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

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) evaluates the potential natural resource benefits, the economic costs, and the environmental effects associated with relicensing the Kingsley Dam Project and the North Platte /Keystone Diversion Dam Project in south - central Nebraska. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) is considering license applications submitted by Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District (Central) and Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD). Both applicants are current licensees, and collectively they are referred to as "the Districts." The two projects share a 150 -mile reach of the Platte River, and the operations of the projects are closely coordinated. The general objective of the Districts' current operating regime is to maximize storage for irrigation purposes as a first priority, while utilizing as much of the released storage water and diverted natural flow as possible for power production. Lake McConaughy is the projects' major storage facility and provides the means to store water to meet the projects' operating objectives. The primary issue addressed in this FEIS is the extent to which the current project operating regimes should be modified to improve the resulting balance among the principal resource values. On the basis of the EIS scoping process, the Commission staff has concluded that the principal resource values are irrigation, fish and wildlife protection, power generation, and recreation. Extensive farm acreage (200,000 acres) is directly dependent upon the irrigation supplies provided by the projects. Also, the projects indirectly benefit farmers who rely on groundwater for irrigation by raising groundwater levels throughout the project area. The ability to supply adequate irrigation water to the farmlands currently served by the projects is critical to the stability of the local agricultural economy of a seven - county region. The Platte River Valley, especially the Big Bend Reach, is one of the most important migratory bird habitats in North America. Three bird species known to live in the project vicinity at least part of the year are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). These species are the threatened bald eagle, the endangered least tern, and the threatened piping plover. The endangered whooping crane stops over in the project area for short periods of time during its migration between wintering and summer breeding grounds. The endangered peregrine falcon and the endangered Eskimo curlew also use project area habitats, and the Platte Valley provides habitat for the largest concentration of sandhill cranes in the world. The valley, along with the adjacent Rainwater Basin, annually attracts from 7 to 9 million ducks and geese, including most of the mid - continental population of white - fronted geese. Most of these species depend on or use the wide, shallow, open channel reaches of the Platte and associated wet meadows. The extent and quality of the habitat in these reaches has declined and continues to decline (although at a slower rate than historically) due to water resource and other types of development. ES -1