Amanda Carr serves as a Community Collaborator for Maritime High School in Des Moines, Washington, where she helps inform the school’s project-based learning curriculum.
The high school's mission is to support the maritime industry — which is the third largest economic driver in the state of Washington but has been plagued by a retiring workforce that is at risk of not being replaced. The school has recently been bolstered by $1.25 million in new private donations designed to provide startup capital and to engage subject-matter experts to ensure the curriculum is relevant and focused on the future of the maritime industry.
Megan Terrell led a project designed to advance the policy changes and recommendations outlined in Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (Michael B. Gerrard & John C. Dernback eds.). This book is a playbook of state, local, federal, and private legal pathways for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The LPDD project asks lawyers to volunteer their time to assist with drafting, peer reviewing, and doing outreach for model laws developed to implement the book’s recommendations for greenhouse gas reductions. Megan’s model legal provisions focus on how to realign state energy regulatory bodies around environmental and decarbonization goals.
Peter Dykstra serves as one of the facilitators of the Icicle Work Group (IWG), a collaborative integrated water management effort in North Central Washington. The IWG was formed to improve instream flows, assist in agricultural sustainability, and provide water for people in the Icicle Creek Subbasin in North Central Washington.
The IWG is made up of a wide variety of diverse entities, including Washington Department of Ecology, Chelan County, Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Trout Unlimited, Icicle Creek Watershed Council, Washington Water Trust, Icicle-Peshastin Irrigation District, City of Leavenworth, City of Cashmere, Cascade Orchard Irrigation Company, Cascade Conservation District, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, US Forest Service, US Bureau of Reclamation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, and NOAA Fisheries. Together, these groups continue to develop and implement projects to meet a set of Guiding Principles that they worked to establish, including the suite of projects completed this fall. We salute the hard done by the IWG to achieve these project milestones
To date, in addition to helping facilitate the IWG, Plauché & Carr has also provided strategic advice on complicated project issues such as access agreements, easements, SEPA/NEPA, forest service permitting, ESA consultation, and public financing. Peter Dykstra and Megan Terrell worked on the legal agreements and construction contracts for the Boulder Field project. Our work with the IWG is a great example of how Plauché & Carr works beyond the law to help clients achieve success.
Diani Taylor was recognized in Aquaculture North America’s Women Who Lead feature in October 2022. Diani shares her family’s history in Washington’s aquaculture industry, her knowledge of the industry, and how her family roots inspired the course of her career as an attorney.
As a fifth-generation shellfish farmer, Diani has in-depth experience with complex regulatory and natural resources challenges facing the aquaculture industry, which she leans on to identify solutions for our clients. Read more about Diani’s background and how it shapes her work at Plauché & Carr:
The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana received permits and authorization to build and operate the Mid-Barataris Sediment Diversion from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), completing the USACE’s extensive permitting process for the project, in December 2022. CPRA officially broke ground on the project in August 2023, with construction estimated to take over five years.
Once operational, the sediment diversion will re-establish a consistent flow of sediment and land material from the Mississippi River into Barataria Basin, which is experiencing some of the highest rates of land loss in the world and is home to the estuary most impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
This project is a testament to the strong and consistent leadership of Governor John Bel Edwards and the team at CPRA. Billy Plauché and Megan Terrell, and the entire team at Plauché & Carr, are proud to be a part of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion team.
We are pleased to welcome back Diani Taylor to our team as an Associate Attorney. In this capacity, Diani will be an integral part of our team, representing clients on a variety of environmental and natural resource matters. Diani’s experience working in water, environmental, natural resources, climate, and ocean law and policy matters of national significance makes her an ideal addition to the Plauché & Carr team.
As a fifth-generation shellfish farmer, Diani has a deep-rooted passion about our environment and has been engaged in the seafood sector for over a decade, participating extensively in industry-wide federal, state and local policy and regulations. She most recently served on the leadership team for her family business, Taylor Shellfish Farms, as General Counsel.
Diani comes back to Plauché & Carr after having previously served as an associate and legal assistant in 2018, working on a multitude of critical environmental restoration initiatives, including the Washington Waters Coalition and the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan.
Diani also serves as a Trustee for The Nature Conservancy in Washington and on the Advisory Council for EarthLab at the University of Washington.