Barnes & Thornburg LLP assists clients with a variety of remediation projects. They include:
Brownfield Redevelopment
Firm attorneys assist clients in purchasing real estate impacted by historic operations. Our Brownfields team includes experienced attorneys who can address:
- federal, state and local financing availability
- “all appropriate inquiry” site investigations
- avenues to eliminate or minimize liability after purchase, including qualifying for status of bona fide prospective purchaser
- obtaining “comfort letters” from regulators
- pursuing prior owners and/or insurance policies in force during occupancy by liable prior owners/operators
On behalf of a client purchasing property with known contamination. Barnes & Thornburg LLP attorneys successfully negotiated the first bona fide prospective purchaser status agreement ever entered into by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
Voluntary Cleanups
Indiana’s Risk-Based Integrated System of Closure (“RISC”) establishes one consistent risk-based cleanup program for all remediation projects, including voluntary cleanups, in Indiana. RISC became final in February 2001, and IDEM has already made several important revisions and modifications. Additional important changes are planned for 2006 and 2007. If you are involved in an environmental cleanup in Indiana, you need to understand RISC. Many environmental consultants and members of the regulated community perceive RISC as highly technical, too prescriptive, and too costly. This has led to growing concerns that RISC poses significant barriers to, rather than promoting, cleanups and redevelopment of property in Indiana.
Our team can help you make the RISC program and general risk-based techniques work better for you. Specifically, we can help you (i) take advantage of and apply RISC principles to address environmental contamination at your site more efficiently and cost-effectively; (ii) avoid common mistakes that have often led to unnecessarily prolonged and expensive investigations and cleanups; and (iii) simplify or resolve complex technical issues at your site.