2015 red clay conference program
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2014-2015 Executive Board ............................................................................................................2
CLE Credits Offered ........................................................................................................................2
Schedule ...........................................................................................................................................2
Biographies of Panelists
Straining Supply: Balancing Public and Private Water Usage ............................................3
Adapting Regulation to Energy’s New Frontier ..................................................................5
Keynote Address ..................................................................................................................8
Settling Disputes over Georgia’s Coastal Development ....................................................10
Biographies of Moderators ............................................................................................................13
27th Annual
Red Clay Conference February 27, 2015
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2014-2015 Executive Board
Hunter Jones, Executive Chair, [email protected]
Ellie Carroll, Co-Chair, [email protected]
Amble Johnson, Co-Chair, [email protected]
Jonathan Tonge, Co-Chair, [email protected]
CLE Credits
4.5 Regular CLE Hours for Georgia Attorneys
Schedule
9:00 a.m. – 9:20 a.m. Registration and Opening Remarks
9:30 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. Straining Supply: Balancing Public and Private Water Usage
10:45 a.m. – 11:55 a.m. Adapting Regulation to Energy’s New Frontier
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Keynote Address
2:10 p.m. – 3:20 p.m. Settling Disputes over Georgia’s Coastal Development
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Overview of the Conference
The Red Clay Conference is an annual student run conference at the University of
Georgia School of Law. This event was established to increase public awareness of
environmental issues on a regional, national, and international level through a series of
educational presentations and open forum discussions. The Conference attracts attorneys as well
as students and interested members of the Athens community.
This year’s Conference will focus on the balance of public interests and private rights in
environmental law. Specifically, it consists of one keynote speaker and three panels, which will
address the following topics: Water Supply, Energy Regulation, and Coastal Development.
Straining Supply: Balancing Public and Private Water Usage
For years, the competing regional water interests of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have
been the focus of debate and litigation in the Tri-State Water Wars. This panel shifts the focus to
the intrastate issues shaping the future of Georgia’s water supply within the state’s own border.
Specifically, the panel will explore the competing interests the state must balance in providing
public and private water usage and rights to municipal, agricultural, recreational, and ecological
interests. The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin again figures heavily into
such a discussion and the way in which the interests of one region of the state compete against
those of another for an essential natural resource.
Lewis Jones
Lewis Jones is a Partner in King & Spalding’s Tort &
Environmental Litigation Practice Group. His practice concentrates on
water law and general environmental litigation. He helps clients obtain
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environmental permits from state and federal agencies and defends the permits in litigation when
challenged. Of relevance to this conference, Mr. Jones represents the metropolitan-area water
supply providers in the long-running dispute between Alabama, Florida and Georgia over the
waters of the ACF and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) River Basins. Mr. Jones holds a J.D.
from Harvard Law School, an M.S. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, and a B.S. from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
Chris Manganiello
Dr. Christopher Manganiello is Georgia River Network’s Policy
Director. He received his degree from the University of Georgia and won
the Rachel Carson Prize for the best dissertation in environmental history.
Dr. Manganiello has also taught energy courses and history courses at the
University of Georgia and Georgia Gwinnett College. He has published on topics such as
drought, energy, and wildlife management policy in the Journal of the History of Biology, the
Journal of Southern History, and Southern Cultures, and he was co-editor, with Paul S. Sutter, of
Environmental History and the American South: A Reader (University of Georgia Press, 2009).
His next book, titled Southern Water, Southern Power: How the Politics of Cheap Energy and
Water Scarcity Shaped a Region, will be published by the University of North Carolina Press in
March.
Gil Rogers
Gil Rogers is a senior attorney and head of the Clean Water
Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). SELC
is a regional nonprofit legal organization dedicated to protecting
natural resources and special places throughout the Southeast. Mr.
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Rogers is a native of Birmingham, AL, and graduated from Princeton University in 1998 with a
degree in ecology and evolutionary biology and a certificate in environmental studies. He went
on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 2002. Mr. Roger’s work at SELC focuses on
water management and water quality issues. In 2005, Mr. Rogers was named Water
Conservationist of the Year by the Georgia Wildlife Federation. He was part of a delegation of
U.S. environmental lawyers who visited China in 2011 with the National Committee on U.S.
China Relations. Mr. Rogers was also a 2014 Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School.
