Superfund & RCRA Representation
- Served as lead counsel for plaintiffs in a large CERCLA cost recovery case. West KL Avenue was a former Michigan municipal landfill which had received industrial, commercial, and residential water and had been designated as a federal Superfund site. Plaintiff, a major corporation, entered into a consent decree with the EPA agreeing to the cleanup of the site and, with cooperating municipal entities, sought to recover response costs and related expenses from other PRPs. Our team was retained first to oversee a broad settlement program against hundreds of PRPs, many of them small entities, and then to lead the litigation against the major corporate generators which refused to settle.
- Represented HWP, Inc., a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, regarding tar deposits in the Connecticut River deriving from a manufactured gas plant that operated in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
- Defended GE against allegations that GE arranged for the disposal of hazardous substances at the Fletcher's Paint Works and Storage Facility Superfund Site.
- Successfully prosecuted GE's recovery litigation against the Berkshire Gas Company. GE's recovery of $7.2 million plus a significant share of the future cost of operating the Pittsfield Remedial Program Groundwater Treatment Facility represents one of the largest private party cost recovery settlements in Massachusetts history.
- Mintz represents GE in its dealings with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the State of Connecticut relating to the highly controversial selection of a remedy for the Housatonic River, one of the highest profile federal clean-up sites in the United States. This year we represented GE in connection with a landmark settlement agreement with EPA, the communities through which the Housatonic River runs, and several other stakeholders which should end this long running controversy.
Case Study
Mintz helped GE respond to EPA allegations about its earlier material sales and demand that GE implement a multimillion-dollar cleanup of a federal Superfund Site. Mintz represented GE at trial and on appeal to the First Circuit and caused a change in the remedy GE was required to implement.
Case Study
Mintz represents GE in a dispute concerning the EPA’s costly proposed remedy for the Housatonic Rest of River, which offers no additional environmental or human health benefit. The EPA Environmental Appeals Board recently took the usual step of remanding EPA’s proposal for further consideration.