Admiralty and Maritime Environmental Civil Defense

Environmental pollution and damage have increasingly become costly issues for vessel owners and interests. Our team of attorneys is prepared to respond at any time to marine incidents anywhere in the United States and its territories. We represent Responsible Parties with respect to all aspects of oil spill response, Natural Resource Damage Assessments (NRDA), and Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF) claims. Our expertise in this specialized practice has proven invaluable to our clients when conducting casualty investigations, coordinating and evaluating oil spill response, presenting limitation and exoneration claims to the National Pollution Fund Center (NPFC), liaising with both federal and state natural resource damage trustees, negotiating restoration plans, addressing third-party claims, and interacting with various federal and state level government agencies including the designated Federal On-Scene Commander of an oil spill, the US Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board, Environmental Protection Agency, US Department of Justice, US Department of the Interior, and their state level counterparts.

Be it oil pollution, coral damage, or other environmental damage, we stand ready to provide our clients with the highest level of expertise and professionalism having acted as lead counsel on major cases in across the United States and its territories. Our representative oil pollution incident matters include: the GENMAR PROGRESS (Puerto Rico, 2007), the ATHOS I (Delaware River near Philadelphia 2004), the EVER REACH (South Carolina 2002), the BUFFALO 405 (Galveston, 2001), barge ENERGY 5501 (Connecticut 2001), the STUYVESANT (California 1999), the NEW CARISSA (Oregon 1999), the SEGOVIA CARRIER (Florida 1998), barge ATC 350 (Florida 1998), the ANITRA (New Jersey 1996), the NORTH CAPE (Rhode Island 1996), barge BOUCHARD 155 (Florida 1993), and the MORRIS J. BERMAN (Puerto Rico 1993).

Our representative coral damage incident matters include: the MARGARA (Puerto Rico 2007), the CAPE FLATTERY (Hawaii 2006), and the FORTUNA REEFER (Puerto Rico 1997).