Stacy Brownhill - NAZARENUS STACK & WOMBACHER

Water Rights Adjudications and Water Planning. Stacy helps water users secure and defend their water rights. Her recent experience includes:

• Helping to litigate a complex water permit application opposed by 84 parties on behalf of a large municipality in the Southwest.

• Assisting in the appeal of a class action to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals involving irrigation water rights, tribal reserved water rights, and endangered species on behalf of an irrigation district in the Northwest.

• Drafting decrees for diligence and well replacement permit applications.

• Filing opposition comments in dozens of water rights cases involving exchanges, augmentation, storage, recharge, and other issues posing a threat to clients and assisting in navigating these cases toward settlement or trial.

• Monitoring state and local oil, gas, and biosolid permitting issues affecting clients’ groundwater quality and helping oppose such applications when necessary.

Environmental Permitting and Compliance. Stacy helps clients such as mining companies, utilities, and landowners navigate agency permitting, rulemaking and compliance matters. Her experience includes air quality, water quality, CERCLA, and mining issues at the local, state, and federal levels. Her recent experience includes:

• Assisting mining companies with issues concerning reclamation, bonding, jurisdiction, contracts, liability, condemnation, 1041 local permitting, permit appeals, and open records.

• Representing real estate developers on CERCLA cost-recovery issues.

• Helping advise a municipal utility on statutory interpretation and rulemaking appeal issues.

• Researching and analyzing key, jurisdiction-specific nuances of the Clean Water Act.

Previous Experience. Stacy served as an appellate law clerk to the Honorable Anthony J. Navarro of the Colorado Court of Appeals. While in law school, she served as a law clerk for the Boulder County Attorney’s Office, the Colorado Office of the Attorney General, and The Wilderness Society, and worked as a research assistant for the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment. Stacy also served as Production Editor on the University of Colorado Law Review and as an officer in the Environmental Law Society. In addition, she received an award for her writing on public lands from the American Bar Association. Before law school, Stacy worked as a reporter and nonprofit fundraiser.  

Personal. An avid trail runner and hiker, Stacy enjoys exploring the West’s outdoors with her husband and son.

Publications

• “Nutrient Standards for Lakes and Reservoirs: Where Water Quality and Water Rights Law Intersect,” Colo. Lawyer, Jan/Feb 2024.

• "Clean Water Act Groundwater Pollution Liability in Limbo," Ryley Carlock & Applewhite , October 2018

• "Proposition 112 and Amendment 74 – Big Implications for Colorado," Ryley Carlock & Applewhite , October 2018