Environmental Law

Michelman & Bricker, P.C.
Philadelphia Environmental Law Attorneys

Experienced Environmental Law Firm

Our clients face high levels of responsibility for environmental protection and compliance, along with severe legal risks if applicable standards are violated. To meet these risks, we have developed a high degree of sophistication about the scientific, technical, and legal issues involved in environmental law.

We work closely with engineers, scientists, and other consultants to advise our clients on permit applications and regulatory requirements, to help them avoid government enforcement actions. Where necessary, we defend against federal and state government administrative actions or lawsuits, and criminal prosecutions as well, since many environmental laws have strict liability criminal penalties applicable to even accidental violations. Significant activities of the Firm in this area include:

Superfund (CERCLA) Litigation Over Sites Contaminated With Hazardous Substances:

• Served as Liaison Counsel for 120 generators in the Combe Fill South Landfill litigation, supervising their participation in an ADR allocation process and conducting settlement negotiations over the federal and state governments’ demands for $200 million in clean-up costs and natural resource damages.
  
  
• Served as Liaison Counsel for 10 generators in the Combe Fill North Landfill litigation, negotiating a $1.1 million dollar settlement for clean-up costs and natural resource damages.
  
  
• Served as Common Counsel for 25 generators, transporters, and adjacent landowners, and conducted discovery on behalf of a 50-party liaison group, in private party Superfund landfill litigation over cleanup of Cinnaminson Groundwater Contamination Site.
  
  
• Served as Liaison Counsel for 55 transporters in the BEMS and Mediation Process Landfill litigation, supervising their participation in an ADR process and restoration process to allocate $30 million in clean-up costs under the New Jersey Spill Act.
  
• Represented individual generators and transporters of solid and/or hazardous wastes in federal and/or state clean-up actions at landfills, treatment facilities, and industrial facilities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Maryland.

Emergency Preparedness/Community Right to Know (EPCRA):

• Lead Counsel for 5 manufacturers in Puerto Rico in litigation with EPA for failure to report storage of hazardous chemicals. Negotiated settlement which reduced over $1.2 million in fines to a combination of a minor fine and the implementation of $310,000 in Supplemental Environmental Projects to provide EPCRA education and training program for business community and general public in Puerto Rico.
  
  
• Counsel for Graphics Design business which was assessed civil penalties for failure to report use of hazardous chemical. Negotiated settlement which implemented a Supplemental Environmental Project to change the facility’s production process to completely eliminate its use of nitric acid.

Insurance Coverage Dispute Litigation:

• Counsel in various declaratory judgment actions and in negotiating claims to establish the duty to defend and indemnify Potentially Responsible Parties in landfill clean-up actions, including disputes over choice-of-law between different parties, and the applicability of automobile insurance coverage to environmental claims.

Underground Storage Tanks:

• Counsel to a gas station owner in appeal of state administrative clean-up order over gasoline leak, challenging State's failure to promulgate regulations for low-interest remediation loans to tank owners, under Pa. Storage Tank Act.

Asbestos:

• Counsel to a commercial roofing contractor in Clean Air Act civil enforcement action, over failure to follow NESHAPS work practice requirements in roof removal at multi-unit apartment complex. 
  
  
• Defended asbestos removal contractor against criminal charges under Clean Air Act for knowingly permitting subcontractor to remove asbestos frombuilding without complying with NESHAPS work practices rules.
  
  
• Represented manufacturer of building products which contained asbestos in personal injury class action in Puerto Rico, obtaining a prompt dismissal from the litigation.

Treatment, Storage and Disposal of Hazardous Waste (RCRA):

• Represented corporate vice president in fraud/RICO action (seeking rescission of $14 million sale of trash-trailer manufacturing business, due to non-disclosure of illegal dumping), and in criminal prosecution for illegal storage and disposal of waste solvents. 
  
