Our waste and recycling experience includes:

• Defending enforcement actions brought by federal and state environmental authorities against a major U.S. owner and operator of municipal waste combustors, alleging air, water, and waste violations and handling the company’s permit appeals, agency policy development, and actions brought by citizen groups.
• Obtaining site assignments and environmental permits for many thousands of tons per day of solid waste infrastructure projects constructed by landfills, municipal waste combustion facilities, transfer stations, and recycling facilities.
• Bringing actions and filed amicus briefs before the federal Surface Transportation Board and federal courts on behalf of a broad coalition of public and private solid waste trade associations and waste management companies and challenging attempts to build solid waste facilities using a federal rail statute that contains a pre-emption from state and local environmental permitting requirements.
• Winning dismissal of a judicial review proceeding brought by neighboring landowners against our client, a Long Island, New York, township in which the plaintiffs sought to compel the township to prepare an environmental assessment and impact study in connection with the township's investigation of the feasibility of redeveloping a former solid waste disposal and transfer site as a public park.
• Successfully defending countless RCRA administrative, civil, and criminal enforcement actions brought by EPA, the Department of Justice, and states.
• Representing multiple clients across the U.S. in RCRA citizen suits involving alleged hazardous waste regulatory violations and/or imminent and substantial endangerment claims.
• Regularly helping clients with hazardous waste issues under non-U.S. and international law, assisting clients in determining whether various materials are subject to the rules for hazardous wastes or hazardous recyclable materials on all seven continents, including in the European Union and over 30 other countries, and counseling clients on how to ship recyclable materials between countries under the Basel Convention and related international agreements.
• Defending Seneca Meadows, Inc. (SMI), a subsidiary of Waste Connections, Inc., in a purported class action lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court, Seneca County in November 2016 involving nuisance and negligence claims associated with odors allegedly emanating from the landfill.
• Representing a waste management company in a suit challenging efforts by Alameda County Waste Management Authority (the Authority) to compel the company to disclose the identity of Alameda County waste haulers disposing of wastes generated in Alameda County at landfills operated by the company that are outside the county.
• Represented Caithness Long Island II, LLC project, a proposed 750 megawatt dual fuel, combined cycle power plant to be located in the Town of Brookhaven, New York, before federal, state, and local agencies concerning environmental (e.g., air, water and wastewater), zoning (special permit and site plan) and state Public Service Commission permits and approvals required for the project.