Gordon Rogers
Gordon Rogers is the Riverkeeper and Executive Director of
Flint Riverkeeper. The Flint River is consistently listed as one of the
most endangered rivers in the country and is currently the target of a
variety of management schemes and resource conflicts integral to the
“Tri-State” legal situation. Prior to “Flint,” Mr. Rogers was the Satilla Riverkeeper in Southeast
Georgia. Mr. Rogers attended Oxford College of Emory University and the University of
Georgia, with postgraduate research at Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. He subsequently
worked for ten years with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Coastal Resources
Division and nine years in the solid waste and recycling industry. Flint Riverkeeper is
headquartered in Albany (Dougherty County); Mr. Rogers and his family live in Fayette County.
Adapting Regulation to Energy’s New Frontier
Since 1970, the Clean Air Act (CAA) has served as a primary mechanism for regulating
energy production in the United States, but some wonder if it can be adapted to deal with modern
issues. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implements many of the regulations
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under the CAA, and it has recently proposed a rule seeking a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide
emissions by 2030 as part of the Obama Administration’s “Clean Power Plan.”1 These
regulations may prove especially burdensome in Georgia where coal provides 35% of the power
produced,2 and there may be increased demand for alternative energy sources. While solar and
wind energy remain almost entirely unregulated at present,3 the future of these technologies may
depend on the legal framework developed for their implementation.
John Brittingham
John Brittingham is an Associate at Troutman Sanders LLP in
Atlanta, Georgia. His practice concentrates on the regulation of nuclear
energy, including issues arising before the United States Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC), United States Department of Labor, and
state public utilities commissions. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of
Tennessee with an emphasis in Nuclear Engineering, and he earned his J.D. summa cum laude
from the University of Memphis. Prior to attending law school, Mr. Brittingham served as a
Submarine Officer in the United States Navy, where his work involved nuclear propulsion plant
operations and maintenance. Today, Mr. Brittingham advises clients on a wide range of
compliance matters, including regulatory matters before the NRC Office of Investigations and
the NRC Office of Enforcement.
1 U.S. EPA, Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule, Dec. 2014, http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/clean-
power-plan-proposed-rule. 2 Georgia Power, Energy Sources, (2013), available at http://www.georgiapower.com/about-energy/energy-
sources/home.cshtml. 3 Sara C. Bronin, Modern Lights, 80 U. Colo. L. Rev. 881, 882 (2009).
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Angela Garrone
Angela Garrone is the Southeast Energy Research Attorney for the
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, working primarily on coal retirement
issues in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) area as well as energy
policies and climate change regulations across the Southeast. Ms. Garrone
graduated cum laude from Pace University Law School, with a Certificate in Environmental
Law. She participated in Pace’s Environmental Litigation Clinic and was a member of the Pace
International Law Review. She previously worked with the Solar Electric Power Association in
Washington, D.C., after finishing a year-long legal intern position at the Environmental
Protection Agency’s headquarters. Ms. Garrone completed a year in George Washington
University’s Energy and Environmental Law L.L.M. program and is working on her thesis on
distributed generation regulations and microgrid implementation.
Jeaneanne Gettle
Jeaneanne Gettle is the Deputy Director of the Air, Pesticides and Toxics Management
Division in the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 4 office located
in Atlanta, Georgia. In this position, Ms. Gettle assists in leading a diverse workforce charged
with implementing a variety of environmental statutes including the Clean Air Act, the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the
Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act.
Ms. Gettle has a B.S. in Geological Engineering from Missouri University of Science and
Technology (formerly the University of Missouri at Rolla) and a J.D. from Georgia State
University. Ms. Gettle has over 28 years of experience at EPA working in variety of programs
including clean air, toxics, Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA), superfund and
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pesticides and has served on a number of workgroups and committees which address both
national and regional policy, programmatic, and rule implementation issues.
Katie Ottenweller
Katie Ottenweller is a staff attorney with SELC, where she heads
up their Solar Initiative. This initiative was launched to help the
Southeast reap the many benefits of solar power and reduce our
dependence on fossil fuels, by removing legal and policy barriers to affordable, clean solar
energy in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. Ms.
Ottenweller is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Columbia University School of Law.
Prior to her position at SELC, she did a one-year Environmental Justice fellowship with the
Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia. Ms. Ottenweller is licensed to practice law in
Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Keynote Address: Professor Eric T. Freyfogle
Eric T. Freyfogle is Swanlund Chair and Professor of Law at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he has long taught
courses on natural resources, property, environmental law and policy,
wildlife law, conservation thought, and land use planning.
