Organizing for Endangered and Threatened Species Habitat Draft

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Wyoming's North Platte water users are in a relationship with the federal ESA because they are the beneficiaries of seven federal water projects that capture a total of 2.8 million acre- feet of water-for irrigation, electri c power, municipal use, and recreation. The Bureau of Reclamation stores over 33 million acre-feet of North Platte River water for irrigation and hydroelectric power in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska, and owns the infrastructure for these projects that have had a dramatic impact on stream flow, sediment loads, and consumptive uses across the high semi-desert. As is the case e(sewhere in the West, the USBR contracts with imgation districts in Wyoming and Nebraska that serve as local project sponsors and operators. The three major Wyoming IUSBR projects on the river are the North Platte, Kendrick, and Glendo (LJ.S. DOI Water and Power Resources Service, 1981). The North Platte Project extends 111 river miles from near Guernse.y, Wyoming to Bridgeport, Nebraska. The city of Scottsbluff, Nebraska is located near the center of the irrigated area. About 8 miles below Guernsey Dam, the Whalen diversion in Wyoming dirf;cts flows into two large canals: 1) water heads from the south bank 130 miles in the Fort Laramie; Canal along bench land commanding Wyoming fields below; and 2) the Interstate canal similarly serves imgated land on the north bank along its 95 mile length and tails off into two Nebraska reservoirs, lakes Alice and Minatare. The North Platte project features two major storage reservoxrs-Pathfinder 47 miles upstream of Casper and Guernsey well downstream-that store water for the more than 2000 miles of supply canals and drains. Pathfinder reservoir-originally provided 1, 016,000 acre feet of capacity-stores river flows under a 1904 priority. Waters released from Pathfinder, and other upstream reservoirs, supplemented by return flows, travel the river channel to Guernsey dam and reservoir which fine tunes flows for releases at Whalen diversion. Guernsey reservoir originally had a capacity of almost 74,000 acre feet, but that has been much reduce;d over the years by siltation. The Kendrick project consists of Seminoe dam just above Pathfinder, Alcova dam located below Pathfinder to divert Seminoe water into the 59 mile Casper canal along which water flows to an irregular patchwork of in-igated land between Alcova and Casper, about 24,000 acres in all. Seminoe dam operates with a i•elatiively junior 1935 water storage right. Seminoe reservoir, however, rivals Pathfinder's in capacity-1,017,2$0 acre feet. Obviously, most of the storage on the North Platte river is to be found in Seminoe and Pathfinder. Glendo dam and reservoir are components of the Missouri basin's Pick-Sloan plan along with Gray Reef dam and its re-regulating reservoir way upstream of Glendo. The Gray Reef unit is located just 2 miles below Alcova dam and was designed to hold and modulate the wildly fluctuating releases from Alcova dam. The Glendo (completed in 1958) and Gray Reef (finished in 1961) facilities have been managed in conjunction with the North Platte and Kendrick projects. Glendo provides a maximum of 40,000 acre feet each year for irrigation in Wyoming and Nebraska, most especially along the Fort Laramie and Interstate canals. Of this sum, 15,000 acre feet are designated for Wyoming irrigators and 25,000 acre feet are to serve Nebraskans. An amendment to the Wyoming-Nebraska North Platte River Settlement of 1945 protected Nebraska' interest in maintaining something of regime of the river before Glendo's construction by providing that not more than 40,000 acre feet (plus space created by evaporation losses) of water could be stored at Glendo for irrigation purposes in any given year. The total designated in storage at any given moment was capped a.t 100,000 acre feet. Glendo dam and reservoir were designed 27