• Solid Waste and Resource Recovery

Solid Waste/Resource Recovery Industry

Overview

Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. represents virtually all aspects of the solid waste industry. Our clients include public and private owners and operators of landfills, transfer stations, recycling facilities, sludge management facilities and municipal waste combustors, as well as national solid waste trade associations.

Our lawyers are involved in the development, siting, public bidding, construction, operation and closure/post closure management of solid waste facilities throughout the country. We have experience with legal issues involving solid waste facility siting and permitting, host community agreement negotiation, solid waste transportation, treatment, storage and disposal, reuse, recycling, and resource recovery. We use our experience and legal skill on behalf of our clients not only to minimize exposure to liability but also to develop business opportunities, decrease costs, and enhance profitability.

Full Description

The management of solid waste has become very complex as environmental and land use regulation has become more stringent, opposition to facility siting and operation has become more sophisticated, and interstate transport has expanded. 

Our lawyers have a knowledge and commitment to sound solid waste management and successful project development that comes from their work on many sides of the solid waste industry, as legal advocates for public and private companies and governments and as former in-house counsel to solid waste companies and government regulators. We draw from these areas of experience in helping clients manage legal complexity and develop and advance successful business strategies.    

Our extensive work in the solid waste industry includes all aspects of project development and planning, including environmental impact review, federal, state and local permitting, the successful appeals of permit conditions or denials, and the negotiation of contracts for facility siting, construction and operation. We have worked with clients on the development of requests for qualifications (RFQs) and requests for proposals (RFPs), and on the submittal of successful responses to RFQs and RFPs. We have advised on compliance with state procurement requirements and applications for public funding of projects.

We have substantial experience advising on compliance responsibilities and assisting facilities on maintaining compliance with a myriad of complex requirements that apply to solid waste management activities. Our lawyers have assisted in the development and implementation of compliance management systems at solid waste facilities, and in audits of these facilities. We have successfully defended clients in many enforcement actions brought by government agencies.  

Our clients benefit from the Firm’s broad experience in environmental law. For example, our extensive air practice is an indispensable asset for municipal waste combustion and landfill gas production facilities. Our experience in power generation brings us intimate familiarity with the unique environmental issues associated with such facilities, including those that arise in energy sale negotiations and co-location agreements. We also draw on our sophisticated hazardous waste practice to advise our clients on the nuances of federal and state hazardous waste regulations as they impact facility operations.  

• We represent one of the major owners and operators of municipal waste combustors in the U.S. Among the dozens of matters we have handled for the company, we have successfully defended enforcement actions brought by federal and state environmental authorities alleging air, water, and waste violations. We have handled permit appeals, agency policy development, and actions brought by citizen groups.

• We have successfully obtained site assignments and environmental permits for many thousands of tons per day of solid waste infrastructural projects constructed by firm clients, including landfills, municipal waste combustion facilities, transfer stations and recycling facilities.

• At a large sanitary landfill facility in New York, we have handled all legal aspects of permitting and operation, remediation of inactive cells, and management of historic liabilities. In addition, we acted as transaction counsel in the proposed sale of the facility, successfully negotiating the purchase and sale agreement. We also assisted the new purchaser in its efforts to substantially expand the landfill.

• On behalf of a broad coalition of public sector and private sector solid waste trade associations and waste management companies, we brought actions and filed amicus briefs before the federal Surface Transportation Board and the federal courts challenging attempts to build solid waste facilities using a federal rail statute that contains a preemption from state and local environmental permitting requirements.

• On behalf of prospective purchasers, our lawyers have performed environmental due diligence reviews on the assets of numerous waste management companies and facilities.

• We represent a biosolids management company on environmental matters relating to biosolids management and land application throughout the country. We have successfully defended the company against efforts by municipalities to impose local controls that are not based on solid science.

• Our lawyers have advised clients on the public bidding of waste infrastructure projects, and in the negotiation of teaming agreements and design/build/operate contracts for solid waste facilities.