Problem and significance -- Change on the river -- Into a federal nexus -- Colorado in a federal nexus : defending the water tower -- Nebraska in a federal nexus : threat to the big house -- Wyoming in a federal nexus : defending the mountaintop -- Options : individual consultation, litigation, or constructing a cooperative program -- Organization of negotiations -- Colorado's interests -- Nebraska's interests -- Wyoming's interests -- States, federal agencies, and the water plan -- Defining success : science as a referee in a game where no one knows the score -- Science as justification for sacrifice : the junk science controversy -- Science as faith : negotiating an adaptive management deal for terrestrial habitat -- Science as faith : putting adaptive management to its first test with the sedimentation-vegetation problem -- Scent of victory and impasse -- Negotiating context, 2000-2006 -- Regime of the river : Colorado and Nebraska nightmares -- Regime of the river : sharing peak flows : Colorado and the USFWS struggle on the South Platte -- Regime of the river : Wyoming and Nebraska address new depletions -- Regime of the river : Nebraska confronts its history -- Regime of the river : building a federal depletions plan : states confront the U.S. Forest Service -- Regime of the river : inserting pulse flows -- Locked into an awful dance : bypass flows and hydro-cycling -- The pallid sturgeon habitat gamble -- Wielding the regulatory hammer -- Adaptive management : lashing together conflicting visions with a Chinese wall -- Search for approval -- Policy implications -- Theory implications