Racine Olson Nye Budge & Bailey, Chartered = Attorneys at Law
    The Firm's Natural Resources and Environmental Law Group handles matters involving virtually all aspects of the regulatory sector, including transactions, licensing and permitting, compliance, and challenges to administrative action or inaction. We provide legal services to organizational and institutional clients as well as individuals on matters of sustainable development, project finance and investment, water rights, land use planning and regulation, public utilities, eminent domain, real estate, conservation easements, and other matters of environmental law at both federal and state levels.


    A wide range of businesses, investors, developers, builders, farmers, irrigation entities, property owners associations, and individuals appreciate our commitment to helping them achieve their goals of responsibly and profitably managing natural resources. Our clients benefit from attorneys whose practices focus on natural resources and environmental law, facilitating communication and negotiations with state and federal agencies. We successfully represent clients in both state and federal court as well as before federal, state and local governmental entities. We also represent concerned citizens and conservation organizations in the public interest by challenging governmental action or inaction, pursuant to federal and state statutes, for mismanagement of natural resources. In handling matters of environmental protection, we represent a wide range of clients from individual farmers and grassroots community groups to regional and multinational businesses.


    PRACTICE AREAS


    Water Rights. Water law constitutes a large share of our natural resources practice. We assist clients in establishing and protecting surface and ground water rights. Our Water Law Team has extensive experience in all facets of water law, including agricultural, industrial, and municipal water rights, federal water rights, Native American water rights, and interstate water administration matters. We also advise industrial clients on compliance with state and federal environmental laws and regulations (such as the Clean Water Act and Idaho Stream Protection Act).

    We have decades of experience representing clients in matters involving water right use and regulation before the Idaho Department of Water Resources, in Idaho courts, and in the ongoing Snake River Basin Adjudication. Our team of technical experts assists clients on all matters involving water rights administration and litigation. In our extensive litigation experience, we have tried complex cases before IDWR and handled multiple appeals of agency decisions. We also have expertise in leasing and renting water from the state's various rental pools and water supply banks. Our clients include individuals, farmers, ranchers, industry, home owners associations, developers, canal companies, ground water districts, and municipalities. Our Firm has been particularly instrumental in water administration in the Snake, Portneuf and Bear River Basins. Our attorneys are also adept at helping clients manage water rights by effectively working with IDWR on administrative matters such as transfers, enlargement, and changes of ownership, purpose of use, or place of use.


    We also advise corporate clients on compliance with environmental laws and regulations governing lawful discharge, waste elimination, mining and removal of hazardous waste. We counsel irrigators on legal means for irrigation runoff and stormwater disposal, water quality standards, and potential liability for noncompliance under federal statutes (like the Clean Water Act) and state regulations. We also represent concerned citizens and environmental organizations suing polluters for National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) violations and breach of other federally mandatory provisions that ensure citizens a clean and healthy water supply.


    In Idaho, certain regions have established instream flow rights. Where recognized, this mechanism serves as a valid change from a prior consumptive use without the risk of forfeiture. Farmers are increasingly using this mechanism to achieve profits and conservation objectives by leasing or selling their excess water allotments to conservation groups who have funds available to secure minimum flows in valued stream areas. We can help conservation-minded agricultural interests protect their historical consumptive uses of water rights while leasing, selling, or reserving instream flows to ensure continuity of the resource and a healthy riverine ecosystem for fisheries, recreation, and future generations.


    Land Use Development and Planning. We have experience with the process of planning and development of sustainable residential, commercial, and recreational projects. We assist clients in acquiring property suitable for sustainable developments, obtaining necessary government approvals and permitting, securing water rights and other services, and drafting and negotiating written agreements such as purchase and sale agreements, exchange agreements, options agreements, development agreements, construction agreements, easement agreements, protective covenants, loan agreements, and lease agreements. We help 'green builders' take root in southeastern Idaho by assisting in finance acquisition, building approval and permitting, LEED or other sustainable building certification, and application for tax benefits. In terms of land use, the Firm facilitates zoning compliance and regulatory permitting and approval to help developments meet planning requirements and objectives on both county and municipal levels. Our Firm is also experienced in educating developers and the regulated community on the roles land trusts can play and helping conserve open space through negotiating and setting up conservation easements.


    We also represent government planning and zoning boards, land developers, and persons affected by land development in matters involving annexation, zoning, special/conditional use permits, subdivisions, and lot spits. We review local land use regulations for enforceability and applicability, prepare clients for, or represent them in, government planning and zoning matters, and have experience litigating cases where local governments have exceeded their authority and interfered with property rights. We also represent neighborhood groups and coalitions opposing municipal or county action that wastes or endangers natural resources.


