Since 1989 Matt has worked closely with businesses to find innovative solutions to the environmental law issues they face. He provides strategic counsel in regulatory, legislative, and judicial proceedings involving a broad array of environmental and land use issues, including those relating to energy project development, transfer and development of contaminated property, water use, energy, and Native American regulatory claims.
Matt is adept at stakeholder negotiations, including with state and federal regulators, that are a necessary part of large development permitting matters, including especially energy and commercial development projects. Matt appears before and works with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and state and federal environmental, fish and wildlife, and conservation agencies, as well as numerous municipal planning boards and zoning boards of appeals.
Prior to becoming leader of Pierce Atwood's Environmental and Land Use Practice Group, Matt formed and was the leader of both the Hydropower Team and the Land Use Team, and Matt continues to focus much of his practice in those two areas.
Matt also counsels clients on legal issues relating to citizen-initiated referenda and people's veto campaigns in Maine. For example, Matt represented the successful landowners in the 1996, 1997, and 2000 "clearcutting" referendum campaigns, and Matt has represented clients before Maine's Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.
Recent Experience
- Representation of a metals recycling facility in 2011 in successfully defending appeals before the Maine Board of Environmental Protection of the air emissions license for the first large industrial metal shredder in the State of Maine, as well as in petitions to revoke the DEP permit.
- Representation of the owner of a non-power producing dam in the first ever petition to force construction of a fishway under Maine's fishway statute. After contested hearings spanning more than one year, Matt facilitated a settlement in 2010 that resolved the matter through construction of a fishway costing less than one-half of the original estimated cost.
- Representation of the largest consumer of electricity from a hydropower project in Washington State in proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission challenging mandatory conditions and prescriptions imposed on the project by federal agencies, resulting in a settlement that required the agencies to submit revised conditions and prescriptions that allowed economic operation of the project. The FERC approved the settlement in 2010.
- Representation of hydropower owners in successfully defending existing water quality certifications in a proceeding before the Maine Board of Environmental Protection to modify the certifications to require immediate construction of fish passage facilities, as well as in the court appeals of that BEP decision; the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's October 2008 decision can be viewed here.
- Representation of a hydropower dam owner in contested proceedings to surrender the project's FERC license and remove the dam, because the project was not economical with the required fish passage facilities. After successful defense of the dam removal permits at the federal, state, and local levels, the dam was removed in August 2008.
Honors & Distinctions
Matt is listed in
The Best Lawyers in America for Environmental Law, is identified as a Band 1 leading attorney in
Chambers USA for Business, and he has received the highest
Martindale-Hubbell legal ability and ethical standards rating AV® Preeminent™. Matt received the Maine Bar Foundation Special Recognition Award for outstanding volunteer service in 1994, and he received the Bowdoin College Volunteer of the Year Award in 2008 for his service on the Bowdoin Alumni Schools and Interviewing Committee.
Professional Activities
Member, American Bar Association
Member, American Bar Association Hydropower Committee
Member, Maine State Bar Association
Member and former Chair, Maine State Bar Association Natural Resources and Environmental Law Section
Member, New Hampshire Bar Association; member Environmental and Natural Resources Law Section
Member, National Hydropower Association; member Regulatory Affairs Committee
Publications
Manahan, Matthew and Rayback, Brian. Developments in Maine Environmental Law 2011, MSBA Legal Year In Review 2011.
Manahan, Matthew. Water Rights and Hydropower. Pierce Atwood Environmental Law in Maine seminar materials, 2011.
Manahan, Matthew and Rayback, Brian. Developments in Maine Environmental Law 2010, MSBA Legal Year In Review 2010.
Manahan, Matthew. Local Land Use Regulation. Pierce Atwood Environmental Law in Maine seminar materials, 2010.
Manahan, Matthew and Livesay, Nicholas. First Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Maine Court's Lynx Decision Under the Endangered Species Act, 2010.
Manahan, Matthew. Water Rights and Hydropower, Pierce Atwood Environmental Law in Maine seminar materials, 2009.
Manahan, Matthew and Gray, Kenneth. Maine DEP Proposes New Petroleum Remediation Guidelines, 2009.
Manahan, Matthew and Verville, Sarah. Water Quality Certification and Relicensing: Sharing Legal Strategies. Hydro Review Magazine, April 2006.
Manahan, Matthew and Verville, Sarah. FERC and Dam Decommissioning. Natural Resources and Environment Journal, Winter 2005.
Manahan, Matthew. When Do Permitted Rights ‘Vest' in Maine?. New England's Environment, August/September 2004.
Civic Activities
Member, Town of Cumberland, Maine Board of Adjustment and Appeals, 1999-present
Member, Bowdoin Alumni Schools and Interviewing Committee
Member, Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network
Campaign Counsel, Steve Abbott for Governor, 2010
Campaign Counsel, Maine Senator Susan M. Collins, 1994, 1996, 2002, 2008
Member, City of Portland, Maine Board of Appeals, 1991-1998; Chair, 1995-1998
Member, City of Portland, Maine Task Force on Regulation, 1997-1998
Member, Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, 1994-1996
Member, Maine Critical Areas Advisory Board, 1991-1992