Ned has extensive experience in the development and redevelopment of environmentally sensitive and contaminated properties, including Brownfields, coordinating Superfund site response activities, including as chair of steering committees, and siting and permitting of manufacturing facilities and renewable and traditional energy projects. Ned also has structured and served as lead counsel in environmental due diligence and liability allocation in real estate, financing and corporate transactions, defense of government- and private party-lead enforcement actions and, conversely, enforcement of environmental contractual rights against third parties.
In addition, Ned’s diverse practice also includes:
Ned also has pro bono experience through Legal Action of Wisconsin’s “Center for Driver’s License Recovery and Employability.”
In 2017, at the recommendation of the acting Assistant Attorney General for Wisconsin Department of Justice Environmental Enforcement Division, Ned served as neutral mediator for a dispute concerning wetlands fill violations. Ned successfully resolved the financial restitution for damages and penalty dispute between the state and the individual defendant.
Ned has built trust with his clients by providing practical business advice. Ned establishes and maintains positive relationships with his clients’ technical environmental experts, government regulators and opposing counsel. Ned’s philosophy of teamwork and communication serves his clients’ interests by attaining their objectives on budget and in a timely manner.
Superfund
In addition to representation of lead parties and serving in chair positions for steering committees at Superfund sites in states including Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Delaware, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and California, Ned represented the lead Potentially Responsible Party (PRP) at the NL Industries/Taracorp smelter superfund site in Granite City, Illinois. Part of this work included negotiating the terms of institutional controls on residential properties over 100 square blocks affected by smelter-generated lead deposition, including use of the Uniform Environmental Covenants Act.
Ned represented a manufacturer in the negotiation of a consent decree to favorably resolve hisvclient’s liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Compensation and Liability Actv(CERCLA) at a site in South Central Wisconsin where the U.S. EPA had completed certain response activities and thereafter commenced cost recovery and contribution civil claims against the company under 42 U.S.C. 9607 and 9613(g)(2) based on the presence of hazardous substances in a community drinking water system. The Consent Decree did not require the client to perform any further response actions at the site and afforded full protections from contribution actions by other PRPs.
Ned has represented a co-PRP in the El Monte Operable Unit of the greater San Gabriel Valley Superfund site. Work on this matter has included coordinating with the co-PRP and jointly retained environmental consultant for design and construction of a plume containment and groundwater remediation system to include extraction, treatment and reinjection of contaminated groundwater in the shallow zone and treatment and conveyance of deep groundwater to the municipal drinking water system pursuant to the provisions of California Drinking Water Program Policy 97-005 (Guidance for Direct Domestic Use of Extremely Impaired Sources). Challenges to implementation of the objectives of the system have included the detection of “Emerging Contaminants” potentially resulting from failure of capture by adjacent remediation systems and unprecedented drought conditions in Southern California.
Transactional
Representing a seller in an asset purchase transaction, Ned coordinated the sale of multiple manufacturing facilities and a national network of service centers for a leading United States manufacturer of elevators and escalators, including pre-sale environmental site assessments and compliance audits, “triage” of conditions identified by these reviews, and the negotiation and allocation of known and potential environmental liabilities in the deal documents.
Ned represented a Michigan based purchaser of an auto parts manufacturer in Grant County, Wisconsin. Ned counseled the purchaser regarding naturally occurring elevated concentrations of lead identified during the phase II investigation, including interpretation of state of Wisconsin guidance.
Ned served as lead environmental counsel to a California investor owned utility in structuring the environmental due diligence and transfer in ownership of hydroelectric watershed properties collectively comprising 140,000 acres of land.
Enforcement/Compliance
Ned represented a school district in northeast Wisconsin where a high school was constructed on property that was the prior site of a sand and gravel pit utilized for landfilling of PCB-containing paper sludge. Ned successfully self-directed a cost recovery action against the corporate successor-in-interest to the paper company that disposed the sludge and to recovery $1.9 million towards the remediation costs utilizing the Wisconsin Local Government Negotiation and Cost Recovery Procedure (Wis. Stat. §292.35). Ned is currently overseeing another matter utilizing this statute.
Brownfields
Ned served as lead environmental counsel in advising a passenger train service corporation in regard to the proposed reuse of a Superfund site that included a closed railroad yard with industrial levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as a mixed residential/ retail/transportation development.
Siting
Ned led a team of environmental lawyers in assembling and preparing the narrative for the successful applications for two, approximately 50-mile 345-kilovolt transmission lines in North Central Wisconsin designed to relieve congestion and add transfer capability in the area. The applications were the first prepared pursuant to Wisconsin Law providing for joint applications to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. (PSC Dockets 137-CE-122 and 137-CE-123).