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305 Impounded water made it possible to build a civilization that required the capture of spring flood peaks and other pulses so they could be distributed across time and space for intensified agricultural production and to fulfill urban demand . But prior to dam building, unconstrained rushing floodwaters had determined the geomorphology of the basin and the diversity of its wildlife habitats. Although the states did not agree, to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) riverine habitat restoration meant at least a modest insertion of pulse flows with the objective of scouring vegetation and redistributing sediment to help maintain a shallow, wide, braided river as habitat. The USFWS doggedly pursued a goal of preserving some remnants of peak flows on the South Platte below the dams upstream of Denver and of reintroducing program-managed pulse flows on the central Platte segment of the river designated as critical habitat. The agency had conducted technical workshops in March and May 1994 (Bowman 1994; Bowman and Carlson 1994) that identified peak and pulse flows as top priorities for habitat restoration. The states had reacted negatively. The entire set of concepts was found to be unacceptable; the states seriously threatened to abandon the talks rather than endorse any part of the agency’s vision on the matter. This fight took place within the context of the bitter struggle over target flows and land for habitat. The agency then determined to pull back its in-stream flow analyses and recommendations (Bowman 1994; Bowman and Carlson 1994); by so doing, it temporarily defused some of the conflict. The USFWS then proceeded to center the troubled conversation on its target flow logic and eventually worked out an arrangement for reducing shortages C h a p t e r 2 4 Regime of the River Inserting pulse Flows r egIm e oF t h e r Iv er : In ser tIn g pul se Fl ow s 306 to target flows from 417,000 to 130,000–150,000 acre feet per year. The first increment habitat land commitment was also reduced, from 29,000 acres to 10,000. By making these two compromises and taking pulse flow issues off the table, the agency had saved the negotiations. The 1997 Cooperative Agreement could then be completed. In 2002 the issue of in-stream, peak, and pulse flows resurfaced (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2002a), much to the consternation of the states and their water providers. During the worst drought year, irrigation water took up all of the channel’s carrying capacity at a stretch near the city of North Platte, and the USFWS could not find room for its environmental account (EA) flows. It was one thing for the states to agree to deliver 130,000–150,000 acre feet of aggregate shortage reductions to target flows over the course of a year and receive program compliance credit, but it was quite another to send water downstream in pulses at particular times in specific river conditions. Building a pulse with EA water and little help from Mother Nature could be quite a job. Furthermore, the states knew that whereas reduction in shortages to target flows was an empirically measurable phenomenon, adequacy of pulse flows had no similar independently verifiable measurement of goal achievement. Furthermore, no one knew what the birds really needed. That which one management team found acceptable at a given time could be altered by another. The states—never enamored of the USFWS natural flow (river processes) vision and holding tight to their defined contribution perspective —looked at agency plans with deep, undisguised skepticism. The states refused to endorse the USFWS’s natural flow concepts. In the final program document, produced in 2006, the states inserted language noting that “[t]he states have not agreed that peak flow ‘pulses’ or other FWS identified flows are biologically or hydrologically necessary to benefit or recover the listed species” (Platte River Recovery Program 2006: 11). Given the clash of river visions (see Chapter 18), any pulse flow conversation was going to be difficult. There were also other problems. In the early years of negotiations under Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District (CNPPID) and Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) re-licensing auspices, the USFWS faced an enormous problem. How could it grasp the complexities of a large-scale basin-wide recovery program for three birds and a fish within the context of a three-state complex of rivers, canals, reservoirs, and power...

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