His writings on nature and culture include several monographs:
On Private Property: Finding Common Ground on the Ownership of
Land (Beacon Press, 2007); Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and
Hope (University Press of Kentucky, 2007); Why Conservation is Failing and How It Can
Regain Ground (Yale University Press 2006); The Land We Share: Private Property and the
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Common Good (Island Press, 2003); Bounded People, Boundless Lands: Envisioning a New
Land Ethic (Island Press, 1998) (which received the 1999 Adult Nonfiction Award of the Society
of Midland Authors); and Justice and the Earth (Free Press, 1993).
He is also author or co-author of three law school casebooks, Natural Resources Law:
Private Rights and Collective Governance (Thomson/West 2007; revision forthcoming 2015);
with co-author Dale D. Goble, Wildlife Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 2d ed.
2010); and, with co-author Brad Karkkainen, Property Law: Power, Governance, and the
Common Good (Thomson/West 2012) and a legal treatise (with Dale D. Goble) Wildlife Law: A
Primer (Island Press 2009).
Professor Freyfogle served as editor of The New Agrarianism: Land, Culture, and the
Community of Life (Island Press, 2001); and co-edited (with philosopher J. Baird Callicott) a
volume of writings by Aldo Leopold on land conservation in agricultural landscapes, For the
Health of the Land (Island Press, 1999). His more than one hundred shorter writings, mostly on
nature and culture, have appeared in a variety of journals, books, and popular publications,
including the leading law reviews at Cornell, Duke, Michigan, NYU, Stanford, UCLA, and Yale;
leading environmental law and conservation science journals; popular publications such as
Dissent, Orion, and The New York Times; and publications in Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands,
New Zealand, and South Africa. Eight of his law journal articles have been recognized with
republication in the annual Land Use and Environment Law Review. Forthcoming works include
two scholarly monographs, The Use and Abuse of Nature: Making Sense of our Oldest Task and
Homeland Remedies: Environmental Loss and the Path to Hope, with the University of Chicago
Press.
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Professor Freyfogle has taught as visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law
School, the College of William and Mary, and the University of Utah and has lectured widely in
the United States and abroad. He has served as a Distinguished Visitor to the University
Auckland, as Visiting Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in South Africa,
and as Herbert Smith Freehills Visitor to the Law Faculty of the University of Cambridge. A
native of central Illinois and summa cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan Law
School, he has long been active in state and local conservation efforts including years of service
as President and Board member of Prairie Rivers Network.
Settling Disputes over Georgia’s Coastal Development
Boasting diverse ecosystems and natural beauty, Georgia’s coastal lands are a national
treasure. However, the area is under constant development pressure, and the preservation of
industry and economic interests along with sometimes contradictory wilderness and public needs
requires diligent attention.4 Against this backdrop, construction development on Jekyll Island5
and sea level rise mitigation on Tybee Island6 mark examples of Georgians confronting these
challenges. As land becomes scarcer and effects of sea level rise become more prominent, legal
issues will emerge to help Georgia define and execute a balance of businesses’ and stakeholders’
private rights with the rights of the public, as well as the proper extent of the government’s role
as arbiter of the discussion.
4 2013 Coastal Tour, Georgia Conservancy, http://www.georgiaconservancy.org/coastal-tour.html. 5 Dan Chapman, Storm Brewing Over Jekyll Island Development, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Apr. 23, 2013,
http://green-law.org/news-storm-brewing-jekyllisland. 6 City of Tybee Island, Tybee Island Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan Executive Summary,
http://www.cityoftybee.org/Assets/Files/CityManager/TISeaLevelRiseAdaptationPlanExecSumm201306.pdf.
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Steve Caley
Steve Caley is a senior attorney at GreenLaw. He graduated from
Hanover College and New York University School of Law. With over 30
years of litigation experience, Mr. Caley has argued in the courts of four
states, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Eleventh Circuit and the
Supreme Court. Prior to his work at GreenLaw, Mr. Caley served as Director of the Portland
office of Legal Aid Services of Oregon, Director of Litigation for the Atlanta Legal Aid Society,
and Managing Attorney of Legal Services Corporation of Alabama. Mr. Caley also taught the
Litigation Program at Georgia State University College of Law and served as a national litigator
at Weissman, Nowack, Curry & Wilco. In 2000, Mr. Caley was honored with the ACLU Georgia
Civil Liberties Award, and he has numerous other awards acknowledging his legal advocacy for
the public interest.
