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? <br />? <br />? <br />. When dependent upon federal government projects, or when non-federal water facilities <br />. need federal approvals, water users planning to undertake actions that can reasonably be expected <br />to increase jeopardy of a listed species must find ways to achieve ESA campliance in order to gain <br />? essential permit(s). For 29 years now, the ESA has been an unwelcome guest at virtually every <br />? Western water user dinner party. <br />The concept of jeopardy, and the manner in which jeopardy is defined and implemented by <br />the FWS, resides at the center of ESA's operational meaning. The definition of jeopardy <br />establishes a bar against which the FWS evaluates all federal actions affecting listed species. Not <br />surprisingly, the issues surrounding the "jeopardy standard(s)" are complex, subtle, and draw fire <br />from virtually all resource constituencies. The essence of the concept is simple enough. Jeopardy <br />for a species is created when an action is undertaken that can be reasonably expected to reduce <br />the likelihood of survival and recovery of a listed species (Rohlf 2001, p. 118). However, it is not <br />a simple matter to draw a biological line in the policy sand and then straightforwardly halt <br />threatening actions of other federal agencies, their state and local constituencies, or non-federal <br />authorities. Environmentalists have pushed hard for strong interpretations while resource <br />appropriators seek to gain their permits with regulatory certainty at least possible cost. The FWS <br />struggle to define the jeopardy standard is grist for other studies (Rohlf 2001) <br />In 1978, in an effort to protect the whooping crane, the Fish and Wildlife Service <br />designated a 56 mile-long by 3 mile-wide stretch of the Platte River between Lexington and <br />Chapman, Nebraska as critical habitat. Five additional species that depend on the central Platte <br />were also listed as threatened or endangered: the Least Tern (1985), Piping Plover (1985), <br />Western Prairie Fringed Orchid and American Burying Beetle (1989), and the Pallid Sturgeon, <br />which inhabits lower reaches of the Platte mainstem (1990) (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service 1997b) <br />(Echeverria 2001). The USFWS, in order to implement its ESA mandate, would take a seat at the <br />Platte basin water users' repast. <br />National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) <br />By the 1960's it was clear that federal programs had worked in conjunction with state and <br />local constituencies to create significant environmental problems. It was becoming clear that, if <br />federal action was an important part of the nation's environmental problems, the federal <br />government must also be the source of potential solutions (Andrews 1999). <br />In 1969, Congress enacted.its first piece of major environmental legislation, the National <br />Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA declared it to be national policy to maintain <br />"productive harmon}?" between humans and nature while fulfilling economic and social <br />requirements of present and future generations of Americans. NEPA stipulated a set of tasks and <br />procedural requirements that mandated preparation of an environmental impact statement for each <br />major federal action that would significantly alter the natural environment. Each environmental <br />impact statement would assess environmental impacts of proposed actions, and it would also <br />advance suggested options to address the environmental impacts that would be caused by the <br />proposed actions (Andrews 1999). <br />17