[VIDEO] The Price of an Aging Infrastructure on the Environment
The Water Values Podcast - How Can We Resolve Water Conflicts?
What Happened? On June 21, 2024, the Supreme Court narrowly held that three states could not enter a consent decree to settle their interstate water dispute without the support of the intervening federal government. The...more
Despite California’s record high levels of precipitation in 2023, water scarcity remains a pressing issue. Governments have turned to using the power of eminent domain to acquire investor-owned utilities in an effort to...more
On May 23, 2024, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a published opinion in Natural Resources Defense Council et al. v. Debra Haaland et al. (Case No. 21-15163) (“NRDC v. Haaland”) rejecting the plaintiffs’ challenges...more
Update: The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) officially kicked off the Nooksack adjudication, a legal process that will determine the priority of water rights in Whatcom County and portions of Skagit County....more
Like much of the western and southwestern U.S., California has experienced drought conditions on and off for decades. Fortunately, the regulatory landscape is starting to catch up with water treatment technology, paving the...more
The Alberta government has identified, and is taking proactive steps to address, the looming threat of a severe drought this year. As negotiations unfold to secure water-sharing agreements, a cascade of legal and economic...more
The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) announced it will begin an adjudication of water rights in Water Resources Inventory Area 1 (WRIA1), including the Nooksack River system, in April 2024. An adjudication is the...more
B&D is pleased to present the final installment of our 2024 Litigation Look Ahead series. (Read part five covering the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act here.) In this edition, our...more
An ongoing, historic drought in California has compelled California state legislators to rethink the state’s long-standing treatment of water rights. While the recent heavy snowpack and wet spring and summer have alleviated...more
The future of California water storage reached a major milestone on Thursday with the finalization of plans for the Sites Reservoir in Northern California. The reservoir would be the second largest off-stream reservoir in the...more
On October 8, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 389 (“SB 389”), which amended § 1051 of the Water Code to expand the investigatory authority of the State Water Resources Control Board (“Water Board”)....more
On February 27, 2023, in a much anticipated decision, California’s Second District Court of Appeal overruled the trial court by determining that the State Water Resources Control Board (“State Water Board”) did not violate...more
July 17, 2023 Of Counsel On June 7, 2023, Governor Tina Kotek signed into law SB 718, which provides an additional layer of protection for Oregon water right holders in drought-stricken counties. The new law goes into effect...more
On June 22, 2023, the United States Supreme Court handed down its third decision regarding federal Indian law this term. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that the Navajo Treaty of 1868 does not require the United States to...more
The Majority Opinion - Last Thursday, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Arizona v. Navajo Nation, the third Supreme Court Indian law decision in the last two weeks. Released on the heels of a major...more
In a highly unwelcome decision for Native tribes relying on treaties with the U.S. government, the U.S. Supreme Court held recently that the government’s general trust obligation to Navajo Nation does not require the federal...more
On June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Arizona v. Navajo Nation, No. 21-1484, holding that the Federal government is not responsible for taking affirmative steps to help the Navajo Nation secure access to...more
On June 22, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Arizona v. Navajo Nation, No. 21-1484, limiting the federal government’s obligation to affirmatively secure water for federally recognized Indian tribes. The...more
On June 22, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Navajo Nation, No. 21-1484, holding that the federal government is not obligated to affirmatively secure access to water for the Navajo Nation....more
The Supreme Court of the United States issued four decisions today: Arizona v. Navajo Nation, No. 21-1484: This case considered the federal government’s obligations related to the Navajo Tribe’s access of the Colorado...more
With four decisions yesterday, the Court has now cut its backlog down to the mid-teens. And with decisions likely today as well, the Court is well on its way to clearing the docket as the term ends....more
On May 22, Arizona, Nevada, and California sent a letter to the Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) that announced their agreement to conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of Colorado River water...more
UPDATE: On May 17, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers appealed the district court ruling in Texas v. EPA to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. This appeal would...more
Last week, leaders from a range of industries convened for two days in Los Angeles for Brownstein and WestWater’s inaugural Sustainable Water Investment Summit....more
As previously discussed, the Washington legislature launched a process to quantify and permanently adjudicate water rights in the Nooksack River basin. After several years of preliminary work, the Washington Department of...more