Connie Sue Martin helps Indian tribes and companies address environmental contamination and restore injured natural resources. She is one of the country’s most experienced practitioners of environmental Native American law, with over 20 years of experience representing tribes.

Outside Counsel for Tribes
As outside counsel, ‎she reviews and evaluates tribal codes, and has drafted tribal Superfund ‎ordinances and soil, sediment, groundwater, and surface water cleanup standards, environmental enforcement manuals, civil ‎procedure and appellate procedure codes, enforcement of judgment rules, tax codes, ‎and corporation codes. She is also a litigator, with significant experience representing tribes in complex litigation ‎before federal and state courts, before administrative agencies, and in arbitration. ‎

Focus on Environmental Contamination
Connie Sue’s environmental practice focuses primarily on hazardous substance contamination. Spills happen, and when they do, Connie Sue guides clients through emergency spill response, investigations, remediation, regulatory compliance and reporting, enforcement actions, and citizen suits. She also helps clients to prevent or reduce environmental liabilities through environmental due diligence, contractual allocations of liability, and negotiated or litigated resolutions. 

Policy and Technical Training and Experience
Connie Sue has significant technical and policy training and experience. Early in her career, she ‎completed the Department of Interior’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment and ‎Restoration Training at the National Conservation Training Center, a program for federal, ‎state, and tribal trustee agency personnel that is not open to the private sector. In ‎addition, with the National Tribal Environmental Council’s Superfund Working Group, she ‎helped develop policy guidance for the implementation of CERCLA on Indian ‎reservations. ‎She is presently a member of the Washington Department of Ecology’s Stakeholder and Tribal Advisory Group (STAG) for the update to the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) Cleanup Rule, an appointment that recognizes her expertise in navigating the MTCA cleanup process.

Connie Sue has been recognized by U.S. News–Best Lawyers in America annually ‎since 2010 for her expertise in environmental and natural resources law and litigation, ‎and Native American law. In 2015 and 2017 she was named the Native American Law ‎Lawyer of the Year for Seattle.‎

Connie Sue Martin works all across Indian Country to help tribes address environmental contamination and protect and restore injured natural resources. She is one of the country’s most experienced practitioners of environmental Native American law, with over 20 years of experience representing tribes.

Outside Counsel

As outside counsel, ‎she reviews and evaluates tribal codes, and has drafted tribal Superfund ‎ordinances and soil, sediment, groundwater, and surface water cleanup standards, environmental enforcement manuals, civil ‎procedure and appellate procedure codes, enforcement of judgment rules, tax codes, ‎and corporation codes. She is also a litigator, with significant experience representing tribes in complex litigation ‎before federal and state courts, before administrative agencies, and in arbitration. ‎

Focus on Natural Resources
Connie Sue’s natural resources practice focuses primarily on hazardous substance contamination. Spills happen, and when they do, Connie Sue guides clients through emergency spill response, investigations, remediation, regulatory compliance and reporting, enforcement actions, and citizen suits. She also helps clients through environmental due diligence, contractual allocations of liability, and negotiated or litigated resolutions. 

Policy and Technical Training and Experience
Connie Sue has significant technical and policy training and experience. Early in her career, she ‎completed the Department of Interior’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment and ‎Restoration Training at the National Conservation Training Center, a program for federal, ‎state, and tribal trustee agency personnel that is not open to the private sector. In ‎addition, with the National Tribal Environmental Council’s Superfund Working Group, she ‎helped develop policy guidance for the implementation of CERCLA on Indian ‎reservations. ‎She is presently a member of the Washington Department of Ecology’s Stakeholder and Tribal Advisory Group (STAG) for the update to the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) Cleanup Rule, an appointment that recognizes her expertise in navigating the MTCA cleanup process.

Connie Sue has been recognized by U.S. News–Best Lawyers in America annually ‎since 2010 for her expertise in environmental and natural resources law and litigation, ‎and Native American law. In 2015 and 2017 she was named the Native American Law ‎Lawyer of the Year for Seattle.‎  She is a Super Lawyer, too, and has been recognized by her peers since 2011 to receive that designation.

