Nebraska’s rivers—the Platte, Missouri, Republican, Niobrara, Loup, Big and Little Blue, Elkhorn, Nemaha and others—have provided habitat for people and wildlife for thousands of years. Today, our rivers are beset by huge challenges.
Intensive development in Nebraska and upstream has depleted river flows, all but dried up tributaries like Frenchman Creek and Pumpkin Creek and threatened remaining flows in many of our rivers. Some 70% of the Central Platte’s historic flows is now captured and used upstream. Further development along the Niobrara River threatens flows in a river that is canoed by over 30,000 people every year.
About one-third of Nebraska’s historic wetlands have been drained, filled or destroyed. Rivers and creeks have been straightened and channelized, especially in eastern Nebraska, and turned into concrete causeways in urban areas.
Pollution from factories and cities, from farm fields and livestock operations, from electric power plants and residential septic systems mean nearly every major Nebraska river fails to meet basic federal and state water quality standards.
Nebraska Wildlife Federation is working to protect Nebraska’s rivers, streams, and wetlands, and to restore our state’s aquatic habitat. That includes:
The Platte River, where we helped create and now help oversee the Platte River Recovery Program, a 3-state, 13-year, basin-wide species conservation effort.
The Niobrara River, where we are supporting Nebraska Game & Parks Commission efforts to obtain an in-stream flow water right that would protect remaining Niobrara River flows from future water development.
The Missouri River, where we help represent wildlife groups on the Corps of Engineers Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee.
Platte River
Originating high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, The North Platte and South Platte Rivers come together near North Platte, Nebraska forming the Platte River.. Flowing east across the state, the Platte delivers water that irrigates crops, fills reservoirs, sustains livestock, recharges the groundwater, floats boats, cools powerplants, generates electricity, supplies drinking water, and provides habitat for a long list of fish and wildlife species.
In March, half a million Sandhill cranes roost on sandbars in the Platte, staying for weeks to fatten up for their journey north. The crane migration is one of the top wildlife spectacles in the world. Whooping cranes, the largest birds in North America and one of the rarest, visit the Platte on their annual migratory journey between Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada.
Ten million ducks and geese use the Platte River and nearby Rainwater Basin wetlands on their migration. Beavers, river otter, Interior least terns and piping plovers, and species as rare as the pallid sturgeon and as common as catfish call the Platte River home.
The Platte faces challenges. Two-thirds of the historic flows in the Central Platte are now used upstream. The channel that Pioneers described as a mile wide and an inch deep has shrunken to one-tenth its former width. In the stretch downstream from Kingsley and Keystone dams at Lake McConaughy, some 85% of the North Platte’s historic flows have been diverted upstream.
Much of the Platte fails state and federal water quality standards, beset by a combination of fecal coliform, E. coli, Dieldrin, PCBs, Mercury and high temperatures related to low flows.
Throughout our history, the Platte River has been one of the Nebraska Wildlife Federation’s top priorities. We fought against dams like Two Forks and the Mid-State Irrigation Project that would have taken much of the remaining flows in the Platte. Our work with National Wildlife Federation when Greyrocks Dam was proposed helped create the Platte River Whooping Crane Trust, now the Crane Trust.
For nearly a decade, Nebraska Wildlife Federation worked to represent conservation groups as the Platte River Recovery Program was being negotiated with officials from Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, federal agencies, irrigators and other water users. The Program was ratified in late 2006, and since then the Federation has helped oversee the Program and its water component.
This basin-wide, 13-year, $185 million program is designed to protect and restore 10,000 acres of habitat along the Central Platte, maintain and begin to restore critical minimum river flows needed for fish and wildlife, and provide for a comprehensive monitoring, research and adaptive management program.
The Platte River Recovery Program is an important first step, but it is no silver bullet. Demand for the Platte’s water continues to increase, from Denver and growing Front Range communities, irrigators in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska, and municipal water systems like Lincoln and Omaha. Protecting the Platte River and restoring the water quality and habitat in this great river is a challenge that will go on for generations.
Platte River
Originating high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, The North Platte and South Platte Rivers come together near North Platte, Nebraska forming the Platte River.. Flowing east across the state, the Platte delivers water that irrigates crops, fills reservoirs, sustains livestock, recharges the groundwater, floats boats, cools powerplants, generates electricity, supplies drinking water, and provides habitat for a long list of fish and wildlife species.
