On July 28, 2026, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court of Appeals issued an Opinion and Order in White Earth Division of Natural Resources (WEDNR) v. David Vipond, Appeal No. AP2025-00003, Tribal Court Case No. GC 2023-00001. The Court of Appeals held that the White Earth Nation had regulatory jurisdiction to enact the White Earth Reservation Groundwater and Surface Water Protection Ordinance, which requires a tribal permit for high-capacity pumps and wells on the White Earth Reservation, and further held that the Tribal Court has adjudicative jurisdiction over WEDNR’s claim to enforce the Ordinance against Defendant David Vipond, a non-member.  The Court of Appeals found that high-capacity pumps and wells, like Mr. Vipond’s proposed appropriation from the Wild Rice River, imperil the fish, rice, and other aquatic resources critical to tribal members’ subsistence, and thus the Nation’s exercise of jurisdiction falls squarely within the second basis for tribal jurisdiction in Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544 (1981). Read the full decision here [hyperlink to attached]. Kanji & Katzen, P.L.L.C. represents WEDNR in the Tribal Court action. The firm also represents WEDNR’s divisional director in a related federal court action, where the Eighth Circuit ordered Mr. Vipond to exhaust his tribal court remedies before pursuing a challenge to the Nation’s jurisdiction in federal court. See Vipond v. DeGroat, 166 F.4th 694 (8th Cir. 2026)

Link: WE Court Appeals Opinion & Order

The White Earth Reservation Groundwater and Surface Water Protection Ordinance requires all new high-capacity pumps and wells on the Reservation to be permitted by the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. The White Earth Reservation Business Committee enacted the Ordinance to safeguard the waters, fisheries, wild rice, and other natural resources—resources that were guaranteed to the Band by treaty in 1867 and that sustain hundreds of Tribal members’ subsistence lifestyle—from the devastating effects of high-capacity water appropriations, primarily by non-Indian agricultural interests. On March 5, 2025, in Vipond v. DeGroat, 24-cv-03125 (D. Minn.), U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez denied the plaintiff irrigator’s motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin ongoing White Earth Tribal Court proceedings in which the Band seeks a declaration that the irrigator’s proposal to pump 65 million gallons of water each summer from the Wild Rice River is validly subject to tribal regulatory authority. Judge Menendez stayed the federal case pending the exhaustion of tribal court remedies. And on March 21, 2025, in R.D. Offutt Farms Co. v. White Earth Division of Natural Resources, 24-cv-01600 (D. Minn.), U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan dismissed an industrial potato producer’s challenge to the Ordinance for lack of jurisdiction. Kanji & Katzen, P.L.L.C. represents the White Earth Division of Natural Resources and its divisional director in the cases.

On March 19, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Association of Washington Business (AWB) and other industry trade groups against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The lawsuit challenged human health criteria that EPA promulgated for Washington waters to address pollution that has resulted in fish consumption advisories across the state. AWB argued that these federal water quality standards were too stringent because they correctly recognized that Washingtonians eat more fish than citizens in many other states (i.e., fish consumption rate of 175 g/day) and required that PCBs pose no greater risk of cancer to the population of Washington than any other toxic pollutant (i.e., cancer risk level of one in one million). The District Court dismissed the case as moot after the State of Washington adopted the federal human health criteria into state law and EPA approved the criteria under the Clean Water Act. Five Tribes and the State of Washington intervened in the lawsuit to defend the protective federal human health criteria and moved to dismiss the case as moot once they were adopted into state law.

Kanji & Katzen, P.L.L.C. represents the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, and Puyallup Tribe of Indians in Association of Washington Business v. EPA, No. 23-cv-03605 (DLF).

A copy of the decision can be found here.