BOARD00595

• Board Meeting Date: 7/28/2003
• Description: CF Section - Platte River Cooperative Agreement Update
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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STATE OF COLORADO

Colorado Water Conservation Board

Department of Natural Resources
1313 Sherman Street, Room 721
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]
www.cwcb.state.co.us

MEMORANDUM

Bill Owens
Governor

To:

, Colorado ~l. Conservation Board

Rick Bro~ject Manger, Interstate Streams Investigation
Randy Seaholm, Chief, Interstate Streams Investigation

GregE, Walcher
Executive Director

From:

Rod Kuharich
CWCB Director

Date:

Dan McAuliffe
Deputy Director

July 29, 2003

Subject:

Agenda Item 17, July 28-29, 2003 Board Meeting,
Platte River Endangered Species Cooperative Agreement.

I, Introduction

In 1997 the Governors of the states of Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming signed an agreement with
the Department of Interior to improve and/or study the habitat offour endangered species in the
Central Platte River in Nebraska. The Cooperative Agreement was extended through June 30, 2003
to allow additional time to formulate a proposed program. The proposed program has three
components: water, land, and monitoring and research, This memorandum will highlight some of
the key issues under discussion at the present.

II, Status of Cooperative Agreement Activities

The Cooperative Agreeinent(CA) negotiations have oecome Increasingly difficult due to changes in
some of the program elements and Nebraska's rigid negotiation positions, These two factors
resulted in Colorado taking a "break from the negotiations" at the May 27,2003 Governance
Committee workshop; with a plan to resume discussions in July. Colorado elected to leave the
meeting because we felt that the negotiation process had become ineffective, and changes in the
program direction since 1997 appear to ignore some of Colorado's key needs.

During the break Colorado meet with several of our water users to evaluate the issues and to identify
key Colorado concerns, After developing and analyzing the concerns, and discussing some of the
pro's and cons associated with a Platte River Endangered Species Program, we agreed that if at all
possible we should stay with the three state agreement approach but only if the negotiation process
becomes more productive and accommodates our key concerns.

Following our internal meetings, some of our team meet with the United States Fish and Wildlife
Service (Service), Environmental Representatives, and Wyoming and Nebraska, The purpose of the
meetings was to outline our concerns and to see if the issues could be addressed. This was an

Flood Protection. Water Supply Planning and Finance. Stream and Lake Protection
Water Supply Protection. Conservation and Drought Planning