Practice Areas & Industries: Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Land. Water. Use. Impact.
Rights. Compliance.

Our team of environmental lawyers offer the environmental solutions necessary to meet the complex issues that daily affect our clients' business.

Baker Donelson engages in a broad Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) law practice at the federal, state, and local levels, not only in the South but also across the nation. Our EH&S Group includes lawyers and legislative advisors with a diverse and deep experience base arising from years of law practice and positions as business executives for major corporations, as government agency staff, and from lead roles in drafting major federal and state laws in this field. Our assistance to clients runs the gamut from proactive business planning, acquisitions and due diligence, and siting and permitting, to ongoing compliance and auditing, and enforcement defense and litigation.

Baker Donelson represents clients in EH&S work from nearly every segment of the economy - not just industry and manufacturers, but also real estate owners and developers, financial institutions, energy companies, natural resource interests, health care providers, retail and service businesses, contractors and engineers, transportation companies, public utilities, educational institutions, trade associations, governmental bodies, insurors, technology distributors, conservation groups and private individuals.

Our work for these clients reflects the fact that environmental law is not a narrow specialty area, but instead is an umbrella term for numerous subspecialties where society chooses to regulate human activity that impacts the natural environment, as well as both public and worker health and the property rights of others. EH&S legal compliance has become vitally important to and integrated into the core business activities of many client companies. Traditional areas of environmental compliance, cleanup and conflict, and of Baker Donelson EH&S skill, include: CERCLA, RCRA, solid wastes, USTs, Clean Water Act, wetlands, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, TSCA, FIFRA, EPCRA, NEPA, OSHA, many state law counterparts and innovations, and common law actions.

Our Group also has extensive knowledge and experience in somewhat less-traditional and related areas as well, such as: licensing of new electric power plants, ISO 14001 and environmental management systems, preservation of open land, corporate environmental reporting, industry environmental coalitions, environmental marketing issues, agricultural regulation, toxic tort litigation, product take-back and recycling, audit privilege laws, California Proposition 65 warnings, public policy counseling and legislative lobbying at all levels, complex administrative processes and procedures, white collar criminal defense in environmental settings, brownfields, environmental insurance and other matters.

The Baker Donelson EH&S Group is dedicated to staying ahead of the fast-changing trends and evolving standards in these areas in order to best serve our clients in nearly every setting and situation in which they encounter EH&S issues.

Representative Matters

• Helped a manufacturer of auto parts to acquire and build on a former Superfund site, and obtain expedited environmental permitting for its major new facility in Tennessee.
• Assisted other manufacturers in negotiating voluntary cleanup terms and agreements to allow for the most efficient remediation of past hazardous waste spills without going through time-consuming and expensive RCRA permitting or Superfund processes.
• Worked with a developer on making a record to support state-permitting for relocation of a stream to allow a $200 million retail project to go forward, and to successfully resist later collateral attack by citizens and environmental group.
• Conducted a major environmental audit of an electronics manufacturer's facility, implemented compliance corrections, favorably resolved a major EPCRA violation discovered, and led the client into and successfully through the ISO 14001 certification process.
• Handled environmental and non-federal utility permitting and licensing of a new $500 million independent electric generating facility.
• Guided a bottled water company in compliance and permitting for a major new water source development project and facility.
• Led and participated in numerous PRP groups at multi-party Superfund sites nationwide.
• Assisted a client in responding to an unannounced EPA multi-media audit, and all follow-up information exchanges and findings, conducted at its chemical and distribution facility.
• Assisted a client in the preservation and donation of a 12,000 acre tract, previously designated for development or timber harvesting, as a new state natural area.
• Represented numerous corporate and asset purchasers of companies, facilities and properties with varied and extensive environmental due diligence, documentation of terms, transfers and notices, and follow-ups.
• Represented manufacturers and distributors of consumer products in defending enforcement actions and coming into compliance under federal EPCRA, TSCA and FIFRA, and state right-to-know laws such as California's Proposition 65.
• Represented a project developer and nonprofit foundation in successful recovery from prior landowners of a large portion of the petroleum tank removal and other environmental cleanup costs incurred during construction of a sports stadium in downtown Memphis, Tennessee.
• Represented an industrial client in the advantageous cash-out settlement of its onsite and potential offsite liabilities at a cluster of landfills and other Superfund sites in Dayton, Ohio, where the client formerly operated a major facility.
• Represented a landowner in CERCLA cost-recovery and contribution actions against a former lessee responsible for PCB releases. Full indemnity was obtained from the former tenant for the costs of investigation and remediation.
• Represented a foam manufacturer in a RCRA criminal prosecution and succeeded in getting majority of indictment dismissed; a global settlement of all state and federal civil and criminal claims was reached on favorable terms.
• Represented a quarry owner in property damage actions brought by neighbors. Consolidated action was separated into multiple individual actions for trial and the case settled shortly after the motion to sever was granted.
• Defended a major pulp and paper manufacturer in a class action brought on behalf of a multi-state class of over 3,000 landowners alleging damage from the discharge of dioxin into the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. Nominal settlement was reached and concluded after notice to the class.
• Defended a major chemical manufacturer in a class action brought on behalf of class of 5,000 landowners and occupants alleging personal injury and property damage from air and water discharges. The case settled after class notification by co-defendant with no contribution by the Firm's client.

Representative Clients

• Atmos Energy Corporation
• AutoZone, Inc.
• CBRL Group, Inc.
• Chattanooga Group, Inc.
• First Tennessee Bank
• Jefferey Chain, L.P.
• Laser Vision Centers