Environmental Cost Recovery Actions

When a property owner — whether a small business, commercial lessor, residential developer, or homeowner — discovers or is notified of an environmental hazard on the land, two sets of legal problems arise with which our environmental lawyer can help.

First, the owner may have to report the condition or respond to a notice issued by a state or federal agency, with the potential for cleanup or remediation liability. Second, the owner must consider all available options for recovering the cleanup costs from prior owners or polluters on nearby properties.

At The Sher Law Firm, PLLC, our environmental lawyer has experience with the investigation of facts and careful examination of the chain of title in environmental cleanup cases. This translates to an important advantage for our clients, whether they need indemnification for cleanup costs of their own or need to recover damages from the party responsible for the contamination. Contact us in Houston for a free consultation with an experienced environmental trial lawyer.

Dependable Trial Counsel/Environmental Lawyer in State or Federal Cost Recovery Actions

In Texas, both state and federal agencies are responsible for enforcing the cleanup of contaminated sites. Under federal law, the Environmental Protection Agency administers remediation under the Comprehensive Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) or the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). With the current lack of financing available through the Superfund program, these federal statutes are important primarily as legal tools to impose cleanup costs on any property owner in the chain of title of contaminated property.

The Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act (TSWDA) serves analogous functions for the release of hazardous wastes in industrial, energy production, or transportation activities. Under both state and federal law, any party that has ever held an ownership interest in contaminated property is potentially liable for the cost of the property’s cleanup, subject to a right of contribution or indemnification from an owner or other polluter who can be proved to have played a greater role in causing the pollution.

Managing Your Exposure through Aggressive Trial Preparation

For this reason, the early stages of a CERCLA or TSWDA action can look like a free-for-all while the various current and former owners of record scramble to minimize their own liability and attempt to prove the responsibility of other parties. In Texas, this exercise can be further complicated by the practice of corporate polluters of laundering land titles to make it more difficult to demonstrate their liability.

At The Sher Law Firm, PLLC, our environmental lawyer takes an aggressive approach to the investigation of both the technical aspects of the source of the pollution and the legal and corporate details of the chain of title to ensure responsibility for cleanup costs is placed on the party who caused the contamination.

Call 713-626-2100 for an Experienced Attorney’s Advice

Houston environmental trial lawyer Andrew Sher holds the AV Preeminent* rating under Martindale-Hubbell’s peer review rating system, and has been listed as a Texas Super Lawyer by Texas Monthly magazine. His creative approach to the resolution of recovery actions under state and federal law can make the decisive difference in your CERCLA, RCRA or TSWDA case.

Our law firm represents clients throughout Texas, the Southwest and the nation. For a free consultation about your legal options as a business or residential property owner, contact The Sher Law Firm, PLLC, in Houston.

Based in Houston, The Sher Law Firm, PLLC, serves the needs of clients in complex environmental, oil and gas, personal injury and commercial litigation throughout Texas, including greater Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, El Paso, the Rio Grande Valley, the Texas Panhandle, Midland/Odessa and Lubbock. We also handle litigation in other states through association with local counsel in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.