Letter from OWC President Ray Kopacz
December 15, 2020
Oregon Water Coalition Members,
The Oregon Water Coalition (OWC) was founded over 25 years ago with the mission of promoting “the responsible development, conservation, and utilization of water in northeastern Oregon”. This mission drove OWC to be an active force in facilitating the spread of information, most notably through annual meetings that bring local water users together to learn from experts in the field.
Unfortunately, due to the current pandemic and the restrictions set by the Governor we had to make the tough decision to postpone our annual meeting in January. When the pandemic improves and we can safely hold a meeting later in the year we will do so. The OWC Board of Directors will still hold a “business only” annual meeting (virtually) to approve the 2021 budget and elect officers for the year.
In order to sustain funding, OWC once again is asking for your continued support and that you will consider renewing your membership. OWC seeks to preserve the legacy of its educational outreach in water and agriculture.
We would also like to ask, if you can, to consider donating a little extra for our scholarship fund. Every little bit helps, and your donation would be greatly appreciated. The goal of the scholarship fund is to incentivize the next generation of lawyers, policy makers, and researchers to live and work in Eastern Oregon.
Your membership dues will continue to be used for operations and as seed money to fund a scholarship for young professionals like our current scholarship recipient, Marika Sitz, who is entering her last year of Law School focusing on Oregon Water Law.
We are currently looking for the next recipient of our scholarship award. If anyone knows of an individual who is considering a degree in fields such as Law and/or Engineering relating to Water, Environmental and Natural Resources, or a related field, please let us know. We are accepting applicants and are encouraging recommendations of candidates by OWC members.
OWC has taken several steps to ensure the spirit of the organization can thrive. We remain committed to providing educational opportunities about water issues. We want to say thank you and we appreciate your renewed membership and continued support. We couldn’t do what we do without the support from our members.
Enclosed is a letter from Marika, former OWC coordinator, and our first scholarship recipient. She is updating us about her time in law school as she begins her final semester. She will also provide an update of different projects and activities she has worked on throughout the year and her time in law school.
Sincerely,
Ray Kopacz, Chair
Oregon Water Coalition
Update letter from OWC Scholarship Recipient, Marika Sitz:
To the Oregon Water Coalition Board of Directors & Members:
By the time this letter reaches you, I will have wrapped up my fall semester of law school and will have only one semester left to go. My last year of law school is certainly not what I anticipated. In this year of tremendous unpredictability, I am incredibly grateful for the financial support of the Oregon Water Coalition for my legal education. In this letter, I will highlight some of my projects and activities from the past year. I will also discuss what I expect my last semester of law school to look like as I prepare to graduate, take the bar, and enter the ‘real world.’
This past summer, I worked as a law clerk at Jordan Ramis PC, primarily in the water law practice group. In this capacity, I was able to interact with a few people from northeastern Oregon, and I particularly enjoyed those opportunities. Overall, my summer clerkship proved to be a fantastic learning experience. As many of you know, learning outside of a classroom is incredibly important. I appreciated the opportunity to do just at Jordan Ramis.
I started my third and final year of law school in August. While all my classes for the past four months have been remote, it has still been a full semester. I took a variety of classes, including Environmental Law, Energy Law, Oregon Practice and Procedure, Criminal Investigation, Legal Professionalism, and Constitutional Law. I also continued to work on a part-time basis for Jordan Ramis, assisting with various projects in the water law practice group. Finally, I began a research project focusing on transfers of stored water in Oregon as part of my Public Law and Policy fellowship.
As I have shared in previous updates, I was a fellow on the Oceans, Coasts, and Watersheds Project at the Environmental and Natural Resources Center for my first two years of law school. As a fellow, I researched a variety of water-related topics. My main focus last year was to explore the Colorado Water Code and the ways in which that code has been implemented. Colorado manages its water allocations very precisely and intensely, so it was interesting to compare their system to Oregon’s own management scheme. After two years in this fellowship role, I decided that I wanted a change, and I was excited to be selected as a Public Law and Policy Fellow for my final year of law school.
Aside from my fellowship research paper, I completed another water law-focused paper to fulfill my graduation writing requirement. My paper focused on the history and current application of the Division 33 rules. I did a majority of my research and writing through an intensive water law-focused writing colloquium during my spring semester. The paper outlines the rule history and provides a critique about the ways in which OWRD currently deploys the rule. My experiences in the Umatilla Basin certainly informed my interest and perspective on this topic, and I was happy that I could bring that background into the research and writing process.
Next semester, I will finish up my Public Law and Policy fellowship and the associated research paper. I have a limited number of credits that I need to complete in order to graduate, and I plan to earn those credits through an externship with Jordan Ramis. I will also use the spring semester as a chance to start studying for the bar and the MPRE, a professional ethics exam required for all attorneys.
The support I have received from OWC has helped me make all the above-listed projects, accomplishments, and undertakings a reality, and I really cannot begin to describe how thankful I am for the continued support. I also want to emphasize the importance of OWC’s program for future students, in all different fields. I am grateful to have been the “guinea pig” for the scholarship program, but I sincerely hope that this program will not end with me. I would love to see another future lawyer, policymaker, or scientist benefit from the OWC funding to further their education and give back, in some way, to their Eastern Oregon community. I am happy to talk about what this program has meant for me with any OWC member or potential scholarship applicant.
I encourage any OWC member with questions about my experiences or my future plans to reach out to me directly.
Sincerely,
Marika