Toni Meacham: Wrangling Water Law in Washington
T
oni Meacham grew up understanding the importance of water for agriculture and from an early age wanted to advocate for those who depend on it. Working in her own law practice as well as with the Washington Agricultural Legal Foundation (WALF) has allowed her to do precisely that. Ms. Meacham’s experiences as both an attorney and a rancher enable her to understand the needs, interests, and viewpoints of a wide variety of stakeholders on water law issues. In this interview, Ms. Meacham tells Irrigation Leader about how she became interested in water and agricultural law, the unique challenges of those issues, and the importance of effective representation for farmers, ranchers, and irrigators in Washington State. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
Irrigation Leader: Did you learn about water law in the classroom, or was it something you had to learn in the field?
8 | IRRIGATION LEADER | May 2021
Toni Meacham on the ranch with a colt.
Toni Meacham: A little bit of both. When I was growing up, a phenomenal woman named Mary Burke was a good friend of my family. She was a rancher and a water expert, though not an attorney, and would tell me about water law issues and send me articles about the Clean Water Act (CWA) to read as early as when I was in sixth grade. When I was in law school, it wasn’t possible to formally specialize in water law. When I graduated from law school, I first went to work for another attorney. After I started working in my own practice, I started working with the WALF, a group of industry leaders who work on issues affecting farmers and irrigators. I’ve always been interested in water law; it’s always been a passion. For me, it was an easy transition. Irrigation Leader: How has your background in agriculture and as a rancher helped you in your work as an attorney? Toni Meacham: It means that I actually understand the terms. When I’m going into court, I often have to explain to judges what an irrigation circle is. For example, I recently dealt with a purchase and sale agreement. The other attorney worried that the water rights were going to be split from the land being sold. However, I understood that the rights in question were not true water rights. They were rights to use water within the irrigated acres established by the local irrigation district. Those are things I inherently know because I grew up here. When you start getting irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TONI MEACHAM.
Toni Meacham: I am a fifth-generation rancher. My mom’s family moved to the Columbia basin when my mom was in school. My grandparents had a large cattle ranch on the other side of Connell. My grandpa wanted one grandchild to be a lawyer, one to be a veterinarian, one to be a banker, and one to be an accountant. I was the argumentative one and always took on challenges, so I took the lawyer route. One of the great things about my family is that we are involved in public affairs on the national and state levels. We saw water law challenges and issues with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Washington Department of Ecology (DOE) over water ownership, jurisdiction, and pollution coming down the pipe in real time. We knew the people involved in these issues, so it was something that we talked about getting involved in. In fifth grade, I decided that I needed to pursue the goal of protecting agriculture as a whole. I took part in a program called Running Start that allowed me to go to college during high school, so I graduated from high school with an associate of arts degree from Columbia Basin College. From there, I went to Washington State University and got a bachelor’s in animal science and reproductive physiology, just in case I didn’t get into law school. I graduated from law school at age 23, began working at a general practice, and went back to working at the family ranch. I realized I didn’t want to practice family law or anything mundane and instead wanted to focus on agriculture. I opened my own practice and focused on a variety of issues, ranging from contract law to big water law matters. I also continue to work on the family ranch.
