Environmental Attorneys

Sands Anderson PC's Environmental and Regulatory Law Team has a long history of helping clients navigate the complex statutory and regulatory framework within which environmental laws are enacted, administered, and enforced.  We assist clients with needs in regulated areas including electricity, water, wastewater and solid waste.  Our experience working with a clients - from national corporations and local governments to smaller business and individual property owners - provides our environmental attorneys with an appreciation of each client's unique concerns and interests and of the need to resolve all issues in a way that makes business sense.  Our North Carolina and Virginia environmental lawyers works in tandem with all of the firm's practice groups to provide support wherever environmental or regulatory law issues arise.  This includes permitting, investigation and remediation, business transactions, compliance and litigation needs. 

The Environmental and Regulatory Law Team has experience in areas including the following:

  • Water control laws, including water and waste regulation, wastewater, stormwater management, and biosolids.
  • Environmental Permitting
  • Defense of RCRA actions, CERCLA claims and citizen suits
  • Erosion and Sediment Control Regulations
  • Landfill siting/host agreements, financial assurance and closure/post closure issues
  • Chesapeake Bay Act
  • Land development and zoning, including low impact development (LID), cultural and historic resources,
  • Underground storage tanks
  • Site assessment and remediation, including brownfields liability protection
  • Carbon credit and greenhouse gas reduction credit trading
  • Asbestos
  • Sale of landfill methane gas for beneficial use, including electricity generation
  • Power line siting and generation
  • Utility regulation and permitting
  • Formation of regional solid waste authorities and regional wastewater treatment authorities
  • Administrative and regulatory proceedings and enforcement actions
  • Litigation, mediation, arbitration and other alternative dispute resolution methods

We regularly negotiate on behalf of our clients with regulators and enforcement officials from federal, state, and local agencies, and have significant experience representing clients in formal and informal administrative hearings.  We also work with our local government clients in writing and interpreting erosion and sediment control ordinances, land use ordinances and ordinances related to the Chesapeake Bay Act, and we regularly work to enforce and defend actions brought under these same ordinances.  Our attorneys appear before the Virginia Marine Resources Commission on permitting of marine structures.  We have also created and advised entities on broadband development, including contracting, licensing and intellectual property issues.            

While we seek to avoid the costs and burdens of litigation, our environmental attorneys in Virginia and North Carolina know that sometimes litigation is necessary, and they have successfully argued before the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of Virginia and in district and circuit courts across the state and the nation. Our litigation team has successfully represented clients on issues including the following:

  • Successfully represented a client in concurrent proceedings filed in three circuit courts, federal district court, federal bankruptcy court, and before DEQ related to operation of a landfill, and ultimately mediated settlement of all claims.
  • Helped protect landowners in western Loudoun County from the construction of a 230 kV electric transmission line through their properties.
  • Defended owner of several gas stations in RCRA suit brought by the EPA related to the operation of USTs and seeking significant civil penalties, and successfully negotiated the imposition of no civil penalty against client.
  • Sought and was granted approval by the SCC to participate on behalf of client in utility rate case two years after close of record to protect client's interests.
  • Represented a business in protecting its industrial site from encroachment by an electric transmission line.
  • Successfully negotiated complex wetlands and erosion and sediment control issues with the Department of Conservation and Recreation in the expansion of a shopping center.
  • Successfully negotiated development of a core historic building under a locality's historic development ordinance to allow modification and expansion of the building and change of use.
  • Represented a locality in the siting, permitting and contract negotiations for the development and operation of a major landfill.
  • Resolved land use issues for the expansion of an existing landfill in a land use classification which did not permit landfills.
  • Defended regional solid waste authority from retroactive, punitive DEQ action

The environmental lawyers in our Environmental and Regulatory Law Team serve on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Bar Association's Environmental Law Section, and are regularly asked to speak at seminars and train local officials throughout Virginia on environmental and land use topics. 

Related Areas

Sands Anderson's environmental attorneys also are experienced in handling "toxic tort" litigation.  We represent a wide variety of manufacturers and end users in both personal injury and property damage cases involving alleged chemical exposures.  These are but a few examples of the sorts of environmental cases handled by our toxic tort attorneys.

The environmental lawyers of Sands Anderson serve clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic from our offices in Virginia and North Carolina.

Our Environmental Attorneys Will Work in Partnership with You

Environmental Attorneys welcome the opportunity to work with you in creating solutions best suited to your needs. Benefit from our experience. Contact the Environmental Attorneys of Sands Anderson through our online form.




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