Specialties
Water Law
Across the parched American West, the past several years of drought have set off a series of fierce legal and political battles over who controls an increasingly dear treasure — water. California, in particular, is truly the "Wild West" when it comes to all matters "water" and the State's geologic richness measured against the State's extensive body of case law and government regulation fuels and drives the complexity of water jurisprudence.
As a Ph.D. geologist and water law attorney, Dr. Benumof has a keen professional and academic interest in the crossover between the earth sciences, namely hydrogeology and hydrology, and law, policy and business.
Dr. Benumof has substantial expertise and experience representing landowners and homeowners, developers and homebuilders, businesses, and public and private water suppliers in the areas of water rights, water quality, strategic water supply planning and analysis, the investigation and legal protection of new water sources, management of groundwater basins and streams, representation in water rights adjudications, preparation and evaluation of environmental impact reports, and water rate pricing and litigation under Proposition 218.