Final Environmental Impact Statement Volume I, Main Text and Appendices A-J

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2. PROPOSED ACTION AND ALTERNATIVES This section begins with a description of project facilities and current project operations (Section 2. 1), followed by a brief synopsis of interim measures mandated through Commission orders relating to annual licenses (Section 2.2). Sections 2.3 through 2.12 describe the alternatives evaluated in this FEIS, and Section 2.13 presents an estimate of the economic costs of the alternatives. With four exceptions, the alternatives examined in this FEIS are the same as those evaluated in the RDEIS. Those carried forward essentially unchanged from the RDEIS are: (1) the No- Action Alternative; (2) the Districts' Proposal; (3) the Nebraska Plan; (4) the NGPC Plan; (5) the Trust Plan; and (6) the Conservation Intervenors Plan. The four alternatives that have undergone some change since the RDEIS are: (1) the Modified Nebraska Plan; (2) the Modified NGPC Plan; (3) the Instream Enhancement Alternative; and (4) the Interior Plan. In the case of the staff - developed Modified Nebraska Plan, we have brought the operating regime portion of the alternative into equivalence with the Nebraska Plan's operating regime; we eliminated the several minor differences in operating rules that previously existed because we concluded that those differences failed to achieve substantive improvement in environmental performance. The staff - developed Modified NGPC Plan has been eliminated from further consideration and is not included in the FEIS; based on RDEIS findings and comments thereon, we concluded that our modifications failed to measurably improve the NGPC Plan. With regard to the Instream Enhancement Alternative, the rationale and objectives for the alternative ( RDEIS, Section 2.11) remain unchanged, but we have increased the extent of the irrigation diversion reductions. This increase became necessary with the staff's revised approach to water conservation modeling (refer to Appendix F). For modeling purposes, the staff assumes that water conservation savings are 50 percent efficient, meaning that it takes twice as much reduction in irrigation diversion to achieve any specified level of instream flow gains. Accordingly, we have doubled the irrigation diversion reductions defined in the Instream Enhancement Alternative in order to maintain the level of instream benefits previously associated with this alternative. The fourth alternative to undergo change is the Interior Plan. For the RDEIS, Interior had offered a set of recommendations, but those recommendations did not constitute a complete operating regime ( RDEIS, Section 2.12). Subsequent to RDEIS publication, Interior suggested an operating regime, which we evaluated in our November 1994 Supplement to the Revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement. More recently (July 1997), Interior's FWS published its Biological Opinion, which presents a "Reasonable and Prudent Alternative" for avoiding conditions that might jeopardize the continued existence of endangered species or cause the destruction or adverse modification of their habitat. The 2 -1