BOARD01379

• Board Meeting Date: 3/20/2000
• Description: Platte River Basin Issues - Platte River Endangered Species Cooperative Agreement - Status of Cooperative Agreement and Negotiation of a Long-Term Agreement
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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STATE OF COLORADO

Colorado Water Conservation Board

Department o/Natural Resources
DB Sherman Street, Room 721
Denver, Colorauo 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX, [phone]

Q

Bill Owens
Governor

MEMORANDUM

Greg E.Walcher
Executive Director

To:

Colorado Water Conservation Board

Peter H. Evans
eWeB Director

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Rick Brown, Platte River Coordinator, lnrefstate Streams Investigation
Randy Seaholm, Chief, Interstate Streams Investigation

Dan McAuliffe
Deputy Director

From:

Date:

March 13, 2000

Subject:

Agenda Item 22,d. (2), Marcb 20-21, 2000 Board Meeting. Platte River
Endangered Species Cooperative Agreement. Status of Cooperative
Agreement and Negotiation of a Long-Term Agreement

1. 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 of four endangered species in
the Central Platte River in Nebraska, The proposed program has three components: water, land,
and monitoring and research, This memorandum will highlight the status of the negotiations and
summarize some of the key activities of several of the Cooperative Agreement (CA) Committees,

II, Status of Negotiations

The CA for the Platte River Endangered Species effort provided three years, beginning in July
1997 and ending in July 2000, to develop a proposed program. If a proposed program is agreed
to it will be evaluated as the Proposed Alternative under the National Environmental Policy Act
and the Endangered Species Act The evaluation is to determine if the proposed program can
serve as a Reasonable and Prudent Alternative to offset the effects of existing and new water
related activities in the Platte River Basin, The CA allows for a six month extension and based
on the status of negotiations, especially in regard to the Water Action Plan, it was agreed that the
term of the CA will be extended to December 2000,

There are several critical issues that need to be resolved before negotiations for a long-term
Agreement can begin, First and foremost the proposed program will need to be selected as the
Preferred Alternative, If it is not selected as the Preferred Alternative the three states and the
Department of Interior can enter into negotiations to see if we are willing to modify our proposed
program. In short, assuming negotiations continue to go well for Colorado, and the outcome of
the National Environmental Policy Act evaluatioIl process is acceptable, negotiations of a long-
term agreement could begin as early as January 2001,