Brenda Hustis Gotanda

Biography:

Brenda Hustis Gotanda is a partner with Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox LLP. Her practice includes environmental counseling and representation of clients in matters relating to environmental, health and safety, energy, and land use law. Brenda has represented a wide range of clients, including industrial manufacturers, national retailers, real estate developers and management companies, REITs, oil refineries and chemical companies, colleges, camps, and industrial and municipal coalitions.

Brenda advises clients on matters relating to solid and hazardous waste regulation, sustainability, green building, alternative energy, site remediation and brownfield redevelopment, water pollution control regulation (including National Pollution Discharge Elimination System ("NPDES") permitting, the Total Maximum Daily Load ("TMDL") program, storm water, and wetlands), Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA") issues, spill prevention planning and emergency response, risk management planning, air emission control, Toxic Substances Control Act ("TSCA") issues, and the cross-cutting regulation of specific substances such as asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls ("PCBs"), and lead. Brenda represents clients in negotiating business and real estate transactions and in performing environmental due diligence. She also assists clients in regulatory compliance and permitting matters as well as auditing. Brenda defends clients in enforcement actions by federal, state, and local agencies, including responding to orders, information requests, and cost recovery claims. Her representative matters include the following:

• representing and counseling clients in complex transactions for the purchase and sale of businesses and real estate, including contract negotiation, due diligence, permit transfers, securing pre-acquisition environmental liability protections under federal and state programs, negotiating insurance policy terms, and preparing deed notices, institutional controls, and environmental covenants;
• developing cleanup compliance strategies for industrial clients at operating facilities and at waste disposal sites to address historic contamination under state and federal cleanup authorities, including the Pennsylvania Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act ("Act 2"), New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act ("Spill Act") and Industrial Site Recovery Act ("ISRA"), and the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act ("CERCLA") and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA");
• representing and counseling clients involved in emergency spill response, including regulatory compliance and reporting obligations, and working with clients in developing spill prevention and response plans (e.g., SPCC, SPRP, DPCC, EAP, ICP, etc);
• representing and counseling clients in numerous successful site remediation cases under various federal and state cleanup programs, including securing favorable remedial action consent decrees with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") for several clients, settling their federal CERCLA and RCRA liability at EPA Superfund sites, negotiating administrative settlements for multiple EPA removal actions, and securing liability protections for clients through state voluntary cleanup programs such as Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ("PADEP") Buyer-Seller Agreements and Act 2 demonstrations of attainment;
• counseling and assisting manufacturing and refining clients in the development of environmental, health, and safety regulatory compliance programs, and conducting and providing legal support for regulatory compliance audits and inspections;
• representing and counseling an industrial and municipal coalition in negotiations with a river basin commission regarding development of PCB TMDLs and water quality standards;
• helping clients obtain and negotiate the terms of environmental insurance policies including pollution legal liability and cost-cap insurance;
• representing clients and achieving favorable settlements in a range of enforcement actions brought by state and federal environmental agencies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey with respect to a wide variety of environmental regulatory programs;
• representing clients in response to OSHA enforcement actions and negotiating favorable settlements related to hazard communication, HAZWOPER, emergency action planning, guarding, process safety management, asbestos, and other issues;
• representing and counseling clients in a wide range of permitting issues, including NPDES discharge, wastewater pre-treatment, water allocation, wetlands, waterfront development, soil erosion and sediment control, air emissions, hazardous waste treatment, sanitary landfill, etc.;
• representing a specialty chemical company in successfully negotiating an innovative agreement with EPA that enabled the client to achieve superior and more cost-effective environmental results under an alternative regulatory program (Project XL); and
• counseling a specialty chemical company on TSCA pre-manufacture notification issues and new chemical registration requirements in the United States and a variety of foreign markets, including the European Union, Canada and Asia.

Brenda has organized educational programs and been a frequent speaker on various environmental, health, and safety topics, including green building, water permitting and regulation, wetlands, impaired waters and TMDL development, OSHA compliance, asbestos and lead paint regulation, preparing for and handling agency inspections and enforcement, brownfields redevelopment and site remediation, due diligence in corporate and real estate transactions and waste management. She has also published numerous articles in law journals, trade journals, and newspapers and was a contributing author to the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry OSHA Handbook and to the Matthew Bender treatise The Law of Hazardous Waste: Management, Cleanup, Liability and Litigation.

 

Brenda is listed in The Best Lawyers® in America and has received several other recognitions, including being named as a "Pennsylvania Rising Star" by Pennsylvania Super Lawyers/Law & Politics magazine in 2007, 2006, and 2005 and being selected as a "Lawyer on the Fast Track" by the Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly in 2005. Brenda was also honored by the Society of Women Environmental Professionals of Greater Philadelphia ("SWEP") and presented with its Touchstone Award for significant contributions to the environmental field in 2001.

Brenda is an active member of her community and is currently serving her second term as chairperson of the Radnor Township Environmental Advisory Committee. She is a founder and director emeritus of SWEP, a non-profit organization formed as a resource for women in the environmental professions, and has served for many years as co-chair of its Scholarship Committee. She has also served as co-chair of the Environmental Law Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association and chaired its Public Service Subcommittee. Brenda served several terms as a vice chair for the Committee on Innovation, Management Systems and Trading for the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources ("SEER") and was a member of the Editorial Board of Trends, a SEER publication. She served several terms on the Board of Directors of Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Philadelphia and as co-chair of its Programs Committee. In addition, she was counselor to and an executive committee member of the Delaware Valley Environmental American Inn of Court.

Education and Certifications:

• University of Texas School of Law, J.D., with honors, 1993
• University of London and the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (London, UK), course work in international legal studies, 1992
• Boston College, B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1990
• LEED® Accredited Professional (LEED AP)

Memberships:

• Bar admissions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, District of Columbia, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, District of New Jersey
• American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources
• Pennsylvania Bar Association, Environmental, Mineral, and Natural Resources Law Section
• Philadelphia Bar Association, Environmental Law Committee
• Society of Women Environmental Professionals of Greater Philadelphia
• Commercial Real Estate Women, Philadelphia Chapter

"LEED Accredited Professional" and related acronym, and the LEED AP logo are trademarks owned by the U.S. Green Building Council and awarded to individuals under license by the Green Building Certification Institute.