The Firm provides comprehensive counsel on all aspects of Superfund and CERCLA matters, helping companies, developers, and local governments navigate the complex legal, technical, and regulatory challenges associated with contaminated properties. Our CERCLA and Superfund Redevelopment Practice spans the full lifecycle of site management — from preliminary assessments, historical operations evaluations, and remedial investigation/feasibility-study support to remedy selection, enforcement negotiations, implementation oversight, and long-term stewardship. We advise clients on CERCLA liability allocation, defend and pursue cost recovery and contribution actions, and represent clients in multiparty PRP negotiations involving EPA, state environmental agencies, and large PRP groups. We also assist clients in responding to EPA information requests under CERCLA Section 104(e), ensuring responses are accurate, complete, and strategically crafted to minimize enforcement risk while protecting client interests.
A core strength of the Firm is our longstanding focus on redevelopment-oriented Superfund counseling, including extensive work with U.S. EPA’s Superfund Redevelopment Program (SRP). The Firm maintains decades-long working relationships with SRP technical and legal staff in EPA Headquarters (Washington, D.C.) and EPA Region 4 (Atlanta, GA), allowing us to help clients efficiently coordinate redevelopment plans with remedy requirements and navigate SRP’s unique and innovative tools — such as prospective purchaser inquiries, comfort/status letters, reuse assessments, prospective purchaser agreements, Ready for Reuse determinations and fact sheets, and redevelopment mapping. Launched in 1999, SRP was created to integrate redevelopment planning directly into the Superfund process and provide communities, landowners, and developers with the tools needed to return contaminated sites to safe and productive use. Over its history, SRP has pioneered a transformation of the Superfund process, supported hundreds of redevelopment projects nationwide, and responded to thousands of prospective purchaser inquiries. These SRP innovations and partnerships help clarify liability, reduce uncertainty, and accelerate cleanup decisions.
The Firm is also well positioned to help clients leverage many of the approaches EPA emphasizes today. Such approaches include locating AI data center facilities on contaminated sites, achieving faster cleanups with faster decision-making, using presumptive remedies where cleanup options are well understood (e.g., lead sites), using removal action and state authorities to address contamination as an alternative to the Superfund National Priorities List, increasing the use of institutional controls, and using enforcement discretion to address potential PFAS-related liability concerns.
Superfund Redevelopment in EPA Region 4: Transforming Communities and Strengthening Local Economies
Superfund redevelopment in EPA Region 4, which includes Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, has become one of the most powerful engines for community revitalization, economic growth, and environmental restoration in the southeastern United States. As recent data demonstrate, EPA Region 4 has emerged as a national leader in turning contaminated properties into productive assets that generate jobs, tax revenues, and community amenities.
EPA Region 4 contains 185 Superfund sites in reuse or continued use, including 116 sites with active businesses, illustrating the broad spectrum of commercial, industrial, public-service, and mixed-use redevelopment across the Southeast. Businesses operating on these sites generate an estimated $8.1 billion in annual sales, employ 19,733 people, and provide approximately $1.5 billion in annual employee income — a direct infusion of local wages that strengthens surrounding economies. The total assessed value of property at Superfund sites in EPA Region 4 is nearly $1.8 billion, reflecting both restored land value and new investment. Additionally, these sites contribute more than $24 million annually in property tax revenues for local governments, supporting schools, infrastructure, and municipal services.
Florida stands at the forefront of EPA Region 4’s redevelopment success. According to EPA’s 2024 data, Florida has 70 Superfund sites in reuse — more than any other state in EPA Region 4. Of those, 45 sites host 351 active businesses, employing 10,580 workers and generating an estimated $875 million in annual employee income. Combined, those businesses produce roughly $4.4 billion in annual sales, making Florida the highest-performing Superfund redevelopment economy in the region. Florida’s Superfund sites also hold the region’s highest total property value — more than $1.2 billion — and generate around $17 million per year in property tax revenue for local governments.
