Platte River pact is gem in Nelson legacy

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Congressional approval and presidential signing of legislation earlier this month that commits the federal government to the Platte River Recovery Implementation Plan should not be allowed to pass without a drum roll and salute.

When Sen. Ben Nelson decides to retire from public life —  maybe to spend more time at a cabin he owns near the Platte —  the agreement that he coaxed along from inception a decade ago will rank among his most significant achievements.

Nelson put together the initial agreement when he was governor in 1997. It required agreement from Wyoming, Colorado and the federal government.

The pact stood the test of time. It survived as governors in the three states came and went. Nelson was even out of public office and in private life as it percolated through bureaucracy. The agreement endured a change in the White House and a shift in majority power in Congress.

Nelson described the legislation: “The plan, sponsored by myself and Sen. Chuck Hagel, and Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard of Colorado, allows upstream water users to keep their share of water when water levels are sufficient to protect four endangered species downstream, whooping cranes, interior least terns, piping plovers, and the pallid sturgeon.

“But when water levels downstream are not sufficient to protect endangered species, the act gives the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service the authority to require Colorado and Wyoming to send more water into lower reaches of the river in Nebraska.”

Fish and wildlife enthusiasts are not unmindful that by protecting the least tern, piping plover and pallid sturgeon, the legislation also provides habitat and protection for other species, such as the sandhill cranes that put on an tourist-drawing annual migration spectacle.

Under the $317 million plan, trees and shrubs that have grown in the Platte riverbed will be cleared, exposing sandbars and unclogging river channels. The bill approved by Congress will supply $157 million of that total. Nebraska’s contribution is mostly in-kind.

Certainly passage of the federal law will not end controversy. Since the agreement originally was signed, farmers have started irrigating an additional 500,000 acres in the Platte River basin, bringing the total of irrigated acres to more than 3 million.

Nonetheless, passage of the agreement into law is a moment that should be savored for all those who, for their own reasons, value the river that former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt called a “magnificent national treasure” when the original agreement was signed 10 years ago.