Environmental

Our clients often draw on the experience and training of our environmental attorneys for assistance in the inspection of operating facilities, the confidential identification of regulatory compliance issues and concerns at facilities across the country, and in obtaining audit privilege protections.  With our environmental enforcement experience, our attorneys provide valuable insight that helps our clients avoid violations and prepare for government inspections.  We help plan for United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and state multi-media inspections.  We also work with companies to develop environmental compliance plans and obtain ISO certifications.

Vorys has a long history of involvement in the development and implementation of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act at both federal and state levels.  In tackling these problems, we emphasize strategic planning with our clients in order to minimize their regulatory obligations and enforcement risk.  We represent a wide variety of companies, governments and individuals regulated under the key air and water laws and their complex maze of regulations and guidance.

We regularly assist clients prepare applications to obtain permits for new or modified solid waste landfills and transfer stations, composting facilities, and construction and demolition debris landfills and have defended appeals opposing such permits.  We also help negotiate and enforce host-community agreements and have negotiated with citizen groups on behalf of our landfill clients.  Our attorneys regularly advise hazardous waste generators on waste classification issues and disposal options, and we regularly assist our clients with RCRA closure and corrective action obligations.  We also assist operators of solid waste facilities with interpretation of applicable siting and operation regulations.

Additionally, Vorys counsels companies involved in manufacturing, processing, importing and exporting chemicals regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  Our practice ranges from the preparation and filing (or exemption) of PMNs to defending enforcement actions.  Often, our TSCA practice is interwoven with our work on patent issues and commercial transactions for chemical manufacturers and laboratories.

We are privileged to work for clients at the forefront of the renewable energy industry.  Our environmental attorneys regularly work with our cross-disciplinary renewable energy team, which has extensive experience assisting with projects on the cutting edge of alternative energy production, such as solar farms, wind farms, waste energy (including scrap tires and bio-mass), ethanol plants, fuel cells, landfill and industrial gas, industrial co-generation and coke oven gas.

For more information on our renewable energy practice, click here.

We represent a number of industrial, commercial and residential real estate developers in connection with many federal, state and local environmental law issues.  For example, our attorneys often counsel clients in the real estate industry on wetland and stream protection, the Endangered Species Act, historic resource protection, and storm water permitting and compliance.  We also regularly work with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA to obtain permits that allow projects to proceed on schedule.

Many areas are seeing increased local efforts to regulate and, in some instances, drastically curtail land development.  In such areas, our attorneys are involved in actively evaluating and, if necessary, challenging improper zoning, land use planning and other governmental restrictions on development.

For more information on our real estate practice, please see here.

Vorys represents the entire spectrum of parties in brownfield redevelopment projects - redevelopers, sellers, buyers, lenders, end users, local governments, contractors and neighboring owners.  We combine our environmental, real estate, finance, government incentives and construction law experience to provide a full range of services.  The key to our approach is to anticipate complex problems that brownfield projects often encounter and then identify solutions - rather than merely finding problems as they occur and citing regulations which pose barriers to redevelopment.  We regularly work with other law firms, developers, end user corporations and financial institutions from around the world on complex, multi-party brownfield transactions.

We work on brownfield projects across the nation, with state and USEPA programs applicable in those states and within various USEPA regions.  Our brownfield experience dates back to before the advent of major national and state funding programs and so-called "voluntary" programs.  Our practice continues today with active involvement in national and state legislation impacting brownfield reuse.  We have served as lead counsel for all redevelopment aspects, including site selection, the selection of consultants and contractors, oversight of environmental investigations and remediation, coordination with owner and architect/design teams, securing local and state tax incentives and/or special grants, acquisition and subdivision/sale/leasing of the project sites, coordinating financing structure and term negotiation, and interaction with local governments, neighbors and stakeholders.

Our projects include conversion of many different types of former factories, landfills, warehouses, gasoline stations, docks and other industrial sites into such varied uses as office, retail, flex space, residential, park and industrial.  Our sites have ranged from massive nine-figure multi-use sites to tiny city lots.