Board Meeting 01/14/1985

• Board Meeting Date: 1/14/1985
• Description: Agenda, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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means and measures for maintaining, restoring, and protecting whooping crane
habitat, and define the responsibility of the Narrows Unit while fully
acknowledging and considering the beneficial uses of water pursuant to the
respective State water rights systems and the use of water apportioned to a
State pursuant to the compact and U.S. Supreme Court decrees concerning the
waters of the Platte River and its tributaries.

Phase II

The Platte River between North Platte and Columbus, Nebraska, is the waist of
a migration hourglass for a variety of birds which migrate between Canada and
the Gulf of Mexico and South America in the spring and fall of the year. The
Phase II effort will result in a plan for the management of fish and wildlife
and their habitat that is compatible with the management of habitat in the
area for endangered and threatened species.

Authority for the Phase II effort is provided by Public Law 98-63, approved
July 30, 1983, which authorized the Secretary of Interior n. . . to engage in
a feasibility study for the Prairie 8end Unit, Pick-Sloan Missouri River Basin
program, . . . in Nebraska. . . for. . . ~management of fish and wildlife
habitat, . . . .00 The feasibility study n. . . shall include a detailed
report on any affects the proposed project may have on wildlife habitat,
including habitat of the sandhill crane and the endangered whooping crane,n
and n. . . also develop alternative water management plans that are consistent
with the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. 00 This
planning effort also would be consistent with requirements of the Fish and
Wildlife Coordination Act.

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The resulting plan for management of fish and wildlife habitat will provide a
mechanism for resolving jeopardy to endangered species along the Platte River
in Central Nebraska for water resource developments in addition to the Narrows
and Prairie Bend Units. The plan will array alternative means and measures
whereby the water resources of the Platte River Basin may be further developed
without infringing upon Federal and State trustee responsibilities to protect
habitat needs of migrating and resident wildlife for the benefit of the people
of the United States while meeting treaty commitments to Canada, Mexico,
Japan, and the USSR.

Water Right Considerations

The uses of water within the Platte River Basin are administered by the States
of Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming pursuant to a compact, State laws enacted,
and judicial decisions rendered that govern the appropriation and use of water
in the respective States.

Two United States Supreme Court Decrees and an Interstate Compact exist for
the purpose of allocating the water of the basin between the States. The
water in the North Platte River is apportioned between Colorado, Nebraska, and
Wyoming by a U.S. Supreme Court Decree of 1945, and a 1953 stipulation to the
decree. The water in the Laramie 'River is apportioned between Colorado and

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