Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel’s environmental law practice focuses on compliance counseling, transactional advice, development of practical solutions to environmental problems, and representation of clients' interest in environmental enforcement actions and litigation.

Compliance Counseling:  We help clients comply with environmental requirements with practical and cost-effective compliance programs.  We regularly complete environmental assessments for our clients and develop strategies and design programs to meet air, water, hazardous waste, and other environmental requirements.  We also develop and provide training and reference materials for many clients’ compliance programs, and we identify permitting needs and help clients prepare permit applications and renewals.  By working with a range of environmental consultants and other technical resources, we provide our clients with cost-effective solutions to help them meet their needs. 

Transactional Advice:   Environmental risks and regulatory requirements should be promptly identified and addressed for any transaction involving real estate or operating assets.  Our attorneys work with buyers and sellers and their environmental professionals to focus on relevant issues, thus avoiding unnecessary time and expense.  When assessments are complete, we work with clients so that they understand the practical implications of the findings and can design practical solutions to any problems that are identified.  We have extensive experience in structuring agreements to allocate responsibility for known environmental issues and unknown environmental risks.

Practical Solutions:  Our attorneys have decades of experience helping clients develop and implement cost-effective solutions to environmental problems.  Our efforts to permit clients to market and develop Brownfields sites, even those with extensive contamination from historic uses, have been extremely successful.

Enforcement Actions and Litigation:  We have extensive litigation experience, and we understand the benefits and costs of litigation if there is an environmental dispute.  If a client is faced with an environmental enforcement action or litigation, we focus first on the facts, applying our technical experience and an understanding of the client’s business.  Once the facts are understood, we go on to develop a cost-effective litigation or settlement strategy.  Where settlement is appropriate in an enforcement action, we search for creative alternatives to fines and civil penalties.  We have helped design and obtain approval for a variety of alternative settlement approaches, including the extensive use of Supplemental Environmental Projects (“SEPs”).  Our attorneys have represented clients on environmental matters in local, state, and federal trial and appellate courts throughout the United States. 

Recent Representative Matters

• Completion of multi-media environmental compliance assessments in several business sectors.  Development of compliance programs and training.
• Development of scopes of work for environmental professionals, focusing on priority risks and issues, and assistance in the oversight of environmental assessment work.  In a recent case, we helped reduce the cost of a six-figure  environmental assessment by more than one-third.
• Obtaining construction and operating permits for industrial and land development clients.
• Obtaining approval of cost-effective Brownfields agreements for redevelopment of former industrial sites.
• Development and implementation of negotiation strategies for limitation of sellers’ responsibility for environmental risks and liabilities.
• Settlement of claims of violations of stormwater regulations.  In a representative case, our investigation of the facts showed that another landowner was responsible for one significant problem and that other conditions that were the subject of a Commissioner’s Order had been fully resolved.  After filing an appeal challenging the Order, we helped the client avoid all of the remedial aspects of the Order and settle the civil penalty assessment on very favorable terms.
• Negotiation of settlements of notices of violations under air, water, toxic substances, and hazardous waste statutes.  Negotiation of settlements of cost recovery claims under federal and state superfund statutes.
• Successful defense of superfund claims at the trial and appellate court levels against a municipality that had used a lease arrangement to help finance an industrial development project.  The appellate decision confirmed a broad interpretation of the lender liability protections under the federal superfund law.  Monarch Tile, Inc. v. City of Florence, 212 F.3d 1219 (11th Cir. 2000).