In March, half a million Sandhill cranes roost on sandbars in the Platte, staying for weeks to fatten up for their journey north. The crane migration is one of the top wildlife spectacles in the world. Whooping cranes, the largest birds in North America and one of the rarest, visit the Platte on their annual migratory journey between Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada.
Ten million ducks and geese use the Platte River and nearby Rainwater Basin wetlands on their migration. Beavers, river otter, Interior least terns and piping plovers, and species as rare as the pallid sturgeon and as common as catfish call the Platte River home.
The Platte faces challenges. Two-thirds of the historic flows in the Central Platte are now used upstream. The channel that Pioneers described as a mile wide and an inch deep has shrunken to one-tenth its former width. In the stretch downstream from Kingsley and Keystone dams at Lake McConaughy, some 85% of the North Platte’s historic flows have been diverted upstream.
Much of the Platte fails state and federal water quality standards, beset by a combination of fecal coliform, E. coli, Dieldrin, PCBs, Mercury and high temperatures related to low flows.
Throughout our history, the Platte River has been one of the Nebraska Wildlife Federation’s top priorities. We fought against dams like Two Forks and the Mid-State Irrigation Project that would have taken much of the remaining flows in the Platte. Our work with National Wildlife Federation when Greyrocks Dam was proposed helped create the Platte River Whooping Crane Trust, now the Crane Trust.
For nearly a decade, Nebraska Wildlife Federation worked to represent conservation groups as the Platte River Recovery Program was being negotiated with officials from Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, federal agencies, irrigators and other water users. The Program was ratified in late 2006, and since then the Federation has helped oversee the Program and its water component.
This basin-wide, 13-year, $185 million program is designed to protect and restore 10,000 acres of habitat along the Central Platte, maintain and begin to restore critical minimum river flows needed for fish and wildlife, and provide for a comprehensive monitoring, research and adaptive management program.
The Platte River Recovery Program is an important first step, but it is no silver bullet. Demand for the Platte’s water continues to increase, from Denver and growing Front Range communities, irrigators in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska, and municipal water systems like Lincoln and Omaha. Protecting the Platte River and restoring the water quality and habitat in this great river is a challenge that will go on for generations.
Niobrara River
The headwaters of the Niobrara River are in eastern Wyoming, not far from the Nebraska border. The river flows into the Missouri River 535 miles downstream near the town of Niobrara, just upstream from Lewis & Clark Reservoir. Along the way, the river’s water irrigates crops, quenches thirsty livestock, feeds wet meadows, provides recreation for tens of thousands of people, and supports an incredible variety of fish and wildlife.
Nebraska Wildlife Federation is working to protect Niobrara River flows for future generations and to conserve these unique resources.
Niobrara National Scenic River
The Niobrara National Scenic River includes a 76-mile stretch of the river from Borman Bridge State Wildlife Area near Valentine to the Highway 137 bridge. Congress designated this stretch as a National Scenic River in 1991 after years of work by the Nebraska Wildlife Federation and other conservation groups, and requires that the river valley’s outstandingly remarkable values be protected, including the scenic, historic, archaeological, and scientific features.
The Scenic River area is known for its beautiful landscapes, awe-inspiring vistas, and unique collection of plants and wildlife. The free-flowing river is fed by groundwater springs that create some 200 waterfalls in the river valley.
The area is a unique biological crossroads, where tallgrass prairie, mixed grass prairie, and Sandhills prairie mingle with eastern hardwood forest, Rocky Mountain pine forest, and paper birch and ferns that are remnants of the northern forests that grew here during the ice age.
The unique collection of plant communities supports a very diverse combination of fish and wildlife. The Niobrara boasts more species of fish than any other Nebraska river. Warm-water fish like channel catfish and bluegill mix with cold-water trout and pearl dace, which live in the cool spring-fed tributaries.
White-tailed deer and mule deer, free ranging elk, moose, mink, beaver, and the occasional mountain lion are all residents of the valley. A wide variety of birds live here, including some unusual hybrids of eastern and western species that come together along the Niobrara. 92 species of butterflies have been found along the Niobrara.
