On Nebraska’s Platte River, a Migratory Bird Oasis Is Caught Up in a Water Rights Fight
For the last few years, conservationists have fought a precedent-setting proposal to send "excess" water from the basin south to another part of the state. They argue the region has none to spare.
On the central Platte River in Nebraska, every water drop has a purpose. Some generate electricity, irrigate farms, or meet demands downstream. Others ensure that Whooping Cranes have the habitat the Endangered Species Act requires. Often there aren’t enough drops to fulfill all legal water rights in the heavily managed river valley.
But even overburdened rivers sometimes see seasonal floods or heavy rains, and water managers outside the Platte basin are seeking a share when that happens: They propose to divert water from the river during flush times and pipe some “excess” south to the Republican River basin, where the flow could help farmers irrigate crops and fulfill Nebraska’s obligations under a water-sharing deal with Kansas. The Nebraska Department of Natural Resources is now weighing the plan.
Conservationists acknowledge both rivers are overtaxed, but argue that taking water from one basin to supply another is a misguided idea that sets an alarming precedent in the state. At least 70 percent of the volume that once flowed through the region is already diverted before reaching Audubon’s Rowe Sanctuary, which lies along an 80-mile stretch of river habitat where more than a million migrating Sandhill Cranes rest and refuel. “What we’re trying to hold on to is the last 30 percent,” says Melissa Mosier, Platte River program manager for Audubon Great Plains. “Any amount of water that comes out of that is a pretty big deal.”
While periodic surges don’t legally fall within a complicated system of Platte River water rights, experts say they play a key role in sustaining the hydrology and ecology that migratory birds have relied upon for millennia. “Those high flows are important because that’s how the system historically functioned,” says Abraham Kanz, conservation research director for the Crane Trust.
These influxes recharge wet meadows where cranes forage and refill underground aquifers that people rely upon. What’s more, by shifting around sediment and scouring away tree seedlings, large water pulses also help maintain the wide, braided channels and sandbars that birds use to roost or nest.
In public comments last year, conservationists opposed to the idea were joined by local tourism offices and several natural resource and public power districts that rely on the Platte. Even the state of Kansas objected, fearing the spread of invasive carp. Project supporters in the Republican River basin, however, argue the diversion would make use of water that otherwise wouldn’t benefit Nebraskans.
To Mosier, it’s this narrow vision of water as a commodity that keeps the central Platte ecosystem—which attracts thousands of spring visitors and where Rowe Sanctuary recently marked its 50th anniversary—just “hanging on.” After big floods, Kanz has seen how a streamflow surge can help struggling habitat. “These sites can recover, and we have proof you can bring them back,” he says.
This story originally ran in the Summer 2025 issue as “Diversion Dilemma.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.