the RITR Working Group (RITR) and on behalf of the group will produce a report that summarizes the nature of recreation impacts on treaty rights, identifies key measures of those impacts, and highlights action steps needed by Federal agencies to reduce, resolve, or prevent those impacts to treaty rights. This work will provide the foundation for future collaboration and action planning around the set of issues identified in the report.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Review

The Washington State Legislature has directed the Ruckelshaus Center to conduct a review of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s efforts to fulfill its obligations as the trustee of state fish and wildlife, to meet the goals of its legal mandate, and to respond to equity principles as articulated by state law. The review must explore the following areas and recommend changes:

• WDFW’s ability to address threats created by climate change and biodiversity loss
• Accountability and transparency in WDFW decision making at the commission and management levels
• An alignment of mandate with WDFW’s responsibility as a public trustee
• WDFW’s governance structure
• WDFW’s funding model

Within this scope, the Center must also examine the following areas and provide recommendations:

• The Fish and Wildlife Commission’s structure, composition, duties, and compensation
• The process by which WDFW uses science and social values in its decision making
• WDFW’s adherence to state laws, including the State Environmental Policy Act and the Public Records Act
• Outreach and involvement of Washington citizens who have historically been excluded from WDFW decisions, including non-consumptive users and marginalized communities
• Influence on WDFW by special interest groups
• Any other issues that arise during review

Based on the results of the review, the Center must provide options for making changes to WDFW’s mandate and governance structure as deemed necessary to improve WDFW’s ability to function as a trustee for state fish and wildlife.

The Center must submit a report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature by June 30, 2024.

For more information, please contact Chris Page.