  
• Represented a metal plating facility owner in negotiating resolution of civil and criminal liability from metal discharges into sewer system and excessive storage of drums of wastewater sludges.

Water Pollution (Clean Water Act):

• Represented a manufacturer in federal civil penalty action for failure to comply with stormwater discharge notification, monitoring, and reporting requirements.
  
  
• Represented owner of conference center in negotiations with local municipal sewage authority to prevent degradation of water quality in lake from effluent discharges from construction of new sewer treatment plant.

Wetlands:

• Represented owner of commercial property against claims that wetlands had been improperly filled and that stormwater had been improperly discharged into them. Obtained the dismissal of federal and state citizen-suits claims seeking millions of dollars in civil penalties.
  
  
• Represented a developer against EPA’s claims that he had destroyed wetlands by excavating land to build a pond, and settled these claims for a $100 civil penalty, after demonstrating that the property had not been a regulated wetlands.

Air Pollution and Air Quality (Clean Air Act):

• Obtained Clean Air Act New Source Review plan approval for emissions from installation of new press at Rotogravure Printing facility; Resolved civil penalties action for construction of New Source prior to issuance of permit; Obtained administrative permit amendment for a plan approval for emissions from a parts washing unit (which was part of a Title V permit).

• Represented a rubber textile manufacturer in resolving its air quality violations with the City of Philadelphia.

Construction and Demolition Waste:

• Represented contractor charged criminally under Pa. Solid Waste Management Act for dumping construction and demolition debris at an unpermitted site. We negotiated a guilty plea to a reduced charge of "short-dumping" (with a sentence of probation and a fine which they worked off through a remediation project at another site); prevented debarment on City contracts and the forfeiture of over one million dollars worth of trucks; won DER approval for a remediation plan for the  site.

Real Estate Transactions and Brownfields Clean-Ups of Contaminated Properties :

• Counsel for real estate developer in obtaining state regulatory approval of in-situ remediation of fuel oil contamination through soil venting, so that property could be used for parking lot and hotel.
  
  
• Counsel for owner of industrial park in negotiating sale, supervising cleanup of petroleum hydrocarbon spills, and obtaining release of liability from PADEP.
  
  
• Counsel for a plastics processing company in obtaining ECRA approval for sale of its facility after heating oil spill.
  
  
• Counsel for a tire retailer in purchase of former gas station facility in obtaining

“Brownfields” Prospective Purchaser Agreement from NJDEP, releasing it from potential liability for ongoing cleanup by former owner.

• Counsel for owner of shopping mall in obtaining Act 2 release of liability for soil and groundwater contamination from fuel oil release from adjoining property.
   
• Represented chemical exporter in criminal investigation into whether chemicals shipped overseas (that leaked in port, causing $1 million Euros of damage) were legally shipped as salable product or were actually waste that was improperly exported without a permit for disposal.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

• Represented chemical exporter in criminal investigation into whether chemicals shipped overseas (that leaked in port, causing $1 million Euros of damage) were legally shipped as salable product or were actually waste that was improperly exported without a permit for disposal.

International Environmental Problems:

• Representation of a U.S. manufacturer with respect to an environmental due diligence investigation due to the acquisition of a factory in Northwestern Mexico.

Toxic Tort Litigation:

• Represented multiple parties in $33 million dollar property damage and personal injury claim class action lawsuit brought by homeowners surrounding GEMS Landfills.

Contact an environmental law attorney Today

Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the health care, construction, family law, criminal defense, business law, and environmental law attorneys of Michelman & Bricker, P.C., serve clients throughout Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, Chester, Camden, Bergen, Burlington, Middlesex, and Gloucester counties, including the communities of Doylestown, Harrisburg, Reading, Pottstown, Allentown, Easton, Scranton, Media, Norristown, Camden, Trenton, and Newark.  The firm’s lawyers also have offices in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Longmeadow (Springfield), Massachusetts and San Juan, Puerto Rico, and serve clients along the Eastern Seaboard.