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I r <br />Platte River Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement <br />(4) Mitigating the adverse impacts of new water - related activities on (1) the occurrence of <br />Service target flows and (2) the effectiveness of the Program in reducing shortages to <br />those flows, such mitigation to occur in the manner and to the extent in section E.3. and <br />in the approved depletion management plans. <br />(5) Establishing and maintaining an organizational structure that will ensure appropriate <br />State and Federal Government and stakeholder involvement in the implementation of the <br />Program. <br />B. When doing so will not reduce resources available to target species, the Program will also <br />manage Program lands to benefit non- target listed species and non- listed species of concern and <br />to reduce the likelihood of future listing. When feasible, the Program will provide regulatory <br />certainty with respect to those non- target, listed species. <br />Program Goals <br />The Program's long -term goal is to improve and maintain the associated habitats. This goal includes (1) <br />improving and maintaining migrational habitat for whooping cranes and reproductive habitat for <br />interior least terns and piping plovers,15 (2) reducing the likelihood of future listings of other species <br />found in this area, and (3) testing the assumption that managing flow in the Central Platte River also <br />improves the pallid sturgeon's Lower Platte River habitat." <br />"The Program goals are focused on the "associated habitats," which are described, with respect to the interior least tern, <br />whooping crane, and piping plover, as the Platte River Valley beginning at the junction of U.S. Highway 283 and Interstate 80 <br />near Lexington, Nebraska, and extending eastward to Chapman, Nebraska, including designated critical habitat for the whooping <br />crane and that portion of any designated critical habitat for piping plover within that Lexington to Chapman reach. With respect <br />to the pallid sturgeon, the term "associated habitat" means the Lower Platte River below the confluence with the Elkhorn River. <br />'The Integrated Monitoring and Research Plan addresses how the assumption is to be tested, including steps that will be <br />taken to determine habitat needs of the pallid sturgeon. <br />December 2003 <br />