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Environmental and natural resources attorney Polly Hampton offers practical guidance to help clients better understand how environmental complexities affect their companies and how to mitigate associated risks. Focused on contaminated site cleanups, brownfield redevelopment, and environmental risk management in mergers and acquisitions, Polly counsels a wide range of businesses—from mining, manufacturing, and energy to real estate and project developers—on remediation, permitting, compliance, and enforcement matters under federal and state environmental laws.
Polly addresses the “dirty dirt” aspect of deals and projects, counseling on the identification, management, and cleanup of hazardous materials and allocation of related liability. She also oversees environmental compliance audits both in the regular course of business and as part of transaction-related environmental due diligence, working with businesses to identify and correct potential deficiencies before and after closing. In addressing contaminated sites, Polly’s experience includes smaller, state-led cleanups and major federal Superfund sediment sites such as the Portland Harbor and the Gowanus Canal. She has also helped clients assess and settle alleged natural resource damages liability. Polly provides practical solutions reflective of her clients’ risk tolerance, and project developers appreciate her deft approach to environmental issues that can derail or facilitate a real estate project or corporate deal.
Representative of Polly’s environmental risk management counsel is her work with one client, a purchaser of a contaminated lumber facility in the Pacific Northwest seeking to redevelop the property. She collaborated and negotiated with the real estate teams and state regulatory authorities on an innovative plan to resolve contamination-related liability that could have posed future threats to her client. Additionally, Polly recently addressed risks associated with multiple contaminated sites in the southeastern United States by negotiating the terms of a post-closing remediation agreement between the buyer and seller, who worked cooperatively with the applicable regulatory agency to obtain liability protection for the buyer and obtained final regulatory decisions for both properties.
Polly routinely counsels manufacturing facilities, energy infrastructure companies, and natural resource developers on various issues involving hazardous substance releases, management of hazardous and solid waste, industrial wastewater and stormwater management, and air emissions. Recent compliance-related engagements include managing the environmental aspects of decommissioning a major steel foundry and assisting clients on regulatory compliance related to fugitive dust, which is an increasing environmental concern for many project developers.
A veteran and former U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer, Polly helped to found Women in Environment (WiE), an organization furthering professional development and opportunities for women in the environmental field.
