WATER LAW
Seeking Settlements and Solutions A Conversation With John Penn Carter
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Kris Polly: Can you please give us a brief history of the various water conflicts you have been involved with in the West? John Carter: I come from a family of farmers, and my paternal great-grandfather helped build the canals in the Imperial Valley at the turn of the 20th century. My grandfather later became a farmer and reportedly grew the first iceberg lettuce crop in the valley. My father eventually took over the farming operations, and I worked there until I went to college and law school. At that same time, the U.S. Department of the Interior decided that the 160-acre limitation under the Reclamation Act should apply to the lands in the Imperial Valley, even though those lands had prior vested rights as a result of acquiring water rights under state law. I wrote an article for the law review about the inapplicability of the acreage limitation, and when IRRIGATION LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN PENN CARTER.
Reaching mutually agreeable solutions to problems is never easy, and nowhere is this truer than in disputes over water rights. Such disputes often lead to lengthy and costly litigation that ultimately results in less-than-optimal solutions. Successfully negotiating a settlement can be a more difficult but ultimately more beneficial method of resolving complex water issues. John Penn Carter has made a career of negotiating and implementing such settlements. As a water attorney, he has had to convince opposing parties as well as his own clients that negotiated settlements are superior to litigation, to stay the course during difficult negotiations, and to only go to court as a last resort. Mr. Carter recently sat down with Irrigation Leader’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, to discuss the cases he has successfully resolved throughout his career, how he was able to achieve settlements in difficult cases, and how parties involved in water disputes can often obtain better outcomes at the negotiation table than in the courts.
