Playa & Water Conservation Outreach Specialist

Position Summary Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV) is seeking a Playa & Water Conservation Outreach Specialist to engage local communities across eastern New Mexico and help them support the integration of playa restoration into local and regional water planning efforts as part of Kansas Water Office’s Tomorrow’s Water grant from NFWF America’s Ecosystem Restoration Initiative. This position will build on previous water conservation efforts and Tomorrow’s Water models used in Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas by using and adapting existing messages, products, and tools. It is one of eight outreach positions working to expand Tomorrow’s Water across five states, with guidance from a project coordinator and in collaboration with the other positions. Tomorrow’s Water is an adaptive, collaborative process that helps local communities, including agricultural producers in the surrounding counties, partner with conservation organizations to create an actionable plan to ensure a clean and sustainable water supply by incorporating playa conservation as part of broader water quantity and quality efforts. The Outreach Specialist will play a central role in advancing this model at the community level by engaging stakeholders, building relationships, and translating conservation goals into on-the-ground actions. Using this plan, landowners in the community use conservation programs to voluntarily restore playas near municipal and domestic wells and reach sustainable levels of irrigation. Learn more at TomorrowsWater.org . The Outreach Specialist is responsible for 1) expanding Tomorrow’s Water to communities over the Ogallala Aquifer that also have a high density of playas to provide water for current and future generations, and 2) working with existing playa conservation delivery networks to use funding from local, state, and Farm Bill conservation programs to restore playas and surrounding grassland buffers to provide groundwater recharge that supports those communities including agricultural producers in the surrounding counties. Tomorrow’s Water relies heavily on a large partnership throughout the region; thus, the successful candidate will have the skills to work with a large variety of partners across state agencies, water management districts, wildlife-focused nonprofits and local communities – including government, conservation districts and landowners – and be able to bring them all together to achieve playa and water conservation goals. The successful candidate will be an effective communicator, highly organized, and able to oversee many moving pieces and tracking results while meeting various deadlines and goals.