Managing Natural Resources: Perceptions and Attitudes of Nebraska Residents
Soraya Cardeness, Department of Sociology, John C. Allen, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics, Center for Rural Community Revitalization and Development, 58 H.C. Filley Hall, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583-0947, (402) 472-1772 (0688)
Resource Management along the Platte River is increasingly seen as a dispute over water. Through survey data collected at the household level and in-depth personal interviews of residents along the middle Platte, another perspective is presented. The study population includes residents from Kearney, Nebraska to Omaha, Nebraska and the primary watersheds that drain into the middle Platte. Alternate paradigms referring to the use of natural resources are presented with implications for consensus building for long term support of resource management included.
Determining the Platte River's Future - There Must Be a Better Way
Robert Fenemore, Middle Platte River Community-Based Environmental
Program Project, 726 Minnesota Avenue, Kansas City, Kansas 66101, (913) 551-7745 (7765), fenemore.robert@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
The importance of the Platte River system in providing important economic and environmental benefits is not in question. The ongoing disputes among users, or potential users, of the Platte River resources only confirm the importance of the River system. The critical issue affecting the Platte River is not how the system's resources were allocated and managed historically; but what processes and procedures should be used to allocate the River's resources in the future, and to ensure the best management of those resources to meet the diverse demands placed on the River system.
Disputes over the use of the Platte River resources, primarily surface water and groundwater flows, have gone on almost endlessly within and among the three states that contain the Platte River watershed. Most of these disputes have been argued and rulings have been handed down through the judicial system. Recently, the focus has been the protection of habitats for rare and endangered species in the central Platte River in Nebraska. Both legal and administrative hearings currently are being held on the issue. However, most of the debate has been over the quality of the studies used by various parties to support their positions, not on what the study results may mean to the future of the River system.
There must be a better way than only the judicial system to determine how best to allocate the River's resources among the several competing and conflicting uses. There also must be a better way than court rulings to ensure a future for the River system. While the argument can be made that judicial rulings may be the most efficient way to allocate the River's resources, court rulings may not be the most appropriate way to allocate a public resource among competing uses.
A goal, a vision, a plan - whatever it is called - must be developed for the Platte River system in order to establish the future for this National resource. All parties involved in the Platte River need to redirect their energies away from the culture of debate and dispute over what has happened within the watershed, and work toward a cooperative effort, that includes the public, to establish what will be the future of the Platte River system. EPA's Community Based Environmental Protection (CBEP) program is a vehicle that could be used to support these multi-issue discussions. Other agencies and groups that are redirecting some of their efforts to address the Platte River's future also could facilitate discussion sessions.
Return to 1997 Platte River Basin Ecosystem Symposium
Last updated by Darren A. Jack on 2/6/97