Richard S. Wiedman is Chairman of the Environmental Group. He is also a member of the Firm’s Board of Directors and currently serves on the Firm’s Executive Committee. He has concentrated his practice in the areas of environmental business counseling and environmental litigation since 1980. His extensive experience includes representation of clients before federal and state environmental agencies, counseling clients on regulatory compliance issues, and advising on environmental considerations in a wide variety of business transactions. Mr. Wiedman 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.
Mr. Wiedman’s experience reflects the interrelationship of the major regulatory programs as they pertain to industrial activities. As indicated below, many of the projects with which Mr. Wiedman is involved require 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, Mr. Wiedman has worked closely with a wide variety of staff 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
- 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.
- Defense of permit and regulatory enforcement actions by federal and state agencies and negotiation of associated consent orders and consent agreements.
- Participation in efforts to integrate modeling of low level source contributions as part of agreed-upon plan to submit comprehensive SIP revisions.
Water Experience
- Advice and counseling regarding disputes over calculation of water quality based effluent limits.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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 maint
J.D., Case Western Reserve University School of Law, 1980
B.A., Tufts University, 1977 (Magna Cum Laude)
Pennsylvania and before courts and agencies across the country, including those in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Eleventh and District of Columbia Circuits.
