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Course Details

Course Information
  • smart_display Format

    On-Demand

  • signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level

  • work Practice Area

    Environmental

Date & Time
  • event Date

    Wednesday, August 17, 2022

  • schedule Time

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

  • timer Program Length

    90 minutes

Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

$297.00
CLE
ALL

This CLE course will provide environmental counsel with an overview of the recent science, regulatory developments, and practical guidance assessing risks and liabilities related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Discussion will include recent precedent-setting cases and developing legislation and regulations that will impact PFAS investigations, remediation, and potential liability.

Faculty

Matt Thurlow
Partner, Co-Chair Environmental Team
BakerHostetler

Mr. Thurlow is an environmental litigator with significant experience in environmental matters brought under the Clean Air Act, CERCLA, Clean Water Act and RCRA. He formerly served in the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice where he acted as lead counsel on a variety of civil enforcement matters, including a major Clean Water Act case against the city of Memphis, Tennessee, several Superfund cases, and several Clean Air Act matters involving power plants and oil refineries. He is a frequent writer and speaker.

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Stephen Zemba
Project Director
Sanborn Head & Associates, Inc

Dr. Zemba has over three decades of experience nationally as an environmental consulting specialist in the area of health risk assessment. His expertise includes assessing the transport and risks of environmental chemicals. Dr. Zemba holds a B.S. from Carnegie‐Mellon University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in the field of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Zemba also teaches university‐level courses on air quality management and air pollution control.

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Russ Abell
Vice President
Sanborn Head & Assoc., Inc

Mr. Abell has over 20 years of experience nationally focusing on hydrogeology and fate and transport analysis. His experience includes consulting expert roles for fate and transport analysis in retail petroleum sites, product liability matters, and chlorinated solvent plume sites in overburden and fractured bedrock settings. Mr. Abell’s recent focus includes fate and transport analysis of PFAS in groundwater impacting municipal public water supply wells and remedial design to address PFAS-contaminated groundwater. He holds a B.A. in geology from Amherst College and an M.S. in geology from Virginia Tech University.  Mr. Abell manages more than 30 staff servicing clients in the areas of environmental due diligence, site assessment, remediation, and vapor intrusion assessment and mitigation.

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Description

PFAS continue to make headlines as numerous states are implementing strict new regulations of the chemicals and USEPA has begun implementing various regulatory processes including working towards draft maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). PFAS include a class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals used for decades in firefighting foams, food packaging, stain- and water-repellent fabrics, dental floss, nonstick cookware, and many other consumer and industrial products, and are widely being found throughout the environment.

EPA recently released a Roadmap in October 2021 for implementing its PFAS Action Plan, and recently issued new health advisories for drinking water, decreasing the levels for PFOA and PFOS by several orders of magnitude – well below levels that labs are capable of detecting. EPA also established health advisories for PFBS and GenX, which are short-chain compounds still widely in use. Hazardous substance designations, primary drinking water standards, surface water standards, wastewater discharge limits, and other regulations are likely in the near future, which will likely require national investigations and treatment/remediation for PFAS, and possibly disrupt PFAS regulatory programs already initiated by some states. Accompanying these regulatory initiatives are recognized needs and provision for funding to pay for the billions of dollars of treatment infrastructure and costs that will be necessary to address PFAS. In addition, federal and state regulators are moving aggressively to ban PFAS in consumer products, including food packaging.

Listen as our authoritative panel of environmental law experts discusses the most recent federal and state regulation of PFAS and provides practical guidance for practitioners to help advise and limit client exposure across industries.

Outline

  1. PFAS overview
  2. Recent science
  3. Litigation
  4. State regulation of PFAS
  5. Practical guidance: assessing risks and liabilities
  6. Future trends

Benefits

The panel will review these and other essential issues:

  • What is the latest science regarding PFAS?
  • What should companies and counsel do to ensure compliance with differing state standards for PFAS?
  • What new federal regulation of PFAS is EPA considering?
  • What types of legal claims are PFAS defendants facing from government and private litigation?
  • What steps should environmental counsel take to minimize the litigation and regulatory risks of PFAS?