Tour of Associated Habitat Area PRRIP

Home Browse Search

On July 1, 1997 the governors of Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and the Secretary of the Interior entered into a Cooperative Agreement to address the needs of four threatened or endangered species using the Platte River Basin while allowing water development to continue to occur. The named species were the endangered whooping crane, least tern, pallid sturgeon and the threatened piping plover. The agreement proposed a framework for a long -term Platte River Recovery Implementation Program ( PRRIP or Program) to aid these species. Negotiations regarding the details of that program took place from 1997 to zoo6. In late zoo6, the governors of Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and the Secretary of the Interior signed the final program agreement, effective January 1, 2,007. An Executive Director was selected and began his tenure with the program on July 1, 2007. On May 8, 2,008 President Bush signed into law legislation to implement the federal share of the Program as part of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008. This legislation included authorization for the federal funding of the Program. The Program provides Endangered Species Act compliance for water related activities within Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming, while working to recover the threatened and endangered target species. The Program is authorized for a 13 -year First Increment, which began in 2007, and is estimated to cost roughly 320 million in 2005 dollars with the monetary portion of that being 187 million. The federal government will contribute 157 million in cash, and Colorado and Wyoming will jointly contribute 30 million. The remaining portion will come in terms of land and water from the states; Nebraska's entire contribution will be of this nature. The total cost of the program in terms of cash, water, and land is shared equally between the federal government and the states. Federal funds are appropriated on a year - to -year basis and distributed on an as- needed basis. Governance of the Program is provided by representatives of the Department of Interior; the States of Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming; water users; and environmental groups. Represented in the Program's Governance and Advisory Committee structure are a broad spectrum of diverse stakeholders from a variety of organizations and entities. The Program is recognized as a model way to deal with ESA issues, and Secretary Kempthorne awarded the Program a Cooperative Conservation Award in 2008. Other emerging recovery programs are modeling their approach on the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program. One of the Program's long -term objectives is to use acquire and maintain sufficient habitat through the central Platte River region for target species. To this end, it has acquired approximately 9,600 acres of habitat through sponsorship agreements, purchases, leases, or perpetual easements from willing sellers and partners. Much of this land is now also part of the Platte River Recreation Access (PRRA) program, a part of PRRIP that allows the public an opportunity to access riverside habitat for recreational use, while still protecting targeted species. Currently, PRRA lands are open for limited activities during certain periods of the year. Deer, upland game, waterfowl and turkey hunting; fishing; bird watching; mushroom gathering; and hiking are permitted in winter and early fall, with certain time windows blocked out during migration and nesting season to protect target birds. In November 2011, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar chose the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program and the Platte River Recreation Access program as the two projects in the state of Nebraska for President Obama's American Great Outdoors Fifty -State Report. The report summarizes two project ideas in each state for the Department of the Interior and other federal agencies to partner with state and local governments and other stakeholders on a shared conservation and recreation agenda.