Smiland & Khachigian specializes in handling environmental matters on behalf of a wide variety of clients. The firm has experience in matters involving CERCLA, RCRA, the Hazardous Substances Account Act, Porter-Cologne, private cost recovery actions, nuisance and trespass as well as matters involving CEQA, NEPA air pollution and water rights. The firm has considerable experience advising clients regarding environmental due diligence in real estate and corporate transactions. In addition, the firm has represented clients in negotiations with regulatory agencies and other responsible parties and challenges to administrative orders, rulemakings and other actions of regulatory agencies. Despite its relatively small size, the firm has as much or more experience handling environmental matters than most of the largest firms in Los Angeles.

For example, the firm represents the Casmalia De Minimis Group, a group of over 180 de minimis parties, including several Fortune 100 companies, which allegedly sent wastes to the Casmalia disposal site in Santa Barbara County, California. The firm is responsible for coordinating and developing a group negotiating position and for negotiating the terms of a proposed administrative order on consent with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The firm has helped develop creative approaches to settlement including the use of private insurance to cover future risks at the site.

Christopher Foster, a partner at the firm, has represented potentially responsible parties in the Purity Oil Sales Superfund Site in Fresno, the San Fernando Valley North Hollywood Superfund Site, and the San Gabriel Valley Basin Superfund Site. He, along with other members of the firm, has represented concerned groups in many significant environmental matters. For example, the firm represents a group of twenty metal companies, the Alliance of Small Emitters/Metals Industry, in administrative proceedings before the South Coast Air Quality Management District regarding the landmark RECLAIM program, and challenged parts of that program on behalf of the Alliance and other entities in Alliance of Small Emitters/Metals Industry v. SCAQMD, 60 Cal.App.4th 55 (1997). The firm also represented thirteen manufacturers, three contractors and six dealers in litigation before the Air Resources Board and six air districts challenging rules limiting organic compound content of various paints. In that litigation, a California Court of Appeal upheld the rights of the entities to sue all of the defendants in one case. Three courts struck down the rules in three separate trials on CEQA grounds and a Court of Appeal upheld the challenges in Dunn Edwards Corp. v. BAAQMD, 9 Cal.App.4th 644 (1992). The firm is currently representing a group of paint manufacturers challenging EPA's 1995 study and listing of the volatile organic compound emissions from consumer and commercial products and its 1998 architectural coatings rule, in a series of cases including Allied Local and Regional Manufacturers v. EPA (D.C. Cir. 1998).

For over twenty years, members of the firm have also represented groups of farmers in the Westlands Water District (the nation's largest reclamation contractor) in various water rights and related environmental matters, including Barcellos and Wolfsen, Inc. v. Westlands Water District, 491 F.Supp. 263 (E.D.Cal. 1980) and Westlands Water District v. U.S., 700 F.2d 561 (9th Cir. 1983) (represented group of farmers in dispute regarding priority rights to hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water); Barcellos and Wolfsen, Inc. v. Westlands Water District, 899 F.2d 814 (9th Cir. 1990) (represented group of landowners owning about 31,000 acres of land in dispute over increase in water rates); Sumner Peck Ranch, Inc. v. Bureau of Reclamation, 823 F.Supp. 715 (E.D.Cal. 1993) (represented about 150 landowners owning about 37,000 acres of land in dispute regarding drainage of lands); Barcellos and Wolfsen, Inc. v. Westlands Water District, 849 F.Supp. 717 (E.D.Cal. 1993) affirmed sub nom. O'Neill v. U.S., 50 F.3d 677 (9th Cir. 1995) (represented group of farmers owning about 60,000 acres of land in case involving involuntary reallocation of access to water based on various