The Scenic River area is internationally renowned for the large number of important paleontological sites (at least 164), and the diversity of ancient species found here (146 vertebrate species at just one site).
Some 80 species of extinct vertebrates were first identified in fossil beds found throughout the area. The river cuts its way through Rosebud and Valentine bedrock formations, revealing an unusually rich geological signature throughout the Scenic River area.
In addition to the Scenic River’s outstandingly remarkable scenery, fish and wildlife, paleontology and geology, the National Park Service has recognized the area’s outstanding recreational value. Tens of thousands of people canoe, kayak or float the river each year. Tens of thousands camp at Smith Falls State Park or one of the private campgrounds in the area.
Hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, and sightseeing draw a growing number of visitors from Nebraska and across the nation to take advantage of the areas recreational opportunities.
The National Park Service manages the National Scenic River area, in partnership with the Niobrara Council and other agencies.
Niobrara River
The headwaters of the Niobrara River are in eastern Wyoming, not far from the Nebraska border. The river flows into the Missouri River 535 miles downstream near the town of Niobrara, just upstream from Lewis & Clark Reservoir. Along the way, the river’s water irrigates crops, quenches thirsty livestock, feeds wet meadows, provides recreation for tens of thousands of people, and supports an incredible variety of fish and wildlife.
Nebraska Wildlife Federation is working to protect Niobrara River flows for future generations and to conserve these unique resources.
Niobrara National Scenic River
The Niobrara National Scenic River includes a 76-mile stretch of the river from Borman Bridge State Wildlife Area near Valentine to the Highway 137 bridge. Congress designated this stretch as a National Scenic River in 1991 after years of work by the Nebraska Wildlife Federation and other conservation groups, and requires that the river valley’s outstandingly remarkable values be protected, including the scenic, historic, archaeological, and scientific features.
The unique collection of plant communities supports a very diverse combination of fish and wildlife. The Niobrara boasts more species of fish than any other Nebraska river. Warm-water fish like channel catfish and bluegill mix with cold-water trout and pearl dace, which live in the cool spring-fed tributaries.
White-tailed deer and mule deer, free ranging elk, moose, mink, beaver, and the occasional mountain lion are all residents of the valley. A wide variety of birds live here, including some unusual hybrids of eastern and western species that come together along the Niobrara. 92 species of butterflies have been found along the Niobrara.
The Scenic River area is internationally renowned for the large number of important paleontological sites (at least 164), and the diversity of ancient species found here (146 vertebrate species at just one site).
Some 80 species of extinct vertebrates were first identified in fossil beds found throughout the area. The river cuts its way through Rosebud and Valentine bedrock formations, revealing an unusually rich geological signature throughout the Scenic River area.
In addition to the Scenic River’s outstandingly remarkable scenery, fish and wildlife, paleontology and geology, the National Park Service has recognized the area’s outstanding recreational value. Tens of thousands of people canoe, kayak or float the river each year. Tens of thousands camp at Smith Falls State Park or one of the private campgrounds in the area.
Hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, and sightseeing draw a growing number of visitors from Nebraska and across the nation to take advantage of the areas recreational opportunities.
The National Park Service manages the National Scenic River area, in partnership with the Niobrara Council and other agencies.
The Scenic River area is known for its beautiful landscapes, awe-inspiring vistas, and unique collection of plants and wildlife. The free-flowing river is fed by groundwater springs that create some 200 waterfalls in the river valley.
The area is a unique biological crossroads, where tallgrass prairie, mixed grass prairie, and Sandhills prairie mingle with eastern hardwood forest, Rocky Mountain pine forest, and paper birch and ferns that are remnants of the northern forests that grew here during the ice age.
Missouri River
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark dragged and poled their boats up the Missouri River in 1804, they found a river teeming with fish and wildlife. The Missouri River that the Lewis and Clark expedition saw was a wide, braided river in the stretch that now forms the eastern border of Nebraska. Meandering across a wide valley, the river had a mix of backwaters and sloughs, sandbars, and deeper, faster-moving channels that together made the river an enormously productive fishery.
This rich and varied aquatic habitat was bounded by wetlands and bottomland forest that provided habitat on land. Flocks of birds large enough to darken the sky followed the river’s path. For thousands of years, the Missouri River provided habitat for fish and wildlife, which in turn supported the Native American tribes who lived along the river.
