Bob Melvin's practice includes environmental compliance and litigation and related land use, corporate, and real estate work. His clients include commercial and industrial businesses as well as municipalities and individuals. Mr. Melvin counsels clients in local, state, and federal permit proceedings; compliance strategies; enforcement matters; and transactions and litigation. His experience both as an environmental attorney and formerly as an environmental engineer helps him appreciate the mix of legal and technical issues affecting his clients' matters. Mr. Melvin has served on several business-government partnerships to develop better environmental policies and standards. Prior to joining Robinson & Cole, he worked for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection as a permitting and enforcement engineer in the Water Compliance Unit. He worked on the Connecticut task force that reviewed the state's first rules for site remediation. Mr. Melvin continues to work closely with business, agency, and elected officials on brownfield redevelopment and conservation projects as well as on environmental, health, and safety concerns. Those efforts include organizing and copresenting an impaired properties redevelopment workshop with other stakeholders in 2006. Honors and Awards - Ranked in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business in the state of Connecticut in the area of Environment for 2009 - Listed in Connecticut Super Lawyers® in the area of Environmental Law for 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2011/2012 (Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Key Professional Media, Inc.) - Listed in The Best Lawyers in America® in the area of Environmental Law for 2010 and in Litigation - Environmental for 2012 (Copyright 2011 by Woodward/White, Inc., Aiken, SC) Experience - Representation of a world leader involved in designing, manufacturing, and servicing aircraft engines, space propulsion systems, and industrial gas turbines for legal work concerning waste management, wastewater discharge, air emission, site cleanup, and other environmental and real estate issues regarding redevelopment of major campuses in California and Connecticut. - Representation of a manufacturer of high-technology products and provider of support services to the aerospace and building industries worldwide for legal work concerning design and permitting of several connected "sustainable campus" projects to upgrade the client's treatment and reuse of wastewater, to install a combined heat and power cogeneration facility, and to make related infrastructure changes at a business unit's headquarters. - To support our client's efforts to redevelop portions of a manufacturing and office campus in West Palm Beach, Florida, Robinson & Cole works as part of a team comprising in-house and local counsel, surveyors, and technical consultants on a complex set of legal and transactional concerns, including real estate leasing and sales, environmental, utility, endangered and protected species, and municipal matters. Our services have involved the creation and use of a Community Development District by owners and tenants of the redeveloped property, as well as transactions and regulatory proceedings with Palm Beach County and the State of Florida. - As a component of Robinson & Cole's Preferred Environmental Counsel position with United Technologies Corporation, Bob Melvin, Earl Phillips, and other senior attorneys in the firm's Environmental Practice Group manage a portfolio of matters involving Superfund; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA); cost recovery; and other site remediation claims. These cases involve both active and discontinued manufacturing facilities, as well as landfills and similar disposal facilities. To provide UTC with enhanced management of legal fees, we developed an alternative fee arrangement with fixed monthly payments for each of UTC's business units to create incentives for fee reductions and eliminate the variability associated with hourly fees. Our work at many of these sites extends into real estate, brownfield, and other efforts to redevelop former manufacturing sites into appropriate new uses. - Represented a municipal water pollution control authority (WPCA) in claims against a centralized waste treatment facility for unpermitted discharges and unpaid sewer use charges. Led the firm's investigation of the matter, then counseled the client on sewer use charge issues and the adoption of regulations and permit program elements restricting these indirect discharges. Worked on multidisciplinary team that represented the WPCA through permit and rate proceedings, related litigation and collection efforts, and a global settlement between the WPCA and the industrial user. - Represented a Fortune 500 company in connection with construction of a $280 million pharmaceutical facility on a brownfield in Eastern Connecticut. Publications & Presentations Articles - "Painful Prescription Inhibits Industry Innovation: Another View on Industrial Recycling Under RCRA" (Jan/Feb 2002), published in Environmental Law Institute, www.Eli.Org - "Connecticut Environmental Regulatory Developments" published in Connecticut Environmental Forum - "Connecticut Regulatory Updates," coauthored with Joey Lee Miranda and Todd Berman (quarterly), published in New England's Environment Books - Brownfields Law and Practice, Connecticut chapter and updated biannually (2001), published by Matthew Bender & Co. Presentations - "Understanding the Legal and Regulatory Dimensions: The laws and regulations that affect ownership, liability, remediation, and land use," copresented with Earl W. Phillips and Kirstin M. Etela (Spring 2006) at Rebuilding Our Cities & Towns: Planning for the Redevelopment of Environmentally Impaired Properties Workshop, Berlin, CT - "Connecticut's Nitrogen TMDL and Credit Exchange Program" (6/2003) presented at Association of Metropolitan Sewer Agencies, (3/2003) presented at New York City Bar Association and Connecticut Bar Association |