BOARD01236

• Board Meeting Date: 5/16/2006
• Description: WSP Section - Platte River 3-State Cooperative Agreement - Overview of Proposed Endangered Species Program
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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STATE OF COLORADO

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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

Bill Owens
Governor

To:

CWCB Members

Russell George
Executive DiIector

From: Randy Seaholm
Ted Kowalski

Rod Kuharich
CWCB Director

Date: May 8, 2005

Rick Brown
Acting Deputy
Director

Re: Agenda Item 27, March 22-23, 2005 Board Meeting, Water Supply Protection -
Platte River Cooperative Agreement

Backl!round
In 1997, the Governors ofthe States of Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming signed an agreement with
the Department of Interior to improve and/or study the habitat of four endangered species in the
Central Platte River in Nebraska. The Cooperative Agreement ("CA") was extended through June
30, 2005 to allow additional time to formulate a proposed Program and complete National
Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA") activities, The CA was further extended to allow the
Governance Committee ("GC") finalize and get the Program into place, which under the current
schedule will occur in October 2006.

The Bureau of Reclamation ("BOR") and Fish and Wildlife Service ("FWS") expect to issue the
Final Environmental Impact Statement ("FEIS") and Biologic Opinion ("BO"), respectively, in May
2006, A Record of Decision should follow in June 2006.

The proposed program would be a basin-wide effort undertaken by Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska,
and the Department ofthe Interior to provide benefits for the endangered interior least tern,
whooping crane, and pallid sturgeon and the threatened piping plover (the target species). See the
attached map of the Platte River program area, Through the program the States and the federal
government would provide land, water, and systematic monitoring and research, The Program is
designed to be incremental, with the first increment lasting at least 13 years. During the first
increment, the program has objectives to: 1) retime and improve flows in the central Platte River by
an average of 130,000 to 150,000 acre-feet per year at Grand Island; 2) protect, restore, and maintain
10,000 acres of habitat; and, 3) implement the integrated monitoring and research plan ("IMRP")
through the Adaptive Management Plan ("AMP").

The monetary cost of the first increment of the program is $187 million (2005). In addition to
monetary contributions the States plan to contribute water and land to the program. The total burden
of the program in terms of monetary, water, and land contributions will be shared equally by the
United States and the three States (50% federaV50% States). Federal authorization and appropriation
legislation is being advanced in Washington D.C.
Flood Protection _ Water Supply Planning and Finance. Stream and Lake Protection
Water Supply Protection. Conservation and Drought Planning