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Environmental Remediation                                                       Printable Page

Overview

Interest in air and water quality as well as waste disposal has generated increased government regulation, legal action, and public concern.  Regulatory policy and litigation about the environment affect virtually every industry today.  Expenditures each year on environmental protection and cleanup total billions of dollars and cost reimbursement is frequently an issue.

Since our involvement with the Stringfellow and McColl Superfund Sites in the early 1990’s, our firm has actively participated in significant environmental litigation throughout the United States.  Today, our practice provides a wide range of forensic accounting and litigation consulting services to potentially responsible parties (PRPs), insurance companies and various governmental entities.  Specific services provided by our professionals include:

• Preparation and evaluation of cost recovery claims for environmental cleanups
• Analysis of historical costs involving one or more financial accounting systems
• Analysis of claimed internal cost allocations
• Examination of accounting policies and internal controls with respect to GAAP and industry practices
• Calculation of lost profits or other business damages resulting from contamination
• Allocation of environmental response costs and other damages to multiple parties at contaminated sites
• Apportionment of costs to multiple parties, insurers and/or insurance coverage layers

Our experience with environmental matters is illustrated by the following examples:

• Prepared a total incurred cost analysis of past and future remediation costs at a Superfund cleanup site for a major federal agency.  Total costs equaled approximately $700 million.
   
• Assessed a manufacturer’s claim against its excess insurance carrier for thirteen toxic cleanups.  Performed numerous, complex insurance exhaustion analyses based upon periods of coverage, type of coverage provided and individual policy aggregates.
   
• Evaluated and rebutted a major chemical company’s insurance claim for hundreds of millions of dollars, which related to toxic cleanups at company-owned plant sites.  Analyzed complicated cost allocation methodologies and assessed relevant financial accounting principles.
   
• Validated and augmented a database of port authority waste receipts and created a methodology to apportion remediation costs among the waste generators based upon an analysis of processed waste product by time period, by generator and by type of waste.