    The Firm's Natural Resources Group can also help ranchers seeking to transition from traditional farming operations to guest-oriented ranches in making necessary business adjustments, retaining water rights, and structuring operations toward maximized productivity based on fisheries ecology, hydrology, and stream habitat, engaging specialists as necessary to establish and maintain a healthy functioning riverine ecosystem.


    Conservation Easements. Conservation easements are an increasingly popular and flexible tool capable of guaranteeing the preservation of real property in perpetuity. Our Firm helps ranchers, conservation organizations, and other landowners place land under conservation easements, which allows the owners to continue working the land while guaranteeing it will never be developed or subdivided. This flexible tool allows conservation-minded landowners to have land statutorily designated and protected for a particular use while achieving tax benefits and maximizing the land's perpetual benefit to present and successive generations.


    The Firm is committed to implementing land conservation projects that preserve the ecological integrity of land and watersheds while helping private landowners permanently protect their properties. We advise clients on the benefits and capabilities of this tool, explain its burgeoning popularity as well as its limitations, and assist clients in successfully implementing easements to manage and preserve their property while holding and monitoring conservation easements while preserving important fish, wildlife and endangered species habitat and recreational lands.


    Federal Environmental Law. Our Firm represents clients on matters involving federal and state natural resource and wildlife agencies, including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Idaho Fish & Game, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, and Idaho Department of Water Resources. Our expertise allows up to advise and represent organizations and individuals in challenges to agency administrative action or inaction under the Clean Water Act, Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, and Endangered Species Act. Our firm handles ESA listing procedure appeals and suits under Section 7 and Section 9's 'take' provision.


    State and Local Environmental Law. In most cases, state statutes are permitted and even encouraged by commensurate federal laws. We provide legal services to business, corporations, and other private regulated industries and client organizations to comply with the often complex overlay of state environmental statutes and regulations.


    Public Interest Environmental Law. Where industry, government, or individuals violate statutes or regulations to the detriment of Idaho's valuable natural resources, our Firm represents conservationist organizations, citizen groups, and individuals to compel enforcement of regulations, enjoin damaging uses, and seek damages as well as judicially-mandated reclamation and remediation if necessary. Examples of the type suits we handle include, among others:


    • Suits against polluters, mining groups, publicly owned treatment works (POTWs), and irresponsible development groups for violations of by Clean Water Act for actions undertaken in violation of or entirely without federal (NPDES) permits. These permits require self-monitoring and regulation that is made public so that citizen groups can sue a permittee for a violation and have a permit revoked for multiple violations.
    • Filing suit under citizen suit provisions of the Clean Water Act, common law nuisance, or other federal or state statute(s) to compel governmental enforcement of confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) violations. The most common type of litigation in this sector involves unlawful discharges of CAFO facility waste into 'waters of the United States' without a NPDES permit required by the Clean Water Act.
    • Suits against the United State Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for mismanagment of federal land or Wild Lands designations, or against the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) to enjoin dam-building projects or compel dam removal.
    • Challenging state or federal agencies over action, inaction, or nonenforcement under the Endangered Species Act, Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Clean Water Act, or violations of rights to natural resource use or environmental protections guaranteed citizens in the Idaho Constitution or under common law public trust doctrine.



    Mining. Our Firm assists clients in practicing sustainable and environmentally low-impact mining with the objective of preserving natural resources for future generations and long-term harvest while adhering to the highest level of environmental stewardship. Our mining clients are industry leaders in developing responsible and sustainable mining techniques, increase public awareness of necessary and responsible mining practices, and implementing highly effective mitigation and reclamation measures to reclaim mining sites to their original natural state. In addition, we provide assistance to current clients on regulatory compliance with the ever-shifting overlay of federal and state mining and reclamation regulations. As industry leaders, our clients are dedicated to educating the public on their pioneering efforts to sustainably mine and successful reclaim their sites.


    Energy. Accompanying the wide array of emergent sustainable, renewable, and more efficient methods of energy production is a commensurate burgeoning field of federal and state regulatory requirements for businesses looking to begin or expand their energy operations. We also have extensive experience representing clients before the Idaho Public Utilities Commission regarding energy matters and pricing. Our clients can take advantage of our business law expertise in startup, maintenance, and changes necessitated by growth in this rapidly expanding field. Our Firm helps clients plan to meet long-term energy needs by using responsible energy generation to minimize negative impacts on natural resources and indigenous wildlife.


    Policy-making and Lobbying. Acting as outside counsel or in the capacity of a legal consultant, our attorneys assist state agencies and the Idaho legislature on behalf of concerned clients in preparation, hearings, and drafting of proposed regulations, laws, and policies.


    Litigation. Our Firm's attorneys have extensive trial experience, which includes litigation in connection with the discrete aspects of environmental and natural resources law outlined above.






    Attorneys focusing in this area include:






Natural Resources and Environmental Law: Racine Olson Nye Budge & Bailey, serving Pocatello, Idaho Falls, and Boise, Idaho

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