Peter D. Nichols
Berg Hill Greenleaf & Ruscitti LLP
Peter D. Nichols graduated from Colorado College and obtained an MPA from the University of Colorado before graduating from CU Law, where the faculty named him outstanding natural resources scholar. He began his legal career as contract staff attorney to Garfield County Legal Services before focusing his practice on water, water quality, environmental, and conservation law, while continuing as an occasional international mountaineering guide.
Mr. Nichols has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous articles and books on Colorado water law, including Water and Growth in Colorado (CU Law 2001), Acquiring, Using and Protecting Water in Colorado (Bradford, 2006, 2011), Water Rights Handbook for Colorado Conservation Professionals (Bradford, 2007, 2011), “A Roundtable Discussion of the No-Injury Rule of Colorado Water Law” (The Colorado Lawyer 2015), and “All We Really Need to Know We Learned in Kindergarten: Share Everything (Agricultural Water Sharing to Meet Increasing Municipal Water Demands)” (Colorado Natural Resources, Energy & Environmental Law Review 2016). He is also a frequent lecturer on water, water quality, and conservation law across the western United States.
Mr. Nichols served as lead counsel for western water users defending federal deference to state water law under the Clean Water Act and EPA’s Water Transfers Rule, and as Special Assistant Attorney General for Colorado and New Mexico and co-counsel to other the western states in the same matters, from the seminal case of Miccosukee Tribe of Indians v. So. Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist., 541 U.S. 95 (2004) to Catskills Mtns. Chap. of Trout Unltd. v. U.S. EPA, 846 F.3d 492 (2d Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 1164 (2018).
Mr. Nichols is a member of the bars of Colorado; the U.S. Supreme Court; the First, Second, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal; and the U.S. District Court for Colorado. He is also a gubernatorial appointee to the Interbasin Compact Committee; member of the Advisory Committee of CU Law’s Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment; and former chair of the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission.
(05/21)
