Environmental

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Overview

OUR Practice
At Stradley Ronon, we think it’s vital for our attorneys to have more than just legal know-how. That’s why our environmental attorneys have both legal acumen and real-world business experience, allowing them to be not just capable attorneys, but also effective facilitators and problem solvers. We work to understand your business and your goals, and we take pride in making connections and introductions between clients and potential business partners and in identifying business opportunities to bring to our clients. Our goal is to be a valuable and trusted resource to our clients in highly technical and complicated situations.

Our Solutions
We work with clients from all over the world interested in doing business in the mid-Atlantic region. Our attorneys have decades of experience dealing with:

financing of all forms and types of projects on behalf of developers, lenders and investors
financing, permitting and siting challenges facing energy and clean-tech businesses
representation before, and interaction with, regulatory agencies at the federal, state and local levels
litigation in state and federal courts when necessary to protect our clients’ interests
negotiation of settlement agreements, access agreements, permits and approvals that are equitable to our clients
performance of due diligence in the acquisition of real estate on behalf of our clients
identification of liability issues and risk management techniques, which provides mitigating risk exposure, thereby making projects more financially attractive
risk mitigation, including insurance products for project delay and business interruption
oversight and strategic management of remediation projects
interfacing with environmental consultants and other technical professionals to ensure that our clients understand how their resources are being spent
helping clients to apply cutting-edge uses of methane gas, creating ultraclean fuels, profitable energy-producing facilities and biomass-derived industrial chemicals
for early-stage companies, assisting with venture capital, compensation and incentive packages for key management, and technology licensing and technology transfer
strategizing with clients in the identification and evaluation of brownfield sites, and state and federal financing opportunities to make such sites not only feasible but also profitable
taxation of investment partnerships and tax regulations affecting depreciation and investment tax grants/credits

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

The Diaper Plant. We represented a Philadelphia suburb in connection with the remediation and redevelopment of a significant parcel of land formerly operated as a diaper-washing plant and located at the gateway to the
municipality. Over $3 million in grant funds was secured to allow the property to be cleaned up so that housing and retail development could occur and bring new vitality to the downtown area.
The Rail Loop. We worked with a start-up energy client to repurpose and redevelop a dormant power plant facility, converting an old coal loop into one of the region’s most vibrant oil transshipment facilities, capable of off-loading up to 80,000 barrels of Bakken crude daily. We obtained the critical air permits on an expedited basis, and helped our client form a joint venture with one of the world’s largest pipeline companies.
The Lateral Pipeline. We coordinated regulatory and governmental approvals for a large midstream company that had been facing the complete shutdown of its lateral pipeline permitting project. This now-approved pipeline traverses some of the most environmentally sensitive terrain in Pennsylvania, and we worked to develop a permitting protocol with the DEP to address each concern comprehensively.
The Factory. We are working with a large international company to develop an advanced manufacturing facility for paper products, incorporating large-scale distributed energy facilities, and a redesign of an industrial park’s gas and electrical infrastructure. We are also coordinating all local, state and federal approvals, and are creating a pivotal tax-exempt parcel status for the development.

Regulatory Counseling
Regulatory agency and municipal government actions materially affect our clients’ business goals. Stradley Ronon’s environmental lawyers effectively represent our clients before regulatory agencies and municipal governments to ensure the fair application of the law and to advocate for changes in the law to reflect our clients’ needs. We press for equitable permit conditions in air, water and solid waste permits and ensure the seamless incorporation of permit conditions into other project approvals. We also frequently appear before municipal environmental advisory committees, planning commissions and zoning hearing boards, as environmental issues frequently emerge in development projects and can be subject to arbitrary treatment under local political pressure. We also advise clients on eminent domain and ensure the appropriate handling of environmental claims and issues.

Compliance Counseling
Effective liability prevention requires our environmental lawyers to thoroughly understand a client’s business so that legal counseling and planning can have immediate practical relevance to a client. We strive to know our clients’ businesses and understand their facilities. We work closely with them to develop workable solutions to issues and develop comprehensive and pragmatic policies and procedures to allow clients to effectively manage recurring environmental compliance issues. Our overriding goal is to demonstrate that our proposed compliance programs enhance our clients’ overall financial performance.

Transaction & Remediation Management
Our lawyers perform the thorough due diligence necessary to identify environmental liability issues, structure transactions to manage and allocate any such liabilities, and ensure that our clients’ protections are underwritten by a combination of strong indemnity funds, insurance products and liability transfer agreements. We routinely seek liability protections from federal and state authorities and use these as the foundation for our redevelopment and brownfield transactions. We know that clients frequently benefit from the reuse of strategically located blighted land, and we maximize tax benefits, grants and low-interest loan availability to suit our clients’ preferences. We have substantial experience in strategizing remediation approaches when a new discharge occurs or when an ongoing remediation seems to be languishing. Understanding the technical aspect of remediations, as well as the legal issues, allows us to bring practical guidance to clients dealing with inconvenient problems.

Environmental Litigation
We regularly represent clients in cases deciding environmental liability, whether in the enforcement context or between private parties. Our experience includes aggressive and complex enforcement defense under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and many state and local laws. We also bring actions for contribution under a variety of environmental programs, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), to ensure that clients are not burdened with unwarranted or inequitable liabilities. Moreover, we represent major companies on mass exposure cases acting not only as trial attorneys, but also frequently as appellate and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) counsel.

Alternative Energy & Sustainability Projects
Our attorneys are well versed in the evolving area of alternative energy and sustainability concepts and have worked on the planning, permitting and implementation of projects involving solar installations and power purchase agreements, offshore wind, CNG facilities, combined heat and power projects and, in conjunction with our energy practice group, sophisticated petroleum site conversions, expansions and permitting.

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