Steve’s practice includes providing legal services to local government, energy, real estate development, natural resource, manufacturing and waste management companies in all aspects of environment and land use law.
Representative matters during the past several years include numerous administrative and judicial proceedings relating to hazardous waste and sanitary landfill issues, environmental impact statements and public hearings for the siting of major electric generating facilities, large commercial and industrial real estate developments, major industrial waste disposal facilities, harbor development projects, and research and development laboratories.
His experience includes:
- Securing all required local, State, and Federal approvals for a 1250 MW electric generating facility in Dover, NY, which will provide replacement power to the when the Indian Point nuclear facility closes.
- Counseling independent power producers on significant cogeneration, repowering, transmission and new electric generating facilities that ranged from 40 MW to 800 MW while the new generating facilities comprised 350 MW to 1,000 MW.
- Serving as lead counsel in state litigation contesting the denial of a permit to develop a regional commercial project, which was ultimately settled by selling hundreds of acres of prime tidal wetlands to the federal government, revising the municipal coastal zoning code, securing all state and federal permits, and developing the uplands.
- Representing a municipality bifurcated by a major road network where the state DOT would not pledge to replace five bridges connecting the municipality subsequent to a major roadway construction project;
- Securing state and federal permits for the continued operation of the largest hazardous waste treatment facility in the region with the action affirmed on appeal.
- Securing the necessary state and federal authorizations, along with the purchase of the state property rights, in order for the client to build the largest oil tanker off-loading facility in New York harbor.
- Representing County in the environmental reviews of a major upgrading of athletic facilities to accommodate the Goodwill Games and successfully defending the County in a suit attempting to block the Goodwill Games.
Steve previously served as a Deputy Attorney General in the State of New Jersey, representing the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Steve then served as Enforcement Counsel, Deputy Commissioner, and First Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. He has been involved in all aspects of environmental and land use law and has lectured extensively before professional organizations concerning environmental law and litigation.
