Environmental, Safety & Health

Our lawyers have handled hundreds of Superfund and equivalent state law matters on behalf of industrial, commercial and municipal clients throughout the US. More than 100 of our engagements have involved sites on the National Priorities List (NPL). Our experience includes prosecuting and defending private cost recovery actions at the district court, court of appeals and US Supreme Court levels. We have experience defending natural resource damage claims, negotiating consent decrees and administrative orders with US EPA, the Department of Justice and their state counterparts, organizing responsible party groups, challenging NPL site listings, directing remedial investigations and feasibility studies, and assisting with remedial design and implementation.

We offer advice on compliance with solid and hazardous waste laws and regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and state equivalents. This includes the siting and permitting of solid waste landfills and transfers stations and hazardous waste facilities, compliance management, including the scope of the definition of solid waste and the exemptions for hazardous secondary materials recycled by being reclaimed, management of odors and air emissions, and closure and corrective action. Our UK team is one of the few environmental groups to have “hands on” experience of defending enforcement under the Contaminated Land Regime.

We have industry-leading expertise in environmental requirements associated with the manufacture, import, export and distribution of chemicals and products. This includes the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, California’s Green Chemistry Initiative and California’s Proposition 65 in the US and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) in the European Union. We bring you a strategic approach to meeting the regulatory categories that arise across the product life cycle – from strategic planning and market access to product design and manufacture, marketing and distribution, and end of useful life.

We assist with the complex issues associated with project and infrastructure siting and development involving manufacturing facilities, landfills, transportation infrastructure, deep well injection and transfer facilities, wind farms, hydroelectric facilities, co-generation facilities, mines, oil and gas exploration, and pipelines.

We have specific expertise in environmental due diligence associated with property acquisition, including identification and valuation of risks associated with the potential acquisition of impacted properties, complex permitting in environmentally sensitive areas, including permits associated with impacts to wetlands and jurisdictional waters, historic preservation areas and endangered species, and redevelopment of brownfield properties.

We advise clients on traditional, alternative and unconventional resource development, including siting and infrastructure development (including impacts to wetlands and jurisdictional waters and endangered species). Our experience includes work for the utility industry and the renewable energy industry, including wind farms and solar farms, co-generation, hydroelectric and geothermal facilities. We also have experience with shale gas development, pipeline development and regulation, and nuclear decommissioning. In the UK, we have advised utilities on fatal accident investigations, inquests and criminal prosecutions and crisis management exercises, as well as defended against statutory and private nuisance cases. We are one of a handful of firms in the UK with nuclear safety experience.

One of the unique strengths of our Environmental, Safety & Health Practice is the ability of our lawyers to litigate their own cases. Our combination of trial skills, appellate experience and substantive expertise allows us to provide sophisticated and cost-effective representation in the most complex environmental disputes. Our global team has defended civil and criminal enforcement cases brought by federal and state regulators, defended citizen suits, defended and brought cost recovery actions, litigated natural resource damage actions and handled the defense of a long list of multi-party and class action toxic tort actions. These include matters under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, as well as corresponding state regulatory regimes and regimes in the UK and Australia.

Our expertise is unmatched in the iron and steel making, cast metals, rare earth, gold, silver, ferroalloys and iron ore and coal mining industries. We work closely with clients throughout the US and in many of the major Australian mining projects, particularly in Western Australia’s Pilbara and the Northern Territory.

We help clients navigate federal and state regulations by outlining risks and strategies that are clear and understandable. We assist in the development of the right remediation program and advise on the conduct of emergency removal actions, completion of long-term remediation investigations and feasibility studies, hazardous waste corrective actions and the selection of remedial action requirements.

We work closely with clients throughout the US. We have represented mine operators in the full range of environmental issues, including public land access and use rights and approvals; siting; permitting; developing impact statements; endangered species matters; defending government and citizen suit enforcement actions; and resolving property disputes.

Our expertise includes National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) processes, Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) cases and the full spectrum of negotiations with state and federal land management agencies. We have assisted clients with the establishment of mine claims, rail and road project site access, rights-of-way and approvals of port infrastructure.

We have worked with all major federal land management agencies, including the US Department of Interior (DOI), US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Forest Service (USFS). Furthermore, we have worked with all of the state land management agencies in the Midwest and western US.

We are widely known for our environmental and natural resource work in policy and other regulatory arena – at the intersection of law and government. We are able to proactively monitor initiatives that may significantly impact your operations, analyze proposed rules, prepare comments and testimony, negotiate with regulators to improve rule content and, when necessary, litigate to secure key changes. Our rulemaking and policy development advocacy includes work for private and public entities of all sizes, trade associations and coalitions.

Rely on our team for pertinent advice about issues related to the development of water quality standards, pretreatment standards and discharge limitations, development of permits and compliance with terms and conditions. Our experience spans EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and state permitting and regulatory obligations, including the evolving scope of jurisdictional waters. We have a long history of working on behalf of municipal utilities, including wastewater collection and treatment entities and public water suppliers.

Our expertise in securing and protecting rights to surface and groundwater, particularly in the arid western US, includes Colorado river law and policy, international treaty obligations, state surface and groundwater regulation, groundwater-surface water interactions, transfers of surface and groundwater rights, inter-basin transfers of groundwater resources and groundwater recharge projects, among many others.