Environment & Natural Resources

Gnarus experts advise counsel on complex regulatory issues associated with alleged violations of all major US environmental laws and state law counterparts. This often involves extensive factual analyses to determine the veracity of alleged violations. Gnarus experts have analyzed numerous government penalty assessments addressing both the gravity component of such penalties and the alleged economic benefit of non-compliance. Our experts have also advised clients in the development and valuation of Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEP) as part of settlement negotiations including the development of a comprehensive environmental management system.  Specific areas of expertise include:

• Alleged noncompliance validity assessment
• Evaluation of agency penalty assessments and providing alternative assessments where appropriate
• Development and valuation of supplemental environmental projects
• Ability to pay analysis
• Determination of appropriate injunctive relief for enforcement action settlement
• Assistance in compliance with settlement agreements and developing management systems for that purpose

Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) is often required as part of the litigation procedures.  Gnarus experts and consultants have extensive experience with the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), state environmental agencies and in the private sector in resolving and participating in defining the issues in complex and major environmental disputes dating back to the early 1970s to the present.  Our broad perspective enables us to work effectively with all parties, including government agencies, community representatives, citizen environmental organizations and private sector parties, to find common solutions and to mediate amongst disputing parties to resolve issues and reduce the need for, or to narrow the scope of, further litigation.

Gnarus experts are experienced in advising clients in the development, negotiation, and resolution of virtually every type of long-tail insurance claim arising from historic CGL, specialty, and first-party property insurance policies.

Gnarus experts and consultants have substantial expert witness credentials and provide a broad array of non-testifying consulting services including:

• Allocation of losses to insurance policies
• Claims data analysis & claim management
• Expected & intended analysis
• Liability estimation
• Insurance archeology
• Response cost justification
• Review of historic policy erosions
• Statistical analysis of claims databases
• Timing of environmental damages

Gnarus combines economic analysis with scientific and technical expertise to provide clients with multidimensional support on environmental, tort, product liability, business interruption, property value diminution and other issues.  Our experts and consultants have advanced capabilities in financial modeling, Monte Carlo analysis, statistics, liability risk projections, and related disciplines.

Gnarus brings these skills to bear on expert testimony in adversarial proceedings as well as in bankruptcy matters, transactional due diligence, financial reserving and disclosures, and internal risk management and analysis.

Evaluation of 1) past response costs and their necessity including the reasonableness of incurred past response costs and adequacy of documentation, including opining on cost documentation adequacy, 2) reasonableness for the claimed response costs, and 3) NCP consistency including the proper identification of ARARs, adequacy of public participation, and reasonableness of the remedy.

Gnarus experts utilize information compiled from legacy accounting systems to obtain technical, invoicing, and payables data associated with claimed costs for specific units and analysis to assess compliance with cost recovery standards (e.g. necessary and reasonableness, cost accounting principles, etc.) for potential cost recovery.

Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) is often required as part of the litigation procedures.  Gnarus experts and consultants have extensive experience with the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), state environmental agencies and in the private sector in resolving and participating in defining the issues in complex and major environmental disputes dating back to the early 1970s to the present.  Our broad perspective enables us to work effectively with all parties, including government agencies, community representatives, citizen environmental organizations and private sector parties, to find common solutions and to mediate amongst disputing parties to resolve issues and reduce the need for, or to narrow the scope of, further litigation.

Gnarus experts provide consulting and expert testimony in an array of matters involving property value diminution. These claims include such factors as contamination or proximity to contamination, exposure to electric and magnetic fields, catastrophic events such as fires and explosions, and changes in development potential. Our experience covers the entire range of approaches used in property value diminution cases from traditional appraisal techniques to state-of-the-art GIS mapping systems and statistical techniques including repeat sales, hedonic regression models, and survey techniques.

Our expert analyses are based on both appraisal and real estate economics methodologies including, when appropriate, neighborhood comparison analysis and hedonic regression analysis.   Gnarus experts are able to provide deposition and trial testimony regarding the effects of contamination or proximity to contamination on property values.

Gnarus experts have been involved in allocating environmental response costs and other damages among multiple parties at over 250 contaminated sites, working both for individual parties and as a neutral fact finder and allocation consultant on behalf of large and diverse potentially responsible party (PRP) groups.  Our experience includes landfills, mining sites, manufacturing plants, waste reclamation and recycling facilities, rivers, urban waterways, and areas with regional groundwater contamination.

We also provide testimony on issues related to the equitable distribution of cleanup or damages using principled and proven cost allocation approaches.  Our skills include:

• Allocation-related database development
• Causation analysis
• Cost allocation analysis
• Cost modeling
• PRP investigation and nexus package development
• Response cost validation
• Strategic planning for negotiation of response costs shares

Gnarus experts include environmental professionals who have been actively involved in the field since the inception of the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). Our experts can provide litigation consulting support and expert testimony regarding company or governmental standard of care and have evaluated the historical practices of companies in nearly every industry and have provided detailed and authoritative assessments of whether these practices were within the standard of care.

