Members of the McLennan Ross energy, environment, and regulatory team have extensive experience handling issues surrounding contaminated sites. Our lawyers routinely handle issues regarding regulatory compliance and enforcement, and civil liability pertaining to contaminated sites. We act for a wide range of clients including major industrial facilities, municipalities, and small independent operators.
McLennan Ross has developed strong working relationships with both provincial and federal regulators and many environmental consultants. Our lawyers regularly appear before various administrative tribunals, such as the Environmental Appeals Board.
Our energy, environment, and regulatory team also has a strong background in litigation. In particular, we have several practitioners who routinely manage civil liability associated with contaminated sites.
We are committed to achieving practical and cost-effective solutions to our clients’ legal issues surrounding contaminated sites. In appropriate circumstances, we explore creative cost-sharing arrangements to remediate the site and fix the problem, rather than needlessly expend resources fighting with other parties. Our experience in this practice area and understanding of our clients’ business needs sets McLennan Ross apart as an industry leader.
McLennan Ross represented an owner-operator of a retail gas station facing enforcement actions from government regulators and civil liability from neighbouring landowners. We worked with the regulators to develop and implement reasonable remediation and risk management plans, and we managed civil liability to obtain the best possible result for our client.
We have successfully defended and negotiated multiple contaminated site claims on behalf of a major oil company to achieve cost-efficient settlement.
Our lawyers represented an energy company facing liability for contamination discovered after a Reclamation Certificate was issued by the regulators. We used creative and practical solutions to bring closure to the matter. We invoked a novel regulatory provision to obtain contribution from other energy companies, and negotiated with regulators and land owners to achieve a favourable result for our client.
McLennan Ross acted for the owner of a chemical plant and facilitated the sale of the facility to another operator. We assisted with completing the transaction by establishing a security fund only to be used for remediation purposes, as part of the deal.
Our lawyers have also worked in conjunction with commercial lawyers in successfully acquiring lands which have been impacted by contamination for a purchaser seeking to make use of the existing infrastructure and manage the potential liability of residual contamination.
We handled one of the first matters in Alberta where a parcel of land was designated as a “contaminated site” under modern environmental legislation. We assisted our client with addressing the unique regulatory and civil liability issues arising from this rarely used designation.
