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xvii How does an environmental agenda, at the river basin scale, become incorporated into a typical western utilitarian water allocation system? Here is the detailed story of complex negotiations regarding habitat restoration on behalf of four species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act—the whooping crane, piping plover, least tern, and pallid sturgeon. The tale is documented by a sociologist who attended the bulk of the negotiating sessions across the final ten years, a person without attachment to any particular position, a person who wanted to closely observe and faithfully record the unfolding of contending positions and issues. All of this is couched within an analytical framework that highlights critical features of the problem and sustains an incisive examination of the central question: what are the fundamental requirements of a successful mobilization of self-interested water provider organizations to cooperatively undertake the burden of constructing a major multi-state, multilevel, state-federal habitat restoration program? The negotiations evolved from scattered beginnings across the basin landscape starting in the mid-1970s and finally came to a conclusion in late 2006. The author provides a feel for their cadence, tenor, uncertainties, and participants’ struggles. By portraying the evolving positions of the major participants—the United States Department of the Interior, the environmental community, and the states of Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska—the text captures aspects of western water negotiations not found elsewhere. The book reveals in striking detail at least two transcendent themes: (1) the ways people are learning to better govern themselves more along the river basin lines recommended by John F o r e w o r D For ew or D xviii Wesley Powell and (2) the long elusive application of basin-wide integrated water resources management now birthed in the Platte River Basin. By the book’s conclusion, the reader will walk away with great admiration for those involved in the process that produced the agreement to undertake the collective effort. Water allocation rules and tools in the western United States have a long history of adaptation to changing requirements, and now the story is told about how the Platte Basin relationships have been reconfigured in the name of implementing the Endangered Species Act. There is a necessary messiness in this process that begs for understanding. This book provides insight in a most revealing and educational manner. It is a must-read for those who are, or who seek to become, involved in contemporary water management. I have wondered how the author could continue to follow the negotiation process. As the years passed, I contemplated whether he could write an account of what eventually turned out to be a successful basin-wide water negotiation. It took a major twelve-year commitment. That is why we have not read books like this before. It is one-of-a-kind. robert Ward, phd PROFESSOR EMERITUS FORMER DIRECTOR, COLORADO WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH INSTITUTE COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, FORT COLLINS ...

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