DGS lawyers assist property owners, investors, real estate developers, corporations, and local governments in transforming contaminated lands, mothballed properties, and historic or abandoned mining, railroad or other industrial/commercial sites into economically productive and environmentally safe uses that benefit both stakeholders and communities.  We utilize skilled interdisciplinary teams of attorneys experienced in environmental and real estate law to identify and implement creative solutions for these properties.  Team members are knowledgeable regarding all aspects of brownfields redevelopment, including ever-changing cleanup standards, institutional controls, federal and state voluntary cleanup requirements, eminent domain issues, financing vehicles, and risk management tools.

We are leaders in developing brownfields for recreation and conservation purposes in the West.  Our clients' projects are located in urban and rural settings throughout the Rocky Mountain region.  To make these projects a reality, we work successfully with stakeholders, communities and numerous federal, state, tribal and local government agencies.

Team members thoroughly understand the scientific and technical issues of contaminated sites.  Some of our lawyers have undergraduate degrees in scientific and technical fields, and others have been educated through many years of litigation and project experience.  Our clients routinely rely on us to supervise work performed by technical experts in fields ranging from geology and hydrogeology to engineering to vapor intrusion to risk assessment and toxicology, among others.

We are experienced in techniques to manage risks associated with brownfields. We routinely help clients obtain environmental insurance policies.  We negotiate covenants not to sue and similar agreements with regulatory agencies.  We are experienced with implementation, monitoring and enforcement of institutional controls.  In fact, one of our team members worked with an industry group and the state attorney general’s office to draft Colorado’s environmental covenant statute.  We know the government programs and other mechanisms to fund remediation and redevelopment of these sites.

Some of our projects include: 

   •   CERCLA / Rails-to-Trails conversion of a 71-mile-long railroad right-of-way that was awarded the 2006 Phoenix Award for EPA Region X; 

   •  Redevelopment of a former smelter site into an award-winning, Jack Nicklaus signature golf course; 

   •   Redevelopment of former industrial, coal gasification and rail-yard sites for, among other new uses, a 20,000-seat event center and an amusement park; 

   •   Redevelopment of numerous former service station sites for a variety of new commercial or residential uses; 

   •   Converting mine waste sites into much-needed recreational open space; 

   •   Identifying and analyzing redevelopment options for a large mine waste site and former company town; 

   •   Converting a rail line serving mines into a tourist rail line; and

   •   Condemnation, remediation and redevelopment of Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act sites.