EPA Region 4’s redevelopment portfolio is remarkably diverse. Former industrial and hazardous waste sites have been repurposed for manufacturing, logistics, commercial use, mixed-use communities, solar energy installations, parks, public-service facilities, and recreation areas. In states such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, thriving industrial and manufacturing operations now operate on former Superfund sites. In Tennessee, eight active redevelopment sites host more than 100 businesses that support nearly 2,900 jobs and generate $182 million in annual wages. Meanwhile, North Carolina and South Carolina have converted historically contaminated areas into business parks, logistics centers, retail districts, and municipal service hubs, generating hundreds of millions in additional annual sales.
Leadership in Redevelopment-Focused Environmental Law
Our Superfund redevelopment practice is led by Matthew (Matt) Sander, who brings more than two decades of federal enforcement and Superfund and brownfields redevelopment experience to the Firm’s clients. Before joining the Firm, Matt served as an attorney-advisor in the U.S. EPA Office of Site Remediation Enforcement in Washington, D.C., where his primary responsibilities included policy development and case support on institutional controls and on clarifying CERCLA liability protections to facilitate Superfund and brownfields cleanup and reuse. He acted as a national resource for EPA enforcement staff, frequently serving as a point of contact for questions on liability protections, local government and third-party liability, and federal enforcement coordination with state cleanup and brownfields programs, and as an EPA liaison to state cleanup program managers through the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials. He also has extensive legislative experience, including providing technical assistance to Congress on proposed brownfields legislation and leading EPA teams implementing amendments to CERCLA.
Matt’s EPA experience includes work on key national guidance, policy memoranda, and site-specific tools that are central to Superfund redevelopment. He has been listed as an enforcement contact and contributor on key guidance addressing landowner and local government liability protections, integrating reuse into the Superfund enforcement program, EPA-state cooperative efforts at Superfund sites, and institutional controls. For example, he was a co-author or contributor on many publicly available EPA documents including: Top 10 Questions to Ask Before Buying a Superfund Site, Revitalization Handbook, Superfund Liability Protections for Local Government Acquisitions, Ready for Reuse Determination Guidance, Liability Reference Guide for Siting Renewable Energy on Contaminated Property, Common Elements Guidance, PREPARED Workbook for Local Governments Considering the Reuse of Contaminated Properties, Comfort/Status Letter Guidance, Revitalization Ready Guide, EPA and State Cooperative Efforts and Responsibilities at Superfund Sites, Superfund Guidance on the Sitewide Ready for Anticipated Use (SWRAU) Performance Measure, Key Elements of Effective Long-Term Stewardship for RCRA Corrective Action, Advanced Monitoring Technologies and Approaches to Support Long-Term Stewardship, Superfund Task Force Final Report, and Next Generation Cleanup Compendium of Examples
Matt also has contributed to many site-specific reuse tools used by EPA including comfort/status letters, prospective purchaser agreements, Ready for Reuse determinations, and EPA-state voluntary cleanup program memoranda of agreement. He has also supported SRP trainings and outreach, including national webinars on “Buying a Superfund Site”, working with local governments at Superfund sites, and other reuse-focused programs, where he has presented alongside EPA’s SRP staff and private sector experts — including Michael Goldstein. He has also led numerous training courses on institutional controls for EPA and state staff.
Matt’s CERCLA and RCRA enforcement and compliance expertise also includes a deep understanding of the statutory and regulatory scheme and significant experience with EPA and DOJ model settlements and orders, settlement incentives, and practice guides. For our clients, his resume translates into very concrete advantages. He understands, from inside EPA, how to navigate CERCLA and RCRA enforcement and compliance matters and can ensure all due diligence requirements for property transactions are satisfied. Matt is intimately familiar with how federal liability protections (bona fide prospective purchaser, contiguous property owner, innocent landowner, local government acquisition, etc.) and EPA’s enforcement discretion are evaluated and applied in real estate transactions and enforcement settlement negotiations. His background in institutional controls means he can help structure land use restrictions, access easements, and long-term stewardship obligations in ways that satisfy EPA and state regulators while preserving redevelopment value. His experience with guidance and model documents allows him to anticipate EPA’s expectations and tailor prospective purchaser agreements, comfort/status letters, and other tools so that they are both protective of the client and realistic from the agency’s perspective. His considerable experience navigating relationships between state and federal cleanup programs means he can coordinate strategy across parallel state and federal processes, anticipate where jurisdictional conflicts may arise, and position projects to move forward.
