Environmental Law

Perkins Thompson has extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law practice that brings together the knowledge, sophistication, and ingenuity needed to respond to clients' needs in this fast-moving area of the law. The mainstay of the firm's practice is counseling all sizes of businesses, utilities, landowners and financial institutions, with appropriate resource commitment, on how to comply with federal and state environmental regulation and the appropriate means of protecting against environmental liability. Attorneys in the Environmental Practice Group have an excellent working knowledge and relationship with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and other state and federal agencies in such matters as the reporting of unlawful discharges, negotiation of clean-up response plans, Superfund site liability, waste discharge licensure, wetland permitting, river dredging, waste transporter licensure, land use developments, well contamination arbitration proceedings, land fill closures and coastal and wetland mandates. In conjunction with the Energy/Utilities Practice Group, the firm has been involved in the permitting, siting and operation of interstate natural gas pipeline project and electric transmission lines, and the sale, development and financing of several major hydro electric generation facilities.

Where compromise is not possible, the Group's attorneys do not hesitate to apply their environmental litigation experience to resolve disputes. Recent matters handled by the firm include representation of a major oil company in a state enforcement action, multiple related civil suits involving groundwater pollution arising from leaking gasoline storage tanks, and actions involving Superfund site liability, and state solid waste regulation.