WSPC03939

• File Number: 8460.500
• Description: Platte River Basin - Endangered Species Issues - South Platte Recovery Program
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 12/5/1995
• Author: Matthew J Cook
• Title: South Platte Agreement - Groundwater Recharge as Augmentation for Restoring Wetlands Along the Central Platte River Nebraska - Final Report
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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000359

2.0 INTRODUCTION

The Platte River in central Nebraska serves many functions. Along its
wide expanse, this dynamic river provides water for agricultural and community
needs and numerous recreational opportunities, including fishing, hunting,
watersports, and camping. A portion of the Platte River from Lexington to Grand
Island, Nebraska also provides habitat for fish and wildlife resourees of national
and international significance, including species that are threatened or
endangered.
The Central Platte River provides wintering habitat for endangered and
threatened populations of bald eagle (Lingle and Krapu, 1986). Populations of
the endangered interior least tern and the threatened piping plover nest annually
on some of the remaining unvegetated sandbars on the central and lower Platte
River (Faanes 1983).
Among endangered species of national importanee, the Platte River is
probably best known as a migration stopover area for Whooping cranes (Allen
1952). The whooping crane's migration path extends from Canada to the gulf
coast of Texas. The U.S. Department of Interior designated 86 kilometers.of the
central Platte River as critical habitat for the whooping crane in 1978 (43 Federal
Register 20938-20942).
The designation of this portion of the Platte River as a critical habitat
could severely limit depletions by any proposed water projects in the Platte River
basin. Approximately 70% of the historic annual flow in the Platte River system
has been diverted upstream for consumptive uses (U.S.FWS 1981), The
dramatic decrease in annual flow has had a significant impact on the whooping
crane habitat, in particular the wet meadow complex that the whooping crane
depends on for food. Including losses due to farming, the average loss of the
wet meadow complex in the Big Bend reach (Central Platte River) within 3.5
miles of the river channel has been estimated at 72% (Currier et al. 1985). In
the spring, wet meadows or wetlands along the Platte River and elsewhere along