Don Blankenau

UNL natural resources degree prepared Blankenau for distinguished legal career – Meet Don Blankenau

‘Ordered discipline’ of natural resource classes helped with law school       

The personal discipline and sense of purpose he gained with an undergraduate degree in natural resources from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln have stood by Don Blankenau through nearly 20 years in natural resources law.

"There was an ordered discipline to the natural resource science courses that not only satisfied my interests but helped prepare me for the rigors of law school and for the career I’ve pursued since then,” the 45-year-old director of Lincoln’s Fennemore Craig law office said recently.

Blankenau didn’t start out with a plan that would lead him into a career in natural resources law, however. He was an architecture student initially, but switched to natural resources because he thought it would be more gratifying, the Dodge native said.

"I call it classic dumb luck getting into natural resources, but one of the best decisions I ever made,” he said.

After earning a bachelor of science degree in agriculture in 1983 (with a natural resources, water specialty), Blankenau entered the UNL College of Law, where he found the discipline gained from undergraduate courses in the natural sciences and learning to write scientifically stood him in good stead through law school.

"Overall, I was very well prepared for law school,” he said.

Blankenau took his 1987 law degree to Edstrom, Bromm and Lindahl in Wahoo where he ended up working only a few environmental cases, however.

"There wasn’t a lot of natural resource law to practice in those days. I did a lot of everything, including practicing some criminal law,” he recounted.

Three years later, Blankenau became general counsel for the Nebraska Department of Water Resources under then director Michael Jess, now a senior lecturer with the UNL School of Natural Resources.

In eight years at DWR, which ended with his appointment as interim director by then Gov. Mike Johanns, Blankenau served as counsel on some of the most influential natural resources cases in Nebraska history. While with DWR, he dealt with pressures on allocations and conflicts between users of groundwater and surface water, he said. He served as general counsel, DWR’s assistant director, and a special assistant attorney general.

He drafted briefs that were presented before the U.S. Supreme Court on the recent Kansas v. Nebraska lawsuit over the Republican River interstate compact, and did much of the research and analysis on litigating Nebraska v. Wyoming, which also went before the U.S. Supreme Court. Blankenau joined the Lincoln firm of Kutak Rock after leaving DWR in 1999 and became the Lincoln director of Phoenix-based Fennemore Craig in 2001.

He continues to serve Nebraska as special assistant attorney general for Missouri River litigation and is assisting Florida in litigation regarding the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin, as well as serving as counsel in the State of Georgia v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, among other cases.

"Needless to say, the number and variety of environmental and natural resource cases has grown considerably since my days working with Curt Bromm in Wahoo,” he said.

Blankenau has chaired the Nebraska Bar Association’s Natural Resources and Environmental Law Section, has been a College of Law lector and is a frequent UNL lecturer.

"I can’t think of anywhere, not even what we might consider the prestigious name colleges or universities, that could have better prepared me for the career I chose. My experiences at UNL were universally good,” he said.

--by Steve Ress, communications coordinator, SNR/UNL Water Center