2008 Eastern Water Resources Conference: Eastern Water Law – A Climate of Change
May 1-2, 2008
Omni Charlotte Hotel
Charlotte, NC

The Eastern Water Resources Conference will be of interest to anyone involved in water issues in the eastern United States, including lawyers, consultants, developers, businesses utilizing large quantities of waters, public utilities, government policy makers and planners, tribal governments and academics. There will be many opportunities to meet and talk with the speakers and fellow attendees interested in eastern water rights issues. (more)

As the new Chair of the Water Resources Committee, I’m excited about the upcoming year. From my perspective, this Committee is all about you – our members. In particular, during the upcoming year our Committee will be doing its best to meet your needs for professional development, for current updates on the state of water law, and our obligation to give back to our communities.

The signature event of our Committee is the Annual Water Law Conference each February in San Diego. We’ll be holding the 26th annual conference, which is entitled 21st Century Water Supply, Use, and Distribution: Do the Old Rules Still Apply?, next year under the keen eyes of Wendy Bowden Crowther and Jeff Kray. They’ve spent the summer working with a planning committee of more than 30 lawyers planning that conference. The topics to be discussed during the Conference will be announced shortly; I can assure you that Jeff and Wendy are continuing the Committee’s tradition of a conference that discusses the major issues facing water lawyers around the country. Please check the Committee’s website for more information beginning in October.

In addition, the Committee will also be holding the 3rd Eastern Water Law Conference on May 1-2, 2008 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Michelle Diffenderfer and Tim Weston, again assisted by a planning committee with more than 30 lawyers, have assembled an excellent conference under the title Eastern Water Law – A Climate of Change. The Conference will address many issues facing water lawyers across the country, including the impact of climate change and evolving water quantity/quality issues, through the lens of water resources conflicts and management challenges in the eastern states. Again, the topics to be discussed at the Conference will be announced shortly. Please make your plans now to attend both Conferences.

Many members of the Committee have joined because of our excellent publications. Elizabeth Ewens will continue editing the Committee’s Newsletter; we aim to send you four issues of the Newsletter during the upcoming year. We are always looking for new writers; if you’d like to write a two or three short (1,500 words) articles on new developments in water law, please send Elizabeth an e-mail at eewens@mbvz.com. Liz Taylor will continue in her work on the Year in Review, which is the one annual review of the law that I read as soon as it comes each year. If you ever need a brief synopsis of the current state of water law in all of the 50 states, this is the publication for you.

Last, but certainly not least, Professor Barb Cosens from the University of Idaho has developed a superb public service project for the Committee. As all of you know, water resources conflicts often involve many different parties with many different issues. The legal, political, hydrologic, engineering and biological complexities and uncertainties make disputes difficult to resolve. Our proposed public service project will involve developing a pilot program to train a small group of participants in how to work through these complexities without defaulting into decades-long litigation. This project will allow lawyers from the Committee to bring our special skills and experiences to use in ways that could – in the long run – have great benefits for the nation. Now, all we need are the funds for the program. If you’re interested in this project, please feel free to contact Professor Cosens at bcosens@uidaho.edu.

Once again, I’m excited to be serving as the chair of this Committee, with such a talented group of lawyers. If you have thoughts about potential activities for the Committee or would like to participate in our activities, please feel free to contact me at daladjem@downeybrand.com or our Membership Vice-Chair, Ken Gish at kennethg@prestongates.com.

The Water Resources Committee focuses primarily on substantive and practice developments that impact water allocation and availability. These fall into a broad spectrum of subject areas, including state water law; federal and tribal water law; issues arising under the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act; interstate allocation of water; the Public Trust Doctrine; reserved water rights; state, local and municipal planning of water supplies; and federal reclamation law.

The Committee provides information to its members through several means, including the annual water law conference; the Committee newsletter; brown bag programs and other forms of programming not involving formal conferences; solicitation of books and of articles for Trends and Natural Resources and Environment; and its contribution to Year in Review.

Do We Have Your Correct E-Mail Address? The American Bar Association constantly monitors members' information to ensure the timely delivery of the information that you count on in your practice. To check the information that we have on file for you, please log into myABA. In the alternative, please call (800) 285-2221.

The Water Resources Committee recently began a long-term effort to develop relationships with other professionals, such as consulting firms, that are involved in water resource issues. The Annual Water Law Conference has evolved into the central place for discussion and debate of legal issues arising out of the nation's water resource conflicts. In addition, the Committee will also be holding the 3rd Eastern Water Law Conference in 2008, which will address many issues facing water lawyers across the country. Inviting other professionals into sponsorship of our conferences will help expand the scope of those critical discussions of challenges facing the water community. These relationships will give both lawyers and other professionals the opportunity to expand their understanding of the complex difficulties faced in watersheds across the country. The Sponsorship Subcommittee will assist the Water Resources Committee in building relationships with other water professionals.

