Focus session B:
HAZARDOUS WASTE SITES
Co-Chairs:
Lisa Saban
Partner, Windward Environmental
Lisa Saban is a partner at Windward, and has served as a project manager, lead scientist, or technical advisor for environmental assessments and evaluations over the past two decades. She has managed and conducted environmental studies on the local, national, and international level, for both private- and public-sector clients.
Ms. Saban has extensive negotiation experience in client-stakeholder interactions and managing complex projects related to ecological risk assessments (ERAs), sediment investigations, and natural resource damage assessments (NRDAs). She has been a leader in assessing and managing potential liabilities for clients, creating mutually beneficial solutions for both the regulated entities and the regulatory participants. She is currently managing and providing technical advice for multiple industrial and municipal clients on waterways that require expertise on liability management related to natural resource damage (NRD), ecological risk, and contaminated sediments.
Ms. Saban is focused on risk management strategies to reduce potential exposure in a cost-effective manner. Ms. Saban is effective at reducing complex issues to the cornerstone elements that require the focus needed to complete the project. In this capacity, she has been involved in numerous stakeholder groups as a lead sediment specialist, ecological risk assessor, and NRD consultant. Currently, Ms. Saban has written several articles on managing environmental liabilities and early restoration. She has authored technical briefs on early resolution of NRD liabilities and has taught seminars and university extension courses on NRDAs.
Ms. Saban holds an M.S. in Aquatic Toxicology and Ecology from Western Washington University and a B.S. in Biology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
For more information, see http://www.windwardenv.com/company/lisa-saban-ms/.
Steve Glomb
Director, Office of Restoration and Damage Assessment, U.S. Department of the Interior
Steve Glomb is the Director of the Office of Restoration and Damage Assessment in the U.S. Department of the Interior. He manages the Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Program, coordinating and leading multiple interdisciplinary Bureaus and Offices in the Department’s mission to restore natural resources injured as a result of oil spills or hazardous substance releases in the environment. He has focused on the restoration aspects of Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration since 2002.
Prior to working in the Restoration Program, he spent four years in the Department’s Office of Budget and on detail to the House Appropriations Committee. Earlier in his federal career he held several different natural resource and environmental management positions, including leading the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service efforts to protect coastal ecosystems under the Coastal Barriers Resources Act and working to establish comprehensive watershed management plans in EPA’s National Estuary Program. In his first real job after graduate school, Steve served as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching freshwater aquaculture to farmers in Africa.
Mr. Glomb received an M.S. in Biological Oceanography from Florida State University and a B.S. in Fisheries Biology from the University of Massachusetts.
Presenters:
Mark barash
Senior Attorney, Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior
Mark Barash is a senior attorney with the United States Department of the Interior in DOI’s Northeast Regional Office. He has worked extensively on NRD matters for almost 20 years, both overseeing and handling cases, and developing national program and policy initiatives for the Department including efforts to streamline assessment and restoration approaches, to refine cooperative assessment practices, and to encourage both the integration of RI/FS and NRD data collection and the incorporation of natural resource restoration into remedial activities. He has spearheaded the refinement of techniques for establishing claims for complex damages such as those arising from Tribal religious/ cultural losses, and has led regional initiatives to integrate more closely the efforts of Federal, State, and Tribal natural resource trustees.
In his regional capacity Mr. Barash oversees Departmental legal efforts for natural resource damage claims from oil spills, hazardous substance releases, and under the Park Service Resource Protection Act in a 13 State region from Maine to Virginia. In addition, he is responsible for handing major CERCLA and OPA NRD claims such as Hudson River/GE PCBs, and Diamond Alkali/Passaic River/ Newark Bay Superfund Site, and the BT 120 Bouchard Oil Spill in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Mr. Barash has significant teaching and lecturing experience, including multiple presentations domestically at ABA, SETAC, and other conferences, as a guest lecturer at Columbia University Law School, Boston University School of Law, University of Florida Law School, and as an adjunct professor of law at Boston College Law School. He has developed and provided NRD training within DOI, to Federal, State, and Tribal trustees, and for the UNEP.
Jason hughes
Senior Counsel, Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
Jason Hughes joined Freeport-McMoRan Inc. as a senior counsel in 2015, where he represents the company in matters involving environmental remediation, natural resource damage claims, and property transactions.
