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<br />RE: Spring 2008 Water Release <br />PIATTE RIVER <br />RECOVER1' IMVIEMEhTATtON VROGRAM <br />Keamey, NE, March 12, 2008 <br />Jerry Kenny, the Executive Director of the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program (PRRIP), in <br />conjunction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announced the decision to postpone plans to release <br />water from an Environmental Account (EA) stored at Lake McConaughy this spring. The planned release <br />was scheduled for late March and would have resulted in a flow of approximately 3,000 cfs at Overton <br />for 1 to 2 days and would have used approximately 24,000 acre-feet of EA water. The release of water in <br />these pulse flows is important because of the beneficial impact higher flows have on changing river <br />? <br />channels and scouring of vegetation on the river. <br />The planned water release, and an alternative that would have used slightly less EA water and resulted <br />in lower peak flows, was presented to the Governance Committee (GC) of the PRRIP at their February <br />12-13, 2008 meeting. Although the GC supported the plan, two issues; one related to the potential <br />ramifications if damages occurred to third parties prior to the enactment of the Federal authorizing <br />legislation for the Program and the other related to use of Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation <br />District (CNPPID) and Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) facilities, led to the GC requesting <br />additional review prior to any release of water for pulse flow purposes. Based on the review of these <br />issues, the decision was made to forgo an initial pulse flow release from the EA this year. <br />The current plan is to conduct the pulse flow in February - March 2009. "We will be in a much better <br />position to have an effective, initial pulse flow release, in March 2009. The Program will have vegetation <br />monitoring in place, increased capacity in the river at the North Platte "choke poinY' and an EA Bypass <br />more