Our Superfund team’s technical and regulatory depth is further strengthened by Dr. Brian J. Dougherty, the Firm’s Director of Technical and Regulatory Services. Before joining the Firm, Brian spent many years in senior positions at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) Division of Waste Management, where he served as an Environmental Administrator and later as a Program Manager overseeing key sections of Florida’s contaminated site cleanup programs. His leadership roles included responsibility for the Brownfields & CERCLA Site Screening Section — an FDEP unit that manages the Florida Brownfields Redevelopment Program and screens sites under CERCLA — as well as technical and program support across the Division.
Brian’s state-level work gives him a unique, ground-level perspective on how contaminated sites are prioritized, screened, and managed in Florida. He has been involved in rulemaking, policy development, and statewide implementation for contaminated site cleanup, including Florida’s pay-for-performance scale-up program and statewide outreach on contaminated media, screening levels, and risk-based corrective action. He has also participated in interagency working groups involving FDEP, the Florida Department of Health, and other state agencies, focusing on hazardous waste sites, exposure pathways, and public health protection.
For landowners, developers, and local governments, Brian’s experience with FDEP’s Brownfields & CERCLA Site Screening Section is especially valuable. He understands, from the regulator’s side, how sites move through the screening process; how brownfield designations and cleanup agreements are evaluated; what data and risk analyses state staff need to see; and where there is flexibility to structure site-specific solutions. That insight allows us to design investigation and remediation strategies that are technically credible, cost-effective, and aligned with FDEP’s expectations, reducing the risk of delays, rework, or unwelcome surprises late in the process. Brian’s familiarity with Florida’s Brownfields Redevelopment Program and its integration with CERCLA also helps our clients maximize eligibility for brownfield tax credits, remediation incentives, and other financial tools highlighted in the state’s brownfields program guidance and annual reports.
The Firm’s Managing Partner, Michael R. Goldstein, played a pivotal role in strengthening the legal framework that supports the redevelopment of Superfund sites in Florida. He led an effort to amend Section 376.82, Florida Statutes, to make it easier for Superfund sites to qualify for the Florida Brownfields Redevelopment Program, thereby expanding access to state-law liability protections for parties engaged in cleanup and reuse and improving coordination between CERCLA and Florida’s brownfields law. As amended, Section 376.82 helps parties at qualifying sites secure liability protection under state law and access Florida’s brownfield tax incentives, including tax credits, refunds, and other benefits tied to remediation expenditures and job creation. This statutory work has enabled numerous communities, developers, and responsible parties to overcome regulatory barriers, reduce cleanup costs, and successfully reposition contaminated properties for new economic and community uses.
A Fully Integrated Superfund Redevelopment Practice
The Firm’s longstanding relationships with SRP staff at EPA Headquarters and in EPA Region 4, deep experience with EPA enforcement and guidance development, direct leadership experience within FDEP’s Brownfields & CERCLA Site Screening Program, redevelopment-oriented cleanup strategy, and legislative work in Florida enable the Firm to offer a uniquely integrated and nationally recognized Superfund practice.
We help clients mitigate liability, access redevelopment incentives, control cleanup costs, accelerate redevelopment, and transform contaminated properties subject to the level of federal regulatory oversight specifically reserved for the nation’s highest-risk environmental lands into thriving community assets that support public health, environmental protection, and economic revitalization across Florida, EPA Region 4, and the United States.