County Extension offices and two agricultural experiment stations in the Upper Klamath Basin locally represent Oregon State University and the University of California. This strong local presence enabled other faculty members from the campuses at Corvallis, Berkeley, and Davis to join in a team effort in writing a report titled, Water Allocation in the Klamath Basin: An Assessment of Natural Resource, Economic, Social, and Institutional Issues. Based on community input, we decided to provide information in a systematic multi-disciplined report that "told the story". The report was a learning process that provides non-advocacy account of the ecological, economic, social, institutional, and policy issues related to water allocation decisions in 2001. The report lays out the known and the uncertain, provides extensive references, tells of the impact in 2001 from the irrigation water restriction, suggests future research topics, and looks at management and policy alternatives.

Upon completion of the first draft, it was presented to the public at an open meeting with a 5-week open comment period to receive local knowledge. After revisions, a final report was published in March 2002. Follow-up activities are in the planning stage.

The challenges included identification of faculty with appropriate backgrounds and the flexibility to drop other tasks to do this quickly. The geographic and time scale had to be restricted to match resources, and the large diverse volume of public comment was challenging.

Internal reviews for quality control were extensive, and many new and positive professional relationships developed as the faculty learned about the complexities in Klamath. Team members indicated they felt they were part of a mission of importance to a community with acute struggles. Community reviews (about 75, some very extensive) were helpful in refining the report and showed very diverse values related to the issues.

This model demonstrates several effective principals for engaging the public with the universities in developing better understandings of scientific issues. They are as follows: Defining the scope of the project to a level that matched available resources; Designing with an holistic view; Expanding public engagement, working together, taking the time needed; Developing follow-up opportunities.