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Chapter 1 <br />Purpose of and Need for Action <br />INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW <br />The Platte River system has undergone extensive development for irrigation, power generation, and <br />municipal water uses. The system today contains 15 major dams and reservoirs and provides water for <br />about 3.5 million people. Existing facilities on the river provide hydroelectric power, irrigation water, <br />flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife habitat. Substantial portions of the economies of the Basin <br />States-Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska-are based on water supplied by the Platte River. <br />Concerns have been building for years over the four threatened and endangered species that use the Platte <br />River in Nebraska-the whooping crane, piping plover, interior least tern, and pallid sturgeon-as well as <br />other wildlife in the Lentral Platte River in IVebraska. This habitat has been affected by the development <br />of water projects throughout the river Basin, and also by more local land use changes. In 1997, the States <br />of Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska and the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) signed a <br />Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research and Other Efforts Relating to Endangered Species <br />Habitats Along the Central Platte River, Nebraska (Cooperative Agreement)1. In this agreement, the <br />signatories ageed to pursue a Basinwide, cooperative effort to improve and maintain habitat for the target <br />species using the Central and Lower Platte River in Nebraska. <br />To ensure compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and to allow water users throughout the <br />Platte River Basin to continue their current use of Platte River water, the Program is being developed to: <br />? Provide additional or modified riverflows throughout the Central Platte River habitat <br />9 Protect and restore areas of suitable land habitat between Lexington and Chapman, Nebraska <br />? Mitigate, or offset, impacts to the target species and their habitat resulting from new water- <br />development activities in the Basin <br />Interior has prepared this FEIS to analyze and disclose the environmental consequences of the first <br />13 years of this Recovery Implementation Progratn2 (Program) to benefit the four threatened and <br />endangered species (the four "target species") and their habitat in and along the Platte River in Nebraska: <br />? Whooping crane <br />? Interior least tern <br />? Northern Great Plains breeding population of the piping plover <br />? Pallid sturgeon <br />'Available at <http://www.platteriver.org> or from the Office of the Executive Director, Governance Committee (see <br />"Cover SheeY').. <br />ZA Recovery Implementarion Program is a set of actions to address aspects of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's recovery <br />plan for a threatened or endangered species. A Recovery Implementation Program aims to help recover the species, while not <br />necessarily addressing all threats to a species throughout its range.