Platte River Endangered Species Cooperative Agreement

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-2- At the root of the debate is a fundamental difference of opinion between the states and the Federal representative over the importance of the Platte River channel to the subject species. Unfortunately, the Endangered Species Act gives considerable deference to Service opinions. Nevertheless, the states did identify several areas where Federal opinion and hypothesis were not well supported by actual data. In short the states believed that it was important to more clearly understand the processes that shape the river channel, including trends, before atteznpting to manipulate these processes to provide channel habitat (habitat restoration activities). A compromise appears to have been reached that allows a parallel process of channel process evaluation and incrementaUsequential testing of potential restoration activities (lowering of islands and banks to make them part of the active channel). All of these activities will require significant monitoring and research to identify options, impacts, and the effectiveness of the actions. A number of small cornmittees have been actively working on several technical and administrative tasks, which will be included in the proposed program. Water management and habitat management are two areas where important challenges remain. Attached you will find a copy of the draft minutes from the last Water Management Committee which highlight some of the issues. Several points to note that could influence Colorado's water contributions or program costs include; potential diversions of Tamarack Water by seniors, leasing of unprotected existing accretions in the Platte, and potential ground water modeling at areas of recharge programs. In regaxd to habitat management the states have a different perspective then the Feds on how habitat prioritization for acquisition should be accomplished. The Feds want to be very prescriptive on the size and dimension of the land and landscape features. The states believe prograxn land acquisition should be flexibly because there are many options that would allow the program to provide benefits to the species, and thereby ensure that the Platte River is not limiting their recovery. The Service would like to see the program acquire large tracts of land (three approximately 2650acre tracts adjacent to the river). The states agree that the program should attempt to obtain large tracts of riverine land but we recognize that this may be difficult because there may not being willing sellers and costs may be prohibitive. Finally, Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska, acting through their Governance Committee representatives submitted comments regarding the Service's interest in developing Central Platter River species recovery goals. In the late 1980's and early 1990's the Service developed overall species recovery goals that included a larger geographic area than the Central Platte. In our comments we emphasized that the existing recovery documents are a sufficient placeholder until the program obtains better information on the species, their habitat requirements, the significance of the Platte River to the species, and the effects of other recovery efforts. In addition, we commented that the process used by the Service contains information that is incomplete and/or inconsistent and contains inappropriate bias. A copy of the letter is attached. Recommendation None at this time, however, staff would like to start getting Board members familiar with these issues as we are approaching the point where a program needs to be agreed to and appropriate steps taken to implement such program. Flood Protection • Water Project Planning and Financing • Stream and Lake Protection Water Supply Protection • Conservation Planning