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i Faribault con't "Once or twice a week I have a county commissioner in my office," Wehrenberg said. The board's connection with the SWCD grew becaux~ it took an active role in working with the SWCD to the plan, Wehrenberg said. After the plan was written and approved, the board was supportive of carrying it out. 'They helped write it and they took ownership of it,' Wehrenberg said. Because implementation is handfed locally with very little involvement from the state, the board has been willing to deal with some of the tough issues facing the county, Wehrenberg said. `The commissioners will tackle the hard issues i#~they're doing it, but they won't if it's mandated," he said. As the district began to carry out the plan-and was successful in applica- tions for grant money-the water plan's reach began to spread beyond what even Wehrenberg had. originally anticipated. District staff began to work with state agencies like the Department of Natural Resources and the Pollution Control Agency on projects, and were involved from the beginning in the Minnesota River Assessment Project (MRAP). "We would have never been working with those agencies, or considered a key player in MRAP, if it hadn't been for our position as coordinator of the water plan,' Wehrenberg said. "I think that as it became clear that the water planning program was going to be successful, it was n as the glue that held all these other efforts to- gether.' n Aitkin County, task force When Hughes served on a committee to involvement has been revise and update the county's shoreland one of the keys to water ordinance-a key goal of the water plan- planning success. his opinion carried more weight because, as a representative of the water plan, he The task force took an active part in the p from the beginning, according to Steve Hughes, manager of the Aitkin Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), the local water plan coordinator. An average of 24 people attended those early task force meet- ings, providing the basis for the content of the water plan. "We just basically went around the circle and asked each person what issues they were concerned about," Hughes said. Answers ranged from garbage disposal for fish houses to ordinance enforcement. "We wanted to make it a local plan and make sure to the extent that we could that it addressed those concerns," he said. Even after the plan had been developed and adopted by the county board, the task force continued to play a key role. also represented the task force members. The result was a shoreland ordinance addressing many controversial issues skirted in other counties. The ordinance places restrictions on shoreline develop- Aitkin con't p. 3 2 Water quality in ~litkin County is protected by a strict shoreland ordinance.