Land Interest Holding Entity Agreement

• File Number: 8461.300
• Description: Land Issues
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 2/15/2008
• Author: Ted Kowalski
• Title: Land Interest Holding Entity Agreement
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Board Memo

STATE OF COLORADO
Colorado Water Conservation Board
Department of Naturat Resources
1313 Sherman Street, Room 721
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
w%rw.cwcb.state.co.us
Z'0: Harris Sherman Biil Ritter,lr.
Govemor
FROM: Ted Kowalski Hartis D. Sherman
DNR Executive I}irector
DATE: Febt-uary 15, 2008 Jennifer L. Gimbel
CWCB Director
SUBJECT: Land Interest Holdin Enti A reement
g ? g Dan McAuliffe
CWCB Deputy Director
Background
In December of 2006, the Governors of Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming, and the Secretary of
the Interior signed an agreement to implement the Platte River Recovery Implementation
Program Agreement that seeks to recover the threatened and endangered least tern, piping
plover, whooping crane, and pallid sturgeon ("the target species"). As part of this agreement, the
State and the Federal Government have agreed to protect, restore where appropriate, and
maintain at least 10,000 acres of habitat in the central Platte River area between Lexington and
Chapman, Nebraska, by the end of the first increment (December 31, 2019). Acquisition may be
in the form of purchase, lease, easement, or other arrangement.
The Program provides: "A legal entity or entities will, on behalf of the Program, hold title or
other interests in land acquired by or contributed to the Program as set for the in the Land
Plan....Because the Governance Committee ("GC") and Program are not legal entities that can
enter into contracts or hold property, the Program will use a Land Interest Holding Entity
("LIHE") to hold title to Program lands, or to enter into leases, easements, and other contractual
arrangement for Program lands. All purchases, leases, easements, and other land-holding
transactions will be made at the direction of the Governance Committee, working through
contractual arrangements with the LIHE. The LIHE will be a non-governmental entity, and will
be identified through a search or bid process."
The GC formed a LIHE committee to conduct a search and advise this process. I served on this
committee as Colorado's representative. The LIHE committee contacted several different non-
governmental land holding entities (i.e. the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, Ducks
Unlimited, the Trust for Public Lands) and the only entity that expressed any interest in serving
as the LIHE was the Nebraska Community Foundation ("NCF"), who currently serves as the
Financial Management Entity. The NCF, thus is creating the Platte River Recovery
Implementation Foundation ("PRRIF")far the purposes of serving as the trustee of Program
lands. The GC hired a Nebraska attorney to advise the GC in negotiating an agreement with the
NCF to establish a trust with the PRRIF (as a entity created by the NCF) to serve as the LIHE.
Since this agreement establishes a trust to hold the lands until the termination of the program, in
accordance with the established exit strategy in the Program Agreement, this document must be
signed between the NCF and representatives of the three States and the federal government.
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