Shana Jones
Shana Jones serves as the Public Service Assistant for
Governmental Services and Outreach with the University of Georgia Carl
Vinson Institute of Government. Before that, Mrs. Jones was Director of
William & Mary Law School’s Virginia Coastal Policy Clinic. At the
Planning and Environmental Services unit of the Vinson Institute, Mrs. Jones advises
communities on legal and policy issues, focusing on land use, environmental quality, and sea
level rise. She graduated from the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland Law
School, where she earned Order of the Coif honors. After law school, Mrs. Jones clerked for the
Honorable Robert Doumar, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the
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Honorable Lynn Battaglia, Maryland Court of Appeals, and she worked for McGuire Woods as
an associate and the Center for Progressive Reform as Executive Director.
Paul Wolff
Paul Wolff has been a member of the City of Tybee Island
City Council since 2004, where his community is on the “front lines”
of sea level rise. Mr. Wolff is part of the planning team of the Tybee
Island Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan, which will outline a 50-year
planning horizon for addressing sea level rise. He is a retired farmer and investor and owns
Tybee Moons Family B&B. In addition to his service on the Council, Mr. Wolff is a member of
the Chatham County Resource Protection Commission, the Department of Natural Resources
Coastal Advisory Council, the U.S. Green Building Council, and numerous others, as well as
Chairman of the Chatham Municipal Association. Mr. Wolff graduated from Vanderbilt
University, where he majored in English.
Max Zygmont
Max Zygmont is a partner at Kazmarek, Mowrey, Cloud, &
Lasseter, LLP (KMCL), where his practice focuses on environmental
law. Mr. Zygmont’s work varies from regulatory compliance and
transactions to permitting and litigation. He is also Chair-Elect of the
Georgia Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section and serves on the Steering Committee of
the Georgia Environmental Conference. Mr. Zygmont also shares his expertise and enthusiasm
for the environment in his role as a board member of the Chattahoochee Nature Center. Prior to
his work for KMCL, Mr. Zygmont graduated from the University of Georgia and from the
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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, where he was Articles Editor for the
Journal of Law & Technology and earned High Honors and selection to the Order of the Coif.
Moderators
Laurie Fowler, Straining Supply: Balancing Public and Private Water
Usage
Environmental attorney Laurie Fowler is the Associate Dean for
Public Service and Administrative Affairs at the Odum School of Ecology
at the University of Georgia and the director for policy of the River Basin
Center. She also serves on the clinical faculty (adjunct) at the School of
Law. The focus of her teaching, research and service is on watershed management, protection of
biodiversity, and associated land conservation and land use policies. Dean Fowler received her
LL.M. from the University of Washington, her J.D. from the University of Georgia and her B.A.
from the University of the South.
Over the past three years, Dean Fowler has coordinated a partnership between major
academic institutions—the University of Florida, Florida State University, Albany State
University, Auburn University and the University of Georgia—to provide assistance to the ACF
Stakeholders, Inc. to develop sustainable transboundary management of the ACF. Dean Fowler
has served on advisory boards to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Georgia
Environmental Protection Division, the Attorney General and the Georgia Department of
Community Affairs.
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Peter Appel, Adapting Regulation to Energy’s New Frontier
Peter Appel is the Alex W. Smith Professor of Law at the
University of Georgia School of Law where he teaches courses in property,
environmental law, and natural resources law. He earned his Bachelor and
Law degrees from Yale University, where he served on the notes editing
committee of the Yale Law Journal and was a member of the Yale Law and Policy Review.
Before coming to UGA, Professor Appel clerked for Chief Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and served for over six years in the Environment and
Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. His research spans the use of law
to promote sustainable commerce, wilderness preservation and the courts, and more traditional
doctrinal scholarship in environmental and natural resources law and property. In addition to
teaching at Georgia Law, Professor Appel has served as an instructor to senior members of
federal agencies and federal wilderness managers.
Christian Turner, Settling Disputes over Georgia’s Coastal
Environment
Christian Turner is an Associate Professor at the University of
Georgia School of Law where he teaches courses on property law,
natural resources law, land use, and the regulation of knowledge and
information. He previously taught at the Fordham University School of Law. Before entering
academia, he worked as an associate at the Wiggin and Dana law firm in Connecticut and as a
judicial clerk for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Professor Turner also interned at the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2000.
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His scholarship focuses on the regulation of information, the regulation of natural resources, and
applying his mathematical training to legal theory.
Professor Turner graduated magna cum laude from the University of South Carolina with
a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics and was named Mathematics Undergraduate of the Year. He
earned his Doctorate from Texas A&M University in 1999 before graduating from Stanford Law
School in 2002. At Stanford, Professor Turner served as president of the Stanford Law
Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.