Our experts and consultants are supported by a large in-house library of historical environmental documents including journal articles, laws and regulations, and government reports that allow our experts to place a company’s practices in an appropriate historical context.

Gnarus advises companies and law firms on complicated environmental regulatory and permitting issues.  Gnarus consultants have vast experience, both within environmental regulatory agencies and as consultants to companies, in evaluating the most difficult compliance questions and providing answers that withstand intense scrutiny.  Gnarus consultants also provide strategic support to companies involved in complex permitting projects.

Gnarus has particular expertise in regulatory and permitting issues under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and the state counterparts to these laws. Our experts include former top regulatory officials at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from both headquarters and regional offices, the US Department of Energy and state environmental agencies.

Gnarus is a global leader in helping companies analyze the value of their environmental programs. Our experts advise companies and organizations in virtually every industry on how to improve environmental performance, minimize unnecessary environmental costs, and use their environmental procedures and policies to achieve strategic goals. What sets Gnarus experts apart is our ability to combine extensive firsthand experience in complex environmental, regulatory, technical, and economics cases with an understanding of business management. Our environmental management assessment & systems improvements services include:

• Working with companies to assess the adequacy of their management systems and to implement real improvements in these systems long before the existence of ISO 14001 and other formalized environmental management system standards.
• Recognizing that every organization operates differently, with different corporate cultures and in different regulatory environments; a one-size-fits-all management approach is bound for failure. Gnarus experts work within the framework of a company’s existing management style to develop management systems that achieve consistent and reliable results.
• One-time management assessments and developing comprehensive management systems for corporate programs, product lines, or manufacturing plants results in improved accountability programs, performance metrics, auditing programs, and environmental information systems.

Gnarus experts are experienced in evaluating, measuring and implementing cross-disciplinary sustainability programs, with particular expertise in product and process sustainability. Product sustainability is being used today to create competitive advantage, to create regulatory advantage, to mitigate liabilities, and to positively influence consumers and investors. Process sustainability is being used to reduce short- and long-term manufacturing costs and to create regulatory, legislative, and community advantages. In both situations, once opportunities are identified, they can be evaluated and prioritized from a cost and cost-effectiveness standpoint. Gnarus experts provide counsel and insight into these areas, helping clients identify and evaluate sustainability opportunities. Services can include:

• System Improvement: Adequate management controls to foster improved awareness and control of product and process sustainability issues.
• Liability Mitigation: Analysis of the reduced liability and enhanced benefits of product and process sustainability opportunities.
• Product Life Cycle Analysis: A tool for identifying opportunities for increased sustainability.
• Marketing and Advertising: Assessing compliance with the Federal Trade Commission Act on Environmental Marketing Claims.
• Competitive Analysis: A better understanding of relative product strengths and weaknesses including issues associated with supply chain and product distribution. Competitive analysis can also address process sustainability or risk issues.
• Measurement: Approaches for assessing improvements in performance over time for specific products, product inventory in general, and processes.

Gnarus experts and consultants are available to provide a sounding board for high-level environmental program evaluation, including balance sheet reserves, agency negotiation, vendor selection, overall program effectiveness, environmental portfolio prioritization and management, and difficult issue resolution.

With extensive knowledge of state and federal regulatory cleanup rules and regulations and experience with the regulators themselves, Gnarus experts can help define cleanup levels that are compliant by conceptualizing the entire solution based on the cleanup levels.

We observe (interpret data) or predict (model) where contaminants are presently, how they may migrate, and whether they may be transformed into benign forms (e.g. natural attenuation) or not.  Our modeling can be used to help predict future conditions or to recreate likely historical exposures.

Data are critical in environmental decisions. Gnarus’ experts and consultants design data collection and interpret and manage data collected by others. When others think, “when in doubt, collect more data,” we think harder about the data we have.

We know the methods and costs of treating or managing wastes – wastewater treatment, soil remediation, NAPL, landfilling, capping, dredging, air emissions, or pump & treat, among others.  We use this knowledge to estimate program costs, evaluate alternatives, and avoid inefficiency.

Our extensive knowledge of waste management history is useful in litigation and it provides us perspective on today’s projects.  We are experts on the evolution of pollution control since the mid-nineteenth century – regulations, treatment technology, measurement technology, pollution definitions, and prevailing practices both in general and specific to certain industries like manufactured gas, electrical equipment, chemical factories, glassmaking, foundries, and others.