Implementing the Endangered Species Act on the Platte Basin Water Commons

8: Organization of Negotiations

75 We need to recognize that adversarial, winner-take-all, showdown political decision -making is a way we defeat ourselves. Our future starts when we begin honoring the dreams of our enemies while staying true to our own. —William KittrEdgE (1996: 142) Following the signing of the 1994 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) assistant secretary of water and science was appointed to lead the federal negotiation team. The governors of each of the three states appointed staffs to represent their interests. Representatives of the water provider organizations were appointed by their respective authorities, including the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District (CNPPID), the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), Denver Water, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (NCWCD), and the Pathfinder and Goshen irrigation districts. How would environmentalists be incorporated into the negotiations? Unlike representatives of federal and state agencies or water user representatives of state political subdivisions such as irrigation, public power, and conservancy districts , environmentalist organizations function in civil society beyond any state apparatus. What standing would they have amid state, state water provider, and federal authorities? EnvironmEntal organizations The Platte River Whooping Crane Habitat Maintenance Trust (Whooping Crane Trust) was formed in 1978 and funded with monies generated by the endowment C h a p t E r 8 organization of negotiations Or g a n iza t iO n Of n Eg Ot ia t iOn s 76 provided by the Wyoming Grayrocks settlement. By the time of the governors’ sponsored talks, it had acquired almost 10,000 acres of wet meadows, river channels , woodlands, and cropland along the Platte River. By using litigious means and the threat of such means, the Whooping Crane Trust had been active in the struggle over Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) re-licensing requirements at Kingsley Dam and had also strongly advanced environmental interests in the conflict between Wyoming and Nebraska over the division of North Platte River flows. The trust would remain an important environmental player throughout the Platte River collaborative process. The National Audubon Society was originally incorporated in 1905 to stop the slaughter of birds for millinery commerce. After that success, the Audubon Society continued to advocate for wild birds. By the mid-1990s it had 300 employees and 570,000 members. Audubon has a long history of lobbying for state and federal protection of habitat and has developed its own system of about 100 bird sanctuaries, one of which is located on high-quality Platte habitat at Gibbon, Nebraska. Audubon had become interested in the status of the whooping crane on the central Platte in the 1940s. In 1973 it purchased 782 acres of pristine crane habitat along the Platte east of Kearney, known as the Rowe Sanctuary, and became deeply involved in discussions regarding Platte Basin water diversion and storage proposals. Additional acreage has been purchased since, and cooperative agreements have extended protections beyond the sanctuary. The society was active in the re-licensing of Kingsley Dam and became an important force in Platte River recovery negotiations. Environmental Defense (up to 1999, the Environmental Defense Fund) was originally incorporated in 1967 by a group of Long Island conservationists to ban the use of the pesticide DDT. Environmental Defense (ED) played an active and important role in negotiations until early 2002, when the organization announced a reallocation of its assets and a review of its priorities and withdrew its representative from the negotiations. In the aftermath, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) stepped forward to occupy a lead role. The person who had served as Environmental Defense’s representative in the negotiations resigned from his ED position to continue to work on the Platte River agenda as an NWF consultant. TheNationalWildlifeFederationisoneof thelargest,oldest,andmostactive environmental organizations. As one of the major actors in the North American environmental movement (Shabecoff 2000), the NWF has been a major force for environmental causes across the U.S. landscape. The NWF was involved with bird habitat—especially for whooping cranes—decades before the basin-wide negotiations were undertaken. It was party to the Wyoming Grayrocks settlement , and it has a member on the board of the Whooping Crane Trust. The NWF intensified its involvement in the Platte talks following Environmental Defense’s departure. Or g a n iza t iOn Of n EgO t ia t iOn s 77 After ED chose to put its resources into serving other priorities, another national nonprofit...