Peter Culp practices in the environmental, water and natural resources, and federal Indian law areas. His experience includes representing various industrial and municipal clients with regard to facility siting, permitting, regulatory compliance and environmental cleanup matters arising under the major federal and state environmental laws; representing private, public and nonprofit entities in matters related to surface water rights, groundwater rights, state and federal water policy and the Law of the Colorado River; and representing both private land developers and public entities with regard to land development and master planning projects, development rights and the management, development and conservation of state trust lands. Mr. Culp also has experience representing clients interacting with tribal entities or doing business on tribal lands. In 2010 he was recognized by Chambers USA for environmental matters including water resources.

His previous experience includes serving as a law clerk in the Indian Resources Section of the US Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division and as a lawyer for the Sonoran Institute, a nonprofit organization that works on land and water policy issues throughout the intermountain West.

Mr. Culp is the author of many published articles and reports on environmental, water and natural resource policy issues. These include a wide range of publications related to Western water law and the Law of the Colorado River including:

• “Economic and Environmental Challenges for Public Water Supply: A Water Quantity Perspective” (American Bar Association, 2008);
• “Collaboration in Mexico: Renewed Hope for the Colorado River Delta” (Nevada Law Journal, 2008);
• “Sustainable Water Management: Guidelines for Meeting the Needs of People and Nature in the Arid West” (Sonoran Institute, 2007);
• “The YDP/Cienega Conflict: A Proposed Solution” and “Recent Developments on the Colorado River: Implications for Mexico” (Southwest Hydrology, 2005/2004);
• “The Last Green Lagoon: How and Why the Bush Administration Should Save the Colorado River Delta” (Ecology Law Quarterly, 2002);
• “Searching for Cíbola: Community-Based Environmental Restoration in the Colorado River Watershed” (Arizona Law Review, 2000); and
• “Feasibility of Purchase and Transfer of Water for Instream Flow in the Colorado River Delta” (Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, 2000), which won the 2000 Lillian S. Fisher Prize in Environmental Law and Public Policy.

Mr. Culp has also published several definitive reports on state trust lands management including:

• “State Trust Lands: The Future of Urban Growth in Arizona” (in “Land Use Challenges and Choices for the 21st Century,” Arizona Town Hall, 2007);
• “State Trust Lands in the West: Fiduciary Duty in a Changing Landscape” (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2006); and
• “State Trust Lands in the American West: A Legal Overview and Policy Assessment” (Sonoran Institute, 2005).

Mr. Culp is a member of the State Bar of Arizona and the American Bar Association. He was appointed by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to the Colorado River Advisory Commission, where he has served since 2004, and has also served on Arizona’s State Water Advisory Group since 2006. He also serves on a binational commission under the US Department of State, International Boundary and Water Commission, which is working to develop new binational cooperative strategies for the management of the Colorado River. Mr. Culp additionally serves on the board of the Arizona Heritage Alliance and recently served as a member of the YDP/Cienega de Santa Clara Working Group, which worked to develop a successful solution to the ongoing binational controversy over the proposed operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant.

Representative Experience

• Representing a leading land development and investment company in the development of a major proposed trans-basin water diversion and supply project.
• Representing one of Arizona’s largest developers in environmental reviews and due diligence, water rights transfers and water supply planning and permitting, brownfields remediation, environmental and community outreach, and Section 404 permitting, compliance and federal wetlands mitigation in connection with large master planned development projects.
• Representing a merchant power developer in the development of an energy project in northern Arizona including air permitting, water rights, endangered species, environmental mitigation, right-of-way matters, National Environmental Policy Act and other issues.
• Representing a stakeholder group in the reform of Arizona’s constitutional and statutory framework for the management of 9.3 million acres of state trust lands and advising on the development of tools, legal mechanisms and agency capacity for trust land management and development in eight other Western states.
• Representing a leading nonprofit organization in a nine-year effort to restore the Colorado River Delta ecosystem and negotiate key policy reforms related to the Law of the Colorado River and the 1944 treaty between the United States and Mexico.
• Representing various Arizona industrial facilities and a major landfill on air permitting matters.
• Providing environmental analysis and support to industrial clients in connection with toxic tort litigation.
• Representing various clients in environmental reviews, water rights and permit transfers associated with industrial siting, real estate acquisitions, facility sales and corporate merger transactions.
• Representing the world’s leading cobalt producer on federal Indian law matters pertaining to a facility located on tribal land.
• Representing various Arizona municipalities in the development of comprehensive reforms to Arizona’s development fee (impact fee) statutes and representing commercial developers with regard to development fees adopted by local municipalities and a Native American tribe.
• Advising clients on issues related to the Law of the Colorado River and regional water planning issues.