Laserfiche WebLink
All of these objectives may not be fully achievable, although each objective'is desirable. <br />Further, greater achievement of one objective may result in less achievement of another. <br />Accordingly, tradeoffs must be made in the course of achieving an appropriate balance. <br />Each principal resource objective is discussed further in the subsections that follow. <br />The identification of these four resource considerations as "principal resource objectives" <br />does not diminish the importance of the many other environmental and operational issues <br />associated with this proceeding (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 1991a). All <br />effects of potential significance are addressed in the Environmental Impacts section of the <br />EIS (Section 4.0). <br />1.4.1 Irrigation Water Supplies <br />The projects' ability to supply adequate irrigation water to the farmlands currently served by <br />the projects is a principal resource consideration because the projects were built primarily to <br />supply irrigation water, and because the irrigation water that the projects deliver is essential <br />to support the existing level of farm production and economic stability of the seven - county <br />area in the Platte River Valley. <br />Agriculture and agricultural processing have traditionally been Nebraska's most important <br />economic sectors. Over 93 percent of the state's total land area is in farms and ranches. <br />Lake McConaughy provides full and supplemental irrigation water to approximately <br />200,000 acres. The lands directly served by the projects' irrigation waters account for <br />approximately 20 percent of all irrigated lands in the seven - county region. In 1990, there <br />were 5,250 farms in this region, and the total value of crop production was approximately <br />$452 million (Nebraska Agricultural Statistics Service, 1990). Additionally, another <br />approximately 300,000 acres that rely on groundwater pumping indirectly benefit from the <br />extensive groundwater recharge resulting from project operations. <br />1.4.2 Wildlife and Habitat Protection <br />The protection and enhancement of threatened or endangered species and other significant <br />wildlife, along with the aquatic and riparian habitats that support them, is a second principal <br />resource objective. This is considered a principal resource objective for two reasons: <br />(1) the water - dependent habitats of the Central Platte River are used by species listed <br />pursuant to the ESA and are internationally significant for other important wildlife; and <br />(2) the projects, through operational changes and other modifications, offer the potential for <br />improving the water - dependent habitats of at least four of those species. According to the <br />U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior), eight listed species could be affected by project <br />operations. These are the endangered whooping crane, interior least tern, Eskimo curlew, <br />American burying beetle and pallid sturgeon, and the threatened bald eagle, piping plover, <br />and western prairie fringed orchid (FWS, 1997). <br />Endangered whooping cranes use shallow streams and wetlands with low vegetation for <br />feeding and roosting during their migrations. Whooping crane sightings have been reported <br />1 -5 <br />