Our firm manages several multi-party hazardous waste sites. One of the sites is on EPA’s National Priority list. Norm Bernstein has been a Trustee at these sites since they entered their respective remediation programs. In that capacity, he has negotiated Consent Decrees and Consent Orders and their amendments with EPA, negotiated tough contracts with remediation contractors at the sites, overseen successful litigation against a remediation contractor that failed to meet its contractual cleanup obligations and has obtained significant concessions from EPA regarding oversight costs. He argued and won a landmark Superfund case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Bernstein v. Bankert [click here for the decision] arising out of a contribution claim one of the trusts brought against a property owner and its insurance carrier.
The responsibilities of the trusts include day to day supervision of environmental engineers and contractors retained by the trusts, coordination with technical committees staffed typically by engineers from companies participating in the trusts, negotiating remediation issues with government, and providing periodic reports to the companies that participate in the trusts. We believe that there are few, if any, law firms that can match our level of hands on experience at hazardous waste sites or our ability to integrate engineering, legal and regulatory considerations in managing the problems of such sites.
If you or your client has (or may have) a hazardous waste related problem, talk with us. We can help you manage the problem.