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Rick Wiedman currently serves on the Firm’s Executive Committee and chairs the firm’s Budget Finance and Collections Committee. Rick has concentrated his practice in the areas of environmental business counseling and environmental litigation since 1980. He represents clients before federal and state environmental agencies, counsel clients on regulatory compliance issues and advises on environmental considerations in a wide variety of business transactions. He also devotes significant time to the negotiation and prosecution of environmental permit and regulatory challenges, the defense of federal and state enforcement actions and the representation of clients in remedial action/corrective action and cost recovery matters under Superfund, RCRA and their state counterparts. Rick’s experience reflects the interrelationship of the major regulatory programs as they pertain to industrial activities. As indicated below, many of the projects that he is involved in require the coordination of multi-disciplinary efforts where creative engineering and technical approaches are often critical to the development and success of any legal/regulatory strategy. In this regard, Rick has worked closely with a wide variety of experts and outside consultants in diverse fields including engineering design, analytical and applied chemistry, hydro-geology, marine biology, meteorology and computer dispersion modeling.
Air Experience
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Representation of a variety of industrial concerns in response to 114(a) requests for information and associated enforcement actions relating to NSR and NSPS trigger issues;
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Defense of permit and regulatory enforcement actions by federal and state agencies and negotiation of associated consent orders and consent agreements;
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Participation in efforts to integrate modeling of low level source contributions as part of agreed-upon plan to submit comprehensive SIP revisions.
Water Experience
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Advice and counseling regarding disputes over calculation of water quality based effluent limits;
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Negotiation of consent decree regarding application of BAT standards to cyanide-contaminated discharge, including bench-scale/pilot scale studies to determine treatment parameters; implementation and construction; and development and execution of strategy to secure acceptable effluent limitations;
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Defense of NPDES and regulatory enforcement actions, including representation of major industrial dischargers, as well as representation of POTWs and private utilities regarding wet weather control, infrastructure issues and associated compliance plans to address sanitary and combined overflows.
Solid/Hazardous and Residual Waste Experience
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Secured air and operating permits for hazardous waste recycling facility after first demonstrating and obtaining federal recognition and a state determination of the process as legitimate recycling exempt from regulation under RCRA;
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Evaluated various process operations, effluent streams and chemical intermediaries under the Pennsylvania Residual Waste program to determine the need to obtain permits, potential to qualify for permit-by-rule status and the feasibility of structuring and where possible maintaining status as a non-regulated process activity;
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Negotiated variances and recognition of grandfathered status from state and federal agencies in connection with the closure of landfills and lagoons resulting in significant cost savings to closure design;
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Utilization of groundwater data, risk assessment techniques and air modeling to support no action alternative in dispute over closure criteria to be applied to lagoons utilized for the placement of scrubber sludge.
Litigation
Environmental
J.D., Case Western Reserve University School of Law, 1980, Editor of Law Review
B.A., Tufts University, 1977, magna cum laude
Pennsylvania
Courts and agencies across the country, including those in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Eleventh and District of Columbia Circuits
Allegheny County Bar Association
Pennsylvania Bar Association
American Bar Association
Board of Trustees for the Allegheny County Bar Foundation
President, Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
- Lectured and served as a panelist at seminars involving changes in environmental regulatory programs, enforcement initiatives and environmental concerns in commercial transactions
- “Lawsuits threaten BP over air pollution,” quoted in the Financial Times, August 9, 2010.
- "BP faces battle to cap legal liabilities," quoted in the Financial Times, August 3, 2010
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