Bar Admissions

• Alaska State Courts
• Hawaii State Courts
• Oregon State Courts
• Washington State Courts
• Nooksack Tribal Court
• United States Supreme Court
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 9^th Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 7^th Circuit
• D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
• U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington
• U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Washington
• U.S. District Court, District of Oregon
• U.S. District Court, Western District of Michigan
• Court of Federal Claims 

Education

• Seattle University School of Law, Juris Doctor degree, summa cum laude (1996)
• Ohio State University, Bachelor of Science degree (1987)
• University of Hawaii at Manoa, Master of Arts degree (1993)
• Rutgers University Institute of Animal Behavior, Graduate Fellow (1987-1988)

Environmental Cleanup

• Represents two port districts in ongoing cleanup at a number of sites in southwestern Washington.

• Represents a private marine construction company in Oregon in addressing natural resource damage claims asserted by federal and state agencies and several Indian tribes.

• Represents a lumber company in an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency of naturally occurring asbestos.

Environmental Litigation

• Represents the Port of Vancouver in an adjudication by the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council of an energy project proposed by a port tenant.

• Defended a small business owner in an administrative penalty action brought by the Environmental Protection Agency for Clean Water Act violations based on industrial stormwater discharges without a permit.

• Represented a former service station owner in a Model Toxics Control Act cost recovery action.

• Represented a private marina owner in a Clean Water Act citizen suit against a municipality for unpermitted discharges of stormwater and pollutants into the marina’s moorage basin.

• Defended a commercial shellfish harvester against shellfish trespass claims brought by the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

• Represented citizens’ groups in an action before the Pollution Control Hearings Board challenging the permits issued to a regional commuter railroad and its compliance with the State Environmental Policy Act.

• Represented the Colville Confederated Tribes in Pakootas v. Teck Cominco Metals Ltd., the first enforcement of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) against a responsible party located outside the United States for impacts within the United States.

Indian Law

• Represents the Nooksack Indian Tribe in the U.S. v. Washington treaty rights litigation.

• Represents the Nooksack Tribe’s corporate entity in its casino loan workout litigation, Outsource Services Management v. Nooksack Business Corporation.

• Represents three California tribes in their efforts to be restored to federal recognition.

• Drafted a tribal Superfund code and cleanup standards for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians; assists the Band in its ongoing implementation and enforcement of the code.

• Ninth Circuit Affirms Reserved Right of Metlakatlan Fishing Off-Reservation Waters
• Environmental Enforcement and Regulatory Updates
• COVID-19: Impacts on Environmental Compliance, Inspections, and Enforcement (Updated 05/7/2020)
• County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund: Groundwater Discharges May Require Permit Under Clean Water Act
• Tribal Provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES)
• Shelter-in-Place Orders and Exclusion of Non-Residents in Response to COVID-19
• Impacts of H.R. 6201 on Tribal Governments
• Washington State Department of Ecology Adjusts Business Practices Due to COVID-19
• Tribal Emergency Response to COVID-19
• Fossil Fuel Cases Continue to Shape SEPA and Shoreline Laws
• State of Commercial Real Estate and Construction in the Pacific Northwest
• Tribal Resources Damage Claims: Culverts Case Implications for Tribal Trusteeship and Natural Resource Damage Claims
• Expect Faster Cleanups and Redevelopment of Brownfield Properties with New VCP Law
• Working Around an Unworkable Voluntary Cleanup Program
• How to handle an environmental inspection
• Washington Department of Ecology Issues ‎Updated Water Quality Permit for Large-Scale CAFOs
• Dairy Settlement Sets Difficult Precedent for Agriculture

Seminar

• Business & The Environment Conference
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know about CERCLA: Superfund 101
• Indian Tribes and Environmental Law: The Role of the Third Sovereign
• Environmental Justice – Practical Considerations for Due Diligence, Permitting, Enforcement, and Community Engagement
• Pacific Northwest Waterways Association 2022 Annual Convention
• Environmental Outlook for Ports in the Northwest
• Washington DOE Voluntary Cleanup Program Webinar
• Navigate the Latest Remediation Opportunities and Challenges on your Projects
• Tribal Consultations Conference
• Tribal NRD Assessments Seminar: PFOAs, PFOSs, PFCs and Other Emerging Persistent Contaminants in Water Supplies
• Developing Contaminated and Blighted Properties: The Developer Perspective
• Developing Contaminated and Blighted Properties
• Tribes as Trustees