Contaminated Sites and Natural Resource Damages
Sidley Austin LLP represents clients at many high-visibility Superfund and contaminated sediment sites throughout the United States. This experience provides us with unique insights in integrating legal, policy, scientific, technical, stakeholder and community issues into an effective strategy for defending claims and managing such sites. The breadth of our practice facilitates our work with clients and other professionals to achieve effective results in a cost-efficient manner.
Experience at Contaminated Sites
Our experience spans every aspect of contaminated sites practice, including:
- Developing and implementing overarching strategies to generate outcomes that minimize risk and cost.
- Representing clients and negotiating with government agencies regarding all aspects of site cleanup, including site listing, remedial investigations, risk assessment, feasibility studies, remedy selection/ revision /implementation, and government cost recovery.
- Litigation, including defense and prosecution of cost recovery and contribution actions, and private litigation regarding liability for response costs (e.g., buyer-seller litigation).
- National and international legislative and regulatory advocacy on issues relating to liability, remediation and natural resource damages.
- Judicial challenges to remedial and natural resource damage rules issued by federal and state agencies.
- Defending against claims for natural resource damages.
- Participation in and development of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, including arbitration and mediation among private parties and with government agencies.
- Representing clients with respect to bankruptcy issues in the context of environmental remediation costs.
- Advising clients on alternative funding mechanisms, including environmental insurance products and liability transfer arrangements.
- Representing clients involved in Brownfields development.
Through our extensive experience, our lawyers know the state-of-the-art science of hazardous substances, including chlorinated solvents, PCBs, mercury, benzene, asbestos, dioxins, formaldehyde and radioactive materials. This knowledge is invaluable in reaching realistic and workable solutions to complex problems. We have worked with virtually all of the major consulting firms in relevant fields, including geo-technical, risk assessment, fate and transport modeling and economic. Our substantial working history with individuals at these firms ensures that our clients promptly receive the best technical advice available.
Natural Resource Damages
Natural resource damages play a role in many contaminated sites, and recent initiatives in several states have further highlighted the importance of these claims. We have experience in all of the issues necessary to respond to natural resource damages claims:
- Representing clients at all stages of the natural resource damages assessment process.
- Challenging questionable methodologies that trustees may use in assessments.
- Working cooperatively with trustees to develop natural resource restoration plans and projects to compensate for alleged damages cost-effectively.
- Litigating economic valuation issues in a variety of contexts.
Sediments and Groundwater
We are representing clients at some of the largest contaminated river sites in the country, and we have advised clients on a number of critical strategic issues related to potential liabilities at contaminated river, sediment and groundwater sites, including:
- Identifying contaminants of concern and their likely sources, and identifying the geographic area of concern through an evaluation of both downstream and upstream areas.
- Modeling how human activities such as water withdrawal and anticipated natural events will affect exposure to the contaminants in the future.
- Understanding the toxicity to humans and wildlife of the contaminants of concern.
- Evaluating and creating peer-reviewed toxicity assessments, and challenging deficient toxicity assumptions both administratively and judicially.
- Evaluating human exposure to and the risks presented by contaminants in sediments and groundwater.
- Evaluating the exposure of biota to the contaminants.
- Determining the acceptable/non-acceptable risk levels for human health and ecological exposures.
- Developing and applying state-of-the-art fate-and-transport models.
- Building the case for remedy change based on new information and analyses.
- Participating in site-specific scientific peer reviews of risk assessments and modeling studies.
- Developing community relations programs to minimize the risk of tort claims and build public and political consensus for reasonable remedies.