Jennifer Spaletta Receives Lower Mokelumne River Partnership’s 2024 Frank R. Beeler Watershed Stewardship Award

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Stoel Rives LLP is pleased to announce that water law partner Jennifer L. Spaletta is the solo 2024 recipient of the Lower Mokelumne River Partnership’s Frank R. Beeler Watershed Stewardship Award, honoring her role in helping to revive the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District (NSJWCD) and its ability to promote sustainability.

The Frank R. Beeler Watershed Stewardship Award is presented annually to acknowledge and recognize an individual or organization within the Lower Mokelumne River watershed that has shown outstanding leadership, responsibility, or activism in promoting sound and innovative natural resource stewardship practices.

According to a letter from Lower Mokelumne River Partnership Principal Management Analyst Jon Bauer, Spaletta is being honored for helping to develop and implement “a strategy to fund the repair, maintenance, and growth of the agricultural water distribution system.” Under Spaletta’s leadership, “NSJWCD has been able to fund its share of the SGMA groundwater sustainability plan and implement over $12M in projects to reduce groundwater depletion.” Bauer says Spaletta “drafted the groundwater sustainability plan that now guides the Eastern San Joaquin groundwater basin.” Bauer calls Spaletta “a local driving force to advance the Demonstration Recharge Extraction and Aquifer Management—DREAM—project, a partnership between local agencies that share natural resources in the watershed” and “a linking force connecting willing landowners with fisheries restoration opportunities and protective fish screens on NSJWCD facilities.”

The Lower Mokelumne River Partnership is a partnership between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which are committed to protecting the lower Mokelumne River ecosystem and anadromous fishery, and The Lower Mokelumne River Watershed Stewardship Steering Committee. This community-based committee provides oversight for the implementation of the Lower Mokelumne River Watershed Stewardship Plan.

Spaletta is a seasoned member of the firm’s Water Rights & Supplies practice group with more than two decades of experience helping clients navigate complex water, real estate, regulatory, and commercial challenges. She has served as lead trial counsel in court and jury trials across California and in the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., handling cases related to water rights and water quality regulations, constitutional due process, Bureau of Reclamation water project contracts, and commercial contracts.