Endangered and Threatened Species of the Platte River

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• Endangered and Threatened Species of the Platte River Water - quality data are not integrated into knowledge about species responses to reservoir and groundwater management and are not integrated into habitat suitability guidelines. Different waters are not necessarily equal, either from a human or a wildlife perspective, but there is little integration of water - quality data with physical or biological understanding of the habitats along the Platte River. The cost - effectiveness of conservation actions related to threatened and endangered species on the central and lower Platte River is not well known. Neither the cost effectiveness nor the equitable allocation of measures for the benefit of Platte River species has been evaluated. The ESA does not impose or allow the implementing agencies to impose a cost - benefit test. Listed species must be protected no matter what the cost, unless the Endangered Species Committee grants an exemption. Cost effectiveness, however, is another matter. The ESA permits consideration of relative costs and benefits when choosing recovery actions, for example. USFWS has adopted a policy that calls for minimizing the social and economic costs of recovery actions, that is, of choosing actions that will provide the greatest benefit to the species at the lowest societal cost (Fed. Regist. 59: 3472 [1994]). In addition, persons asked to make economic sacrifices for the sake of listed species understandably want assurances that their efforts will provide some tangible benefit. In the Platte, the direct economic costs of measures taken for the benefit of species appear reasonably well understood. The biological benefits are another matter. For example, the costs of channel - clearing and other river - restoration measures are readily estimated. Their precise value for cranes is more difficult to estimate, although their general use is fairly well established. The allocation of conservation costs and responsibility also has not been systematically evaluated. USFWS has concentrated its efforts to protect listed species in the Platte system on federal actions, such as the operation of federal water projects. That focus is understandable. Water projects with a federal nexus account for a large and highly visible proportion of diversions from the system. In addition, those actions may be more readily susceptible to regulatory control than others because they are subject to ESA Section 7 consultation. But some nonfederal actions also affect the species. Water users that depend on irrigation water from the federal projects may well feel that they are being asked to bear an inordinate proportion of the costs of recovering the system. A systematic inventory of all actions contributing to the decline of the species could help the parties to the cooperative agreement channel their recovery efforts efficiently and equitably. The National Research Council committee charged with evaluating ESA actions in the Klamath River Basin recently reached a similar conclusion (NRC 2004). The effects of prescribed flows on river morphology and riparian vegetation have not been assessed. Adaptive- management principles require that the outcomes of a management strategy be assessed and monitored and that the strategy be adjusted accordingly, but there has been no reporting of the outcomes of the 2002 prescribed flow, no analysis of vegetation effects of managed flows, no measurement of their geomorphic effects, and no assessment of their economic costs or benefits. The connections between surface water and groundwater are not well accounted for in research or decision - making for the central and lower Platte River. The dynamics of and 12