Environmental

Our team has extensive experience in sediment management; air quality permits compliance and enforcement; hazardous waste regulatory compliance; wetlands and natural resources protection; Brownfield incentives and redevelopment; environmental clean-up reporting and defense; solid waste regulatory issues; water discharge permits, compliance and enforcement action defense; remediation of contaminated sites; counseling on environmental issues in bankruptcy; and environmental litigation. 

We often advise on environmental issues related to the purchase or sale of real estate and other business assets. Our team routinely commissions and evaluates baseline and other environmental assessments and audits and negotiates and drafts contract terms regarding environmental representations and warranties, indemnifications for environmental liabilities, transfers of environmental permits and licenses, and allocations of clean-up and other environmental responsibilities and liabilities. Our unique experience in brownfield redevelopment enables us to assist in negotiating financial incentives and other creative means of addressing potential environmental issues that may present obstacles to a transaction.

Honigman has also assisted in resolving environmental issues connected with the selection and siting of major industrial and commercial plants, facilities, shopping centers, and residential developments. We work to resolve these issues so development, construction, and operations on the land can proceed.

We are a national leader in contaminated sediment management. Our participation in the national Sediment Management Work Group allows us to be at the forefront of the latest technical and national policy developments and to regularly interact with key personnel at the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Our sediment management work has earned our team a strong reputation for negotiating innovative and cost-efficient solutions. We represent parties involved in remediating sediment sites across the country. Through our work with sophisticated experts in the areas of risk assessment, site investigation, modeling, and environmental remediation, we address and resolve novel legal issues.

Members of our Environmental practice possess undergraduate and graduate degrees in technical areas related to environmental regulation, economics, environmental sciences, and engineering. Several attorneys have served in federal and state agencies that administer and enforce environmental laws and have previously served on special environmental councils at the State Bar of Michigan. A number of our team members are authorized to receive U.S. Department of Homeland Security Chemical-Terrorism Vulnerability Information under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) regulatory program.

Honigman's attorneys regularly lecture on environmental issues to business and professional organizations. We have published numerous papers and articles on various facets of environmental law. Our Environmental Practice Group has also authored or contributed to state and federal environmental handbooks, treatises and guides published by the State Bar of Michigan and the American Bar Association.

Our attorneys have extensive experience in environmental permitting and compliance matters before local authorities, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), environmental agencies in other states, U.S. EPA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.