Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2009
Tribes and Environmental Law: Cooperation and Conflict
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The Drum Beats for Everyone
By Billy Frank, Jr.
Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually, is chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission in Olympia, WA, and recipient of the Indian Country Today 2004 American Indian Visionary Award. This passage originally appeared in Indian Country Today 2008. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Environmental Justice and the Upper Columbia River Basin: How the United States Failed the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation
By Connie Sue Manos Martin
Connie Sue Manos Martin, an environmental attorney, is of Counsel with Bullivant Houser Bailey PC in its Seattle, Washington office, where she leads the firm's Indian Law practice. Ms. Martin, a 1996 graduate of Seattle University School of Law, has represented the Colville Tribes in resource and environmental protection matters, including work on Teck Cominco, since 1998.
Clear Passage: The Culvert Case Decision as a Foundation for Habitat Protection and Preservation
By Mason D. Morisset & Carly A. Summers
Mason Morisset is the senior member of the law firm of Morisset, Schlosser & Jozwiak, in Seattle, Washington. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon in 1963, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington in 1965, and his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1968. He is an active litigator with more than 40 years experience primarily in the area of Treaty rights, natural resource and habitat protection and land litigation for Indian Tribes throughout the nation. He has argued numerous appellate cases and successfully argued three cases to the United States Supreme Court, Antoine v. Washington (1975) (treaty hunting rights); Washington v. Fishing Vessel Ass'n (1979 ) (the "Boldt" treaty fishing rights decision); and Arizona v. California (2000) (Quechan Tribe water rights on the Colorado River). In addition to active litigation, he has lectured at more than 120 seminars and symposia.
Carly Summers received her Bachelor's Degree in Journalism, from the University of Washington and is a 2009 J.D. candidate from Seattle University School of Law, where she has focused her studies on environmental law and scholarship. Ms. Summers was an intern at the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division I for the Honorable Stephen J. Dwyer in 2008, and currently works for the Snohomish County Prosecutor's Office, Division of Land Use and Environment. She will join the Seattle office of Davis, Wright, Tremaine in October of 2009.
Application of the Endangered Species Act to Tribal Actions: Can Ambiguity be a Good Thing?
David Spohr & Lara B. Fowler
David Spohr is currently the land use ombudsman for King County, Washington. He previously served as a trial attorney with the Environment and Natural Resource Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Lara B. Fowler currently practices for Gordon Thomas Honeywell LLP. She specializes in complex mediation and dispute resolution, and has focused on Indian water rights. The authors would like to thank their spouses and children for their assistance and patience with this article, and Steve Suagee for his thoughtful perspective. Any errors or omissions are the authors'own.
Tribes and Dams: Using Section 4(e) of the Federal Power Act to Protect and Restore Reservation Resources
by Thane D. Somerville
Mr. Somerville represents tribal governments in natural resource litigation, including FERC proceedings, as an attorney with Morisset, Schlosser & Jozwiak, located in Seattle, Washington. LL.M. in Environmental and Natural Resources Law 2005, Lewis and Clark Law School; J.D. 2001, University of Washington School of Law; B.A. 1998, Washington State University.
* An abridged version of this article appears in Indian Law Newsletter, Washington State Bar Indian Law Section, Volume 17, No. 1 (Spring 2009). Reprinted in expanded format with permission by the author and the Newsletter.
Air Program Options for Tribes in the Pacific Northwest
By Rich McAllister
Rich McAllister, J.D., Northeastern University School of Law; M.P.A., University of Colorado Graduate School of Public Affairs; B.A., Rutgers University; admitted to bars of the State of Massachusetts and State of Washington. Rich McAllister recently left the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Region 10, in Seattle, where he had worked since 1990 in the Office of Regional Counsel, serving as the Region's Indian Law contact, a Superfund and general enforcement attorney, and the Regional Judicial Officer. As the Indian law contact, he prepared decisions to approve tribes for "Treatment as a State" under the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act, and assisted with responding to requests to from Tribes for Direct Implementation Tribal Cooperative Agreements ("DITCA"), EPA Inspector Credentials, and Delegation Agreements. He was the lead attorney for drafting the Region 10 Federal Air Rules for Reservations that established federal implementation plans under the Clean Air Act for thirty-nine Indian reservations in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Since leaving the EPA, he has started a new legal consulting practice in the area of federal environmental and tribal law, and can be reached by writing rich@richmcallisterlaw.com. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent official views of the EPA or the United States.
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