Previously, he practiced at the law firm of Gallagher & Kennedy, P.A., in Phoenix, Arizona for 13 years where he assisted clients on a variety of legal matters related to hazardous waste and Superfund sites throughout the United States. damage claims, and property transactions.
Jason Hughes received his Juris Doctor from Brigham Young University magna cum laude in 2002.
WIlliam J. jackson
Shareholder, Jackson Gilmour & Dobbs
Bill Jackson has over twenty years of experience handling a broad range of environmental issues and litigation involving significant natural resource damages, economic and property damages, remediation, and restoration of contaminated sites from coast to coast.
Bill has represented midstream and energy-sector clients, ports, railroads and other transportation-sector clients, as well as local and state governmental entities and NRD trustee agencies, in some of the most significant environmental cases in the country, including: the Passaic River/Diamond Alkali Superfund Site, Newark, New Jersey; the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill; the Portland Harbor Superfund Site, in Portland, Oregon; the Upper Clark Fork River Basin Superfund Site, in Butte/Anaconda, Montana; the Malone Superfund Site on Galveston Bay; and various other upland sites, legacy oil and gas sites, and spills across the country.
Jackson Gilmour & Dobbs, PC has achieved numerous noteworthy results for its clients, including recently settling the Passaic River litigation and recovering for the State of New Jersey over $355 million in costs and damages alone. The Texas Lawyer recently announced that it has selected Jackson Gilmour & Dobbs, PC as the 2015 “Specialty Litigation Group of the Year” for environmental litigation in the State of Texas.
Bill has been repeatedly recognized as a leading environmental litigator by Chambers & Partners USA Guide, Texas Super Lawyers, and Texas Rising Stars, as a Top Rated Lawyer in Energy, Environmental and Natural Resources in The American Lawyer and The National Law Journal, as AV-Preeminent by Martindale-Hubble, and as one of Houston's Best Lawyers by Houston, Houstonia, and H-Texas Magazines. He is a Life Fellow of the Texas and Houston Bar Associations, is a nationally recognized speaker on natural resource damages and environmental litigation matters and represents clients in several of the largest environmental litigation matters in the country.
For additional information, see http://www.jgdpc.com/Attorneys-List/WilliamJ-Jackson.shtml.
Steven MILLER
Deputy Assistant General Counsel For Environment, U.S. Department of Energy
Steven Miller is a Deputy Assistant General Counsel for Environment in the Office of the Assistant General Counsel for the Environment, in the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy, in Washington, D.C. In that position, he is responsible for providing advice and counsel to various DOE offices on uranium mill tailings, remedial action, CERCLA, natural resource damages, long-term stewardship and other environmental matters. He also has served as a mentor to DOE employees, law students, college and high school students as part of various DOE-sponsored mentoring and internship programs.
Steve received his J.D., M.U.P. and B.A. degrees from New York University.
Mary P. MOrningStar
Associate General Counsel, Environmental Law, Lockheed Martin Corporation
Mary Morningstar is Associate General Counsel for Environment, Safety, and Health at Lockheed Martin Corporation. Her specific areas of expertise are environment, safety, and health (“ESH”) compliance and risk evaluation and counseling; toxic tort litigation; environmental due diligence; and support to remediation projects.
Ms. Morningstar’s current practice focuses on managing much of the Corporation’s existing or potential toxic tort litigation, providing legal counseling and support to the Energy, Environment, Safety & Health (“EESH”) Department, and providing ESH due diligence for all transactions and includes the following: responsibility for complex existing and potential toxic tort litigation related to remediation sites that EESH is managing; pursuing cost recovery action under the federal Superfund law against the U.S. government for remediation costs associated with a former defense plant in New York. Responsible for litigation related to the former American Beryllium Company site in Sarasota, Florida (a former Loral facility; counseling EESH Vice President and her staff on governance and compliance issues (e.g., OSHA and EPA regulatory requirements; advocating for science-based standards at the federal and state level for constituents of concern at remediation sites; and conducting ESH due diligence for all transactions (e.g., acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures, as well as all property purchases, sales and leases).
Ms. Morningstar is a member of the American Bar Association and is a member of the DC and Maryland Bars.
Ms. Morningstar holds a J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law.