States will aid Platte wildlife
Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News
Published December 8, 2006 at midnight
Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne has signed a three-state agreement that includes Colorado and is designed to aid native fish and birds along the Platte River in Nebraska.
Kempthorne's approval sets in motion a program "to pool resources and expertise" across the river basin to restore wildlife habitat while preserving the water needs of farmers, according to Mark Limbaugh, the Interior Department's assistant secretary for water and science.
"This agreement has been several years in the making, and represents a tremendous amount of collaboration by many who are concerned about the future of the species and the future of water projects," Limbaugh said.
The stretch of the Platte River in central Nebraska, near Kearney, is home to a vast array of wildlife, including migrating whooping cranes. Threatened and endangered species, such as the piping plover, least tern and pallid sturgeon, also depend on the region's complex river ecosystem.
Flows in that stretch of the river have fallen sharply over the past several decades, in part because of heavy urban and agricultural use in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. Spring flows that once poured through the area are now trapped in high-elevation Colorado reservoirs.
Thus, rare species of wildlife have come under the protection of federal law, which requires the states to take steps to improve habitat.
"This program builds on the success of (endangered fish recovery efforts) that Colorado has heralded in the Upper Colorado River basin and the San Juan River basin," said Russell George, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, referring to long-running multistate efforts to save four ancient fish species in the basins.
The Platte River plan is expected to cost about $317 million over its initial 13-year phase, with half of it, $157 million, coming from the Interior Department.
The rest will be contributed by the states involved - Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming - in the form of cash, water and land.
Colorado's share over the first 13 years is about $24 million in cash.
hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5048
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