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The Preble's meadow jumping mouse is Federally listed as a Threatened Species, which is <br />affecting development in the South Platte River basin. This species' habitat is not directly <br />related to water flow in the South Platte River, but its occupation of riparian lands adjacent to the <br />South Platte River basin has affected land development, ditch maintenance and water <br />infrastructure development, thus indirectly affecting water resource management and <br />administration. <br />Four threatened or endangered species in central Nebraska are affecting development and <br />management of the South Platte River in Colorado. Three bird species, the interior least tern, <br />whooping crane and piping plover, use migratory habitat in the Platte River valley between <br />Lexington and Chapman, Nebraska. A fourth species, the pallid sturgeon, is a fish that occupies <br />the lower Platte River below its confluence with the Elkhorn River in Nebraska. The U. S. Fish <br />and Wildlife Service has concluded that habitat for these species has been reduced by water <br />diversions and land use changes, including flow alteration, as a result of upstream water <br />development (Platte River Endangered Species Partnership 2000). <br />1.3.3.1 Three States Agreement. In 1994, the U. S. Secretary of the Interior and the <br />Governors of Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming entered into a Platte River Memorandum of <br />Agreement (MOA). An outgrowth of this effort was the development and signing of a <br />Cooperative Agreement (CA) in 1997. Under the CA, the three States and the Federal <br />government agreed to <br />develop a program to implement certain aspects of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's <br />(Service) recovery plans for the whooping crane, interior least tern, piping plover, and pallid <br />sturgeon. Specifically, the program would seek to secure defined benefits for the subject species <br />and to serve as a reasonable and prudent alternative to offset the effects of existing and new <br />water related activities within the Platte River basin. The program would also try to help prevent <br />the need to list, under the Endangered Species Act, any additional Platte River basin associated <br />species. <br />Pursuant to the CA, a Governance Committee with members from the three States, water users, <br />environmental groups, and two Federal agencies has been established to implement the CA. The <br />CA provides a general framework for the development of a program to improve and maintain <br />habitat for these species. The CWCB has worked as a member of the three-state partnership to <br />develop the specific details of the program. The program specifies both water measures in <br />Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska and land/habitat measures in Nebraska that will be <br />implemented to improve and maintain habitat. One significant benefit of a basin wide program is <br />that it would allow existing and new water uses in the Platte River basin to proceed without <br />additional requirements (beyond the program) under the Endangered Species Act (Governance <br />Committee of the Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research 2000). <br />A Water Action Plan has been developed to improve the occurrence of Platte River flows. The <br />Service has developed species target flows and the Water Action Plan is focused on reducing <br />shortages to the target flows by an average of 130,000 to 150,000 acre-feet per year. The first <br />70,000 acre-feet of water will be provided in part by (1) restoring the storage capacity of <br />Pathfinder Reservoir in Wyoming (2) establishing an environmental water account in Nebraska's <br />p:data\gen\spdss\final report\chapter l.doc 1-7 <br />October 31, 2001 <br />