Environmental

Our group provides sophisticated, cross-discipline representation to both companies and individuals —from manufacturers and real estate developers to financial institutions, environmental consultants, municipalities, and a variety of other businesses.

We advocate for clients in purchases and sales of businesses and properties, and in credit transactions, representing a spectrum of participants, traditional lenders, private equity firms, and borrowers. We provide trustworthy and proven representation of owners and developers who are cleaning up contaminated properties and returning them to use. We provide diligent and zealous defense of enforcement actions, toxic tort litigation and prosecution of environmental crimes. We’ve also represented companies and groups of companies in high-profile and precedent setting environmental litigation and before Congress and state legislative bodies. 

Our comprehensive capabilities extend across the full spectrum of environmental issues and actions, from hazardous and radioactive waste to air pollution and groundwater, from noise pollution and siting and land use to coastal development and wetlands, from environmental crimes to environmental lobbying.

With diverse experience and pragmatic and practical know-how, our esteemed environmental attorneys publish and lecture widely on a range of environmental issues and play leadership roles in a range of industry and stakeholder groups. 

Representative Work

• Represented numerous buyers and sellers of environmentally impacted real estate.  In particular, we have obtained brownfields agreements and associated tax incentives on behalf of developers redeveloping contaminated sites across the Carolinas, including high-density commercial sites in the downtown cores of Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, and Greensboro, each valued between $50 million and more than $400 million. These projects have included redeveloping a former dry cleaner into a mixed-use development; redevelopment of a former landfill into a distillery in South Carolina; redevelopment of a 105-acre former pharmaceutical facility into a mixed-use commercial development in Research Triangle Park; two related multi-use development projects, and a large multi-family residential development, each in Charlotte’s South End.
• Represented municipal clients in litigation regarding the issuance of a landfill permit to expand an existing facility as well as litigation concerning water quality, water rights, and the relicensing of hydropower operations
• Represented manufacturers and distributors across a broad range of industries on stormwater, wastewater, air emissions and hazardous waste permitting, compliance and enforcement matters, as well as managing environmental risk associated with legacy assets
• Represented textile manufacturers in defense of Clean Water Act citizen suit in Georgia involving direct wastewater discharges to interstate waters, as well as a multi-media, multi-agency response to fish kill in a lake in the mountains of western North Carolina
• Represented a public university in defense of Clean Air Act citizen suit relating to the university’s operation of a coal- and natural gas -fired steam cogeneration facility amid public opposition to the university’s use of coal
• Represented lenders, renewable energy developers, and investors on environmental and permitting matters in connection with large-scale renewable energy project portfolios, including projects located in environmentally sensitive areas
• Represented trustee of closed hazardous waste landfill on environmental regulatory compliance and enforcement matters
• Represented waste disposal and remediation service companies on commercial contract drafting, negotiation, and review and environmental regulatory compliance matters
• Represented a prospective buyer in connection with the public auction of a Superfund site
• Represented service station owners concerning underground storage tank regulatory compliance and enforcement matters

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• Guided a manufacturer in the acquisition of a company subject to an EPA consent order in connection with its use of certain Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) “new chemicals”
• Assisted a manufacturer in the purchase of a World War I-era manufacturing site with numerous Solid Waste Management Units (SWMUs) and ongoing remediation
• Represented a national waste services company in several odor litigation matters concerning a municipal solid waste landfill
• Represented a homebuilder in securing federal and state approvals for wetland impacts and a landowner in responding to alleged Clean Water Act violations
• Represented potentially responsible parties with respect to resolution and minimization of liability at Superfund sites

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Practice Focus

• Advice and assistance in civil and criminal enforcement actions, including penalties, investigations and information-gathering
• Air quality
• Brownfields redevelopment
• Climate change
• Coastal and dock development
• Compliance advice and auditing for operating businesses
• Defense in administrative, civil and criminal litigation, including mass exposure and toxic tort claims
• Due diligence for real estate, corporate,  lending and other transactions
• Emerging compounds
• Facility siting and land use
• Groundwater
• Hazardous and solid wastes and toxic substances
• Landfill matters
• Lobbying
• Mountain development
• Noise pollution
• Occupational safety and health
• Permitting
• Sedimentation and erosion control
• Surface water
• Underground and aboveground storage tanks
• Watershed regulations
• Wetland regulations
• Zoning