Brian represents organizations and individuals seeking to protect the environment and wildlife through litigation and advocacy. Practicing law since 2004, he has extensive experience with federal environmental statutes such as the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Much of Brian’s practice has revolved around protecting Pacific Northwest salmonids and the ecosystem in which they evolved. His work has covered issues related to habitat and water quality, hydropower, salmon hatcheries, and salmon harvests.

Some of Brian’s representative experience includes:

Hydroelectric Litigation

Brian represented Columbia Riverkeeper in a series of Clean Water Act citizen suits seeking to bring hydroelectric projects into compliance, for the first time, with the Act’s NPDES permitting requirements. These efforts began with federal multi-district litigation against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2013 that was resolved through a settlement agreement requiring the Corps to submit NPDES permit applications for eight hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Lower Snake Rivers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency eventually issued NPDES permits for the Corps’ dams, which include requirements imposed by the State of Washington under its “401 certification” authority requiring the dams meet temperature standards to protect salmonids.

The 2014 agreement was reported as “groundbreaking” given its potential nationwide implications. As one law professor explained, the “§401 certifications could mean that the long-standing efforts to have dam operations comply with state water quality temperature standards may finally bear fruit.”

Following the 2014 agreement, Brian represented Columbia Riverkeeper in successful efforts to require other hydroelectric operators to obtain Clean Water Act permits, including the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Grand Coulee Dam) and several Public Utility Districts in Washington State.

Hatchery Litigation

Brian has represented Wild Fish Conservancy and other clients in numerous cases seeking to bring hatchery programs into compliance with the Endangered Species Act and other environmental statutes to reduce the hatcheries’ impacts to wild salmonids.

Two such lawsuits alleged that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife was violating the Endangered Species Act by releasing out-of-basin hatchery steelhead into Puget Sound. The National Marine Fisheries Service had identified these two hatchery stocks—the Chambers Creek winter steelhead hatchery stock and the Skamania summer steelhead stock—as a concern when it listed Puget Sound steelhead as a threatened species. The lawsuits resulted in consent decrees entered in 2014 and 2019 requiring, among other things, Washington to phase out the unauthorized non-native hatchery programs.

Additional examples of Brian’s representation in hatchery litigation include:

• Wild Fish Conservancy v. Salazar, 628 F.3d 513 (9th Cir. 2010), finding a biological opinion to be arbitrary under the Endangered Species Act for temporally segmenting impacts to bull trout from a federal hatchery by looking only at harm during the next five years.

• Ctr. for Env’t Law & Policy v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., 228 F. Supp. 3d 1152 (E.D. Wash. 2017); and Ctr. for Env’t Law & Policy v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., No. 2:15-cv-00264-SMJ, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67630 (E.D. Wash. May 3, 2017), finding a federal salmon hatchery to be in violation of the Clean Water Act for discharging without the required permit and issuing injunctive relief.

Aquaculture Litigation

Brian has represented environmental organizations in matters seeking to protect aquatic ecosystems from the impacts of commercial aquaculture. For example, Brian represented Wild Fish Conservancy in a Clean Water Act citizen suit against the operator of commercial salmon net pens in Puget Sound following the 2017 collapse of a pen that released thousands of non-native Atlantic salmon. The Court found numerous violations at all eight Puget Sound net pens. Wild Fish Conservancy v. Cooke Aquaculture Pac. LLC, No. C17-1708-JCC, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70974 (W.D. Wash. April 26, 2019); Wild Fish Conservancy v. Cooke Aquaculture Pac. LLC, No. C17-1708-JCC, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 204382 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 25, 2019). Brian successfully negotiated a favorable consent decree that required, among other things, improvements at the facilities and payment of $1,150,000 to a nonprofit for environmental restoration projects. This litigation was highlighted in Salmon Wars: The Dark Underbelly of Our Favorite Fish, by Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz (2022).

Other examples of Brian’s aquaculture litigation experience include:

• Wild Fish Conservancy v. U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, 331 F. Supp. 3d 1210 (W.D. Wash. 2018), finding the duty to reinitiate consultation under the Endangered Species Act applies to water quality standards previously approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act.

• Wild Fish Conservancy v. U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, W.D. Wash. No. C08-0156-JCC, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41838 (W.D. Wash. April 28, 2010), in which an informal Endangered Species Act consultation on the effects to threatened salmonids from commercial salmon farms (net pens) in Puget Sound was faulted for failing to use the best available science.

Fisheries Litigation

Brian represented Wild Fish Conservancy in a lawsuit challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s approval of commercial salmon fisheries in Southeast Alaska, where NMFS sought to offset the fisheries’ impacts to Southern Resident killer whales by increasing salmon hatchery production in the Pacific Northwest. The Court found that NMFS’s review and approval of the actions violated both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Wild Fish Conservancy v. Thom, No. C20-417-RAJ-MLP, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 195058 (W.D. Wash. Sept. 27, 2021); Wild Fish Conservancy v. Thom, No. C20-417-RAJ-MLP, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 239438 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 13, 2022).

Open Government Litigation

Brian has represented clients in various matters seeking to enforce open government laws. In one such matter, Brian represented Columbia Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, and Northwest Environmental Defense Center in an action challenging the use of non-public executive sessions by the Board of Commissioners for Port of Vancouver USA when considering a lease for a proposed crude oil terminal. The Washington Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Port’s interpretation of Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act that the Port used to exclude the public from discussions on the lease. Columbia Riverkeeper v. Port of Vancouver USA, 188 Wn.2d 421, 395 P.3d 1031 (2017) (Oral Argument before the Washington State Supreme Court).

Contact Brian Knutsen:
1300 S.E. Stark Street, Suite 202
Portland, Oregon 97214
Phone: (503) 841-6515
Email: brian@kampmeierknutsen.com

Admissions:
State of Oregon, OSB No. 112266 (2011)
State of Washington, WSBA No. 38806 (2007)
State of Colorado (inactive), Bar No. 35951 (2004)
U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington

Education:
J.D., cum laude, Lewis & Clark School of Law (2004)
B.A., environmental sciences and geology, St. Louis University (2000)