Later, a large fishing industry grew up along the Missouri, supporting hundreds of commercial fishermen well into the early 1900’s. But soon, huge dams were built upstream and more than a century’s worth of work to channelize the river and remove snags and other habitat caused fish populations to collapse, taking the commercial fishing industry with it.
The Missouri River has been the victim of two centuries of work to turn this once wide, braided river into a barge canal, to allow a handful of barges to haul goods that could move by truck or railroad. Small dams on tributaries block fish spawning runs. Productive habitat along the Lower Platte faces intense development pressure from Omaha and Lincoln.
The Missouri also faces pollution problems. High levels of fecal coliform bacteria, Dieldrin (once used as an insecticide), and PCBs (once used in electric transformers and as a coolant) have been found in the Missouri River and some key tributaries like Papillion Creek.
Managing the Missouri
The United States Army Corps of Engineers built and operates some of the largest dams in the world on the Missouri River, including Fort Peck (Montana), Garrison (North Dakota), Oahe, Big Bend and Fort Randall (South Dakota), and Gavins Point (on the Nebraska-South Dakota border). These dams capture the historic high spring flows that once triggered fish to spawn. The Corps releases water in the summer to support barge traffic below Sioux City, and to provide flows for drinking water systems (Omaha) and to cool powerplants and industries along the river.
Nebraska Wildlife Federation believes that fish, wildlife and recreation, while officially authorized purposes of the Corps management, have been given lower priority historically in dam operations than in other uses. We believe the Corps and Congress should recognize the economic and environmental benefits of changing the management of the Missouri River to boost fish, wildlife and recreation.
Dr. Marian Maas, Federation Board Member and Past President, helps represent conservation interests on the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee, which is coordinating efforts to begin to restore Missouri River habitat and flows.
Missouri River
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark dragged and poled their boats up the Missouri River in 1804, they found a river teeming with fish and wildlife. The Missouri River that the Lewis and Clark expedition saw was a wide, braided river in the stretch that now forms the eastern border of Nebraska. Meandering across a wide valley, the river had a mix of backwaters and sloughs, sandbars, and deeper, faster-moving channels that together made the river an enormously productive fishery.
This rich and varied aquatic habitat was bounded by wetlands and bottomland forest that provided habitat on land. Flocks of birds large enough to darken the sky followed the river’s path. For thousands of years, the Missouri River provided habitat for fish and wildlife, which in turn supported the Native American tribes who lived along the river.
Later, a large fishing industry grew up along the Missouri, supporting hundreds of commercial fishermen well into the early 1900’s. But soon, huge dams were built upstream and more than a century’s worth of work to channelize the river and remove snags and other habitat caused fish populations to collapse, taking the commercial fishing industry with it.
The Missouri River has been the victim of two centuries of work to turn this once wide, braided river into a barge canal, to allow a handful of barges to haul goods that could move by truck or railroad. Small dams on tributaries block fish spawning runs. Productive habitat along the Lower Platte faces intense development pressure from Omaha and Lincoln.
The Missouri also faces pollution problems. High levels of fecal coliform bacteria, Dieldrin (once used as an insecticide), and PCBs (once used in electric transformers and as a coolant) have been found in the Missouri River and some key tributaries like Papillion Creek.
Managing the Missouri
The United States Army Corps of Engineers built and operates some of the largest dams in the world on the Missouri River, including Fort Peck (Montana), Garrison (North Dakota), Oahe, Big Bend and Fort Randall (South Dakota), and Gavins Point (on the Nebraska-South Dakota border). These dams capture the historic high spring flows that once triggered fish to spawn. The Corps releases water in the summer to support barge traffic below Sioux City, and to provide flows for drinking water systems (Omaha) and to cool powerplants and industries along the river.
Nebraska Wildlife Federation believes that fish, wildlife and recreation, while officially authorized purposes of the Corps management, have been given lower priority historically in dam operations than in other uses. We believe the Corps and Congress should recognize the economic and environmental benefits of changing the management of the Missouri River to boost fish, wildlife and recreation.
Dr. Marian Maas, Federation Board Member and Past President, helps represent conservation interests on the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee, which is coordinating efforts to begin to restore Missouri River habitat and flows.