Negotiating the Environmental Provisions in a Real Estate Contract

Gene Schmittgens works with clients in all aspects of environmental law, including reporting, compliance, enforcement, administrative litigation, insurance, permitting, transportation requirements, and transactional issues arising out of the sale of real estate and businesses. He has experience in various state and federal environmental laws, CERCLA, TSCA, the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, NEPA and RCRA. He has helped clients at both the state and federal levels.

He is frequent lecturer and author on a wide variety of environmental issues and is the current editor of the Missouri Chapter in the Lexis/Nexis publication Brownfields Law and Practice. Mr. Schmittgens is a current member and past chair of the Illinois State Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section Council, as well as the immediate past Chair of the Association’s Business Advice Section Council. He is the Chair of the Bar Association of Metropolitan Saint Louis’ Environmental Law Committee and a past Chair of the Regional Chamber and Growth Association’s Environmental Law Committee. He also is the current Chair of the Environmental Transactions and Brownfields Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environments, Energy and Resources.

He has been active in a number of other environmental law committees of various bar associations and civic groups and also an Assistant Adjunct Professor at Saint Louis University of Law where he teaches a course on Environmental Due Diligence.

Steven T. Miano has been exclusively practicing environmental law for more than 25 years. His practice includes all facets of environmental law and litigation, including federal and state cases arising under the Clean Water Act, Superfund, brownfields redevelopment statutes, Hazardous Waste laws, the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and energy development.

His clients include large industrial corporations, commercial entities, municipalities, and not for profit organizations. Steve is the former Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, a bar association with more than 9,000 members nationwide and in numerous foreign countries

Before entering private practice, Steve was an Assistant Regional Counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, Hazardous Waste Branch, where his practice focused on Superfund, hazardous waste laws and criminal enforcement. He is an adjunct professor at Rutgers University Law School – Camden, where he teaches courses on environmental law. He is a frequent lecturer and has written about environmental legal issues for a variety of publications. He also regularly serves as a course planner for regional and national environmental law programs.

Chintan is an in-house attorney for Bayer, one of the largest life sciences companies in the world. At Bayer, he focuses on environmental, health and safety issues. His practice is at the intersection of environmental compliance and worker safety. He counsels Bayer’s management on workplace safety and process safety issues, including PSM and RMP matters.

Prior to joining Bayer, Chintan practiced environmental law for 11 years as an associate and partner with the Atlanta office of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP (now Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP). While at Kilpatrick, he represented clients in a variety of environmental enforcement, litigation and transactional matters.

Chintan graduated with High Honors from the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, where he served on the editorial board of the Florida Journal of International Law. He also holds a B.S. from the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is admitted to practice law in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Margaret Bazany was the Lead Counsel for The Dow Chemical Company, focusing her practice on environmental remediation, environmental compliance, and sustainability. She assisted her clients to resolve historic liabilities and clean former plant sites and other properties to promote beneficial and sustainable uses of those properties. A component of this work entailed seeking approval for passive or green remediation alternatives where possible. Margaret also has developed expertise in large river and estuary sediment “megasites” and natural resource damages.

Margaret joined Dow with the acquisition of Rohm and Haas Company in 2009. She had been with Rohm and Haas for nearly ten years, focusing her practice on environmental compliance, environmental remediation, product regulation, health and safety regulation, and sustainability. Prior to moving in-house, Margaret was an associate with Beveridge & Diamond, PC for eight years, where she provided regulatory compliance counseling with respect to many environmental media, as well as participating in the rulemaking process on waste, remediation, and natural resource damage issues. Margaret periodically speaks on environmental issues; in 2008 she was on the faculty of an ALI-ABA Environmental Law Conference cosponsored by ELI, and in 2011 she spoke at an RTM Communications, Inc. Conference on Sustainable Property Transactions.