Alf Brand

My name is Ken Gish and I am an associate at K&L Gates in Seattle and am happy to be serving another year as the membership vice-chair. Membership in the committee continued to grow in numbers. Most of the membership, however, are private practice attorneys. In an attempt to diversify the membership, this year's efforts will focus on expanding the committee's membership beyond the private practice attorney. To do this, the committee will focus on recruiting into the committee government, tribal and non-profit water law practitioners. Additionally, a concerted recruiting effort is in the works for law students interested in the practice of water law. Adding the diversity of practice that these groups represent will help enhance the effectiveness of the committee's work.

Ken Gish

The proposed service project for the water committee is to develop a workshop for water lawyers, mediators, and scientists handling complex, multi-party water disputes in an alternative dispute resolution process. Alternative dispute resolution processes aimed at developing tailored solutions to legal disputes are taking place on many water basins in the United States. These processes include many participants, multiple jurisdictions and complex issues, including water allocation, tribal water rights, water quality, endangered species and hydropower re-licensing. Lawyers have considerable experience and talent in understanding the legal aspects of these cases, but less experience with managing multiple interests with topics that go beyond purely legal matters to issues of science, politics, culture, socio-economic status, and funding. The point we are at today in western water is as much a product of history as it is of law. Understanding that context within a particular basin, including the oral history of any Native American tribes in the basin plays a larger role in identifying interests settlement than in analyzing issues in litigation. Parties entering these processes need training to identify and understand these differences. In addition, the ethical obligations of mediators, lawyers, and scientists are often unclear in this setting which tends to be less formal than the courtroom and where relations between parties may result in a gray line between the public interest and client loyalty. As a result, training is needed for mediators, lawyers, and scientists on process and ethical obligations that occur in actual water alternative dispute resolution processes. The proposed workshop format is a three day training limited to approximately 20-23 people including representatives of tribal, state and federal government, water user organizations, environmental groups, and scientists. It is intended that, if successful, the pilot project would be developed into a program that can be tailored to specific needs throughout the United States by the ABA. Funding sought for the pilot project will be used to compensate trainers and to provide scholarships to assure participation by public sector, tribal and nonprofit representatives.

Barbara Cosens

With water resources becoming more scarce throughout the country (and in many parts of the world), it continues to be a very exciting time to practice water law. There is always a lot to talk about--whether in the arid West where new water supplies are always a top priority--or in the temperate East where water users are realizing, perhaps for the first time, that water is indeed a very finite commodity. Thus, 2007 and 2008 will continue to be exciting times for water law practitioners in the ABA Water Resources Committee. The Committee is sponsoring (and its members are organizing) two major water law conferences: The Annual Water Law Conference in San Diego on February 21-22nd, and the Eastern Water Law Conference in Charlotte, NC on May 2, 2008. In addition, the Committee helped organize a panel on "Evolving Issues in Eastern Water Law" for the SEER Fall Meeting in Pittsburgh. The Panel is scheduled for the morning of September 27, 2007 at the William Penn Hotel.

Following up on a successful joint venture with the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) on emerging contaminants, this past June in Vail, CO, the Committee has been invited to co-sponsor (with AWRA) a conference on Riparian Ecosystems and Buffers. The Committee will work closely with the ABA Water Quality Committee to coordinate the ABA's participation in the AWRA Conference. The conference is currently scheduled for June 30, 2008 in Virginia Beach, VA. If you would like to help in organizing a panel for the AWRA Conference, please let any of the Committee vice chairs know, or send an e-mail to Jeremy Jungreis at jjungreis@nossaman.com.

We hope you will join us for some of these exciting Committee events.

Last year, the Water Resources Committee undertook a project to collect documents, forms, checklists and annotations for water resource transactions in the United States. Our goal was to compile a water law transaction manual for publication by the ABA. Finding and assembling these types of documents proved to be a more daunting task than first envisioned. Water transactions vary from state to state, and documents often are deal-specific.

The Water Resources Committee still believes, however, that a compilation of transaction documents would be invaluable to the practicing water lawyer. We intend to renew our search for those willing to contribute to this worthwhile project. If you have experience in water-related transactions, please contact us. If you are versed in the requirements of a water regulatory agency, we need your help. If you work with or know water resource engineers who are familiar with the difficulties encountered in water-related transactions, please inform them of our interest in this project. We think this manual will be an important resource to those working in the water field.

Chair:
David R.E. Aladjem

Vice Chairs:
Committee Newsletters
Elizabeth P. Ewens

Membership
Kenneth J. Gish, Jr.

Programs
Jeremy Jungreis

Public Service
Barbara Cosens

Technology
Jill Willis

The Year in Review
Elizabeth Newlin Taylor

Additional (Conference Rapporteur)
Robert H. Abrams

Additional (Eastern Water Law)
Michelle Diffenderfer

R. Timothy Weston

Additional (Past Chair)
Adam W. Gravley

Additional (Sponsorship)
Alf W. Brandt

Reagan L.B. Desmond

Additional (Water Law Conference)
Wendy Bowden Crowther

Jeffery B. Kray