Peter Culp practices in the areas of environmental, water and natural resources, and federal Indian law. His experience includes representing land developers, industrial and energy concerns, investment firms, and 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; 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; and representing both private and public entities with regard to land development and master planning projects, development rights, public infrastructure financing, and the management, development and conservation of state trust lands and federal public lands. He also has experience representing clients interacting with tribal entities or doing business on tribal lands.

Peter continues to be recognized by Chambers USA for environmental matters including water resources law; other peer-reviewed recognitions include listings in the 2012 and 2011 editions of The Best Lawyers in America and the 2012 edition of Southwest Super Lawyers – Rising Stars.

Peter has served on a variety of boards and commissions related to water and natural resource issues and policy matters. He has been repeatedly appointed by Arizona Governors Janet Napolitano and Jan Brewer to the Colorado River Advisory Commission, where he has served since 2004. He also serves on a bi-national commission under the US Department of State, International Boundary and Water Commission, which is working to develop new bi-national strategies for the management of Colorado River water supplies. His work on this commission has included the negotiation of three new international water management agreements, as well as a further agreement that is expected by mid-2012. As a result of his extensive public policy work, he was among those honored with a 2009 Partners in Conservation Award from US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, given in connection with the negotiation of a new seven-state and federal agreement with regard to the management of the Colorado River.

At the state and local level, Peter has been a high-level participant in a number of water and public lands policy and planning efforts. This work has included service on Arizona’s State Water Advisory Group developing successful state-wide water reform legislation, working with the Arizona Department of Water Resources on the development of water supply and demand models for the Colorado River Basin Study and the state Water Resources Development Commission, supporting state trust land reform efforts in collaboration with the Arizona State Land Department, and working with state water managers to develop a successful solution to the international environmental controversy related to operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant. Peter also advises several nonprofit foundations and serves as a director for the Arizona Heritage Alliance and the Tamarisk Coalition.

Peter’s 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 an in-house attorney with the Sonoran Institute, a nonprofit organization that works on land and water policy issues throughout the intermountain West. Prior to embarking on his legal career, Peter’s endeavors included managing a nonprofit public health technology enterprise for C. Everett Koop, the former US Surgeon General, managing forest fires in the Northern Rockies as part of a Type 1 Incident Management Team, and driving long-haul refrigerated freight in the US and Canada.

Peter is the author of many published articles and reports on environmental and natural resource issues including a number of publications focused on Western water law and the Colorado River.

Publications

• “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.
•  “Feasibility of Purchase and Transfer of Water for Instream Flow in the Colorado River Delta,” Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, 2000, winner, 2000 Lillian S. Fisher Prize in Public Policy.

Peter has also published several definitive reports on state trust lands management.

• “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.
• “State Trust Lands in the American West: A Legal Overview and Policy Assessment,” Sonoran Institute, 2005.

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 leading nonprofit organizations in a decade-long 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 investment funds, lenders, and developers with regard to water resource and agricultural land transactions, development of investment strategies and due diligence.
• Representing one of Arizona's largest developers in environmental reviews and due diligence, water rights transfers and water supply planning, brownfields remediation, environmental and community outreach, and Section 404 permitting, compliance and mitigation in connection with large master-planned development projects.
• Representing merchant power developers in the siting and development of renewable and natural gas energy projects and transmission lines, including utility commission siting, air permitting, water rights, endangered species, archeological sites, environmental mitigation, right-of-way acquisitions, National Environmental Policy Act reviews 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 various Arizona industrial facilities and a major landfill on air permitting matters, and representing industrial clients in connection with CERCLA site assessments, CERCLA and RCRA litigation, and 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 a statewide coalition of Arizona municipalities in the development of comprehensive reforms to Arizona's development impact fee infrastructure financing system, and representing commercial developers with regard to development fee and infrastructure financing programs adopted by local municipalities and a Native American tribe.
• Advising a global conservation organization on the development of a seven-state strategy for the Colorado River Basin, and advising a state agency and several private foundations on issues related to the Law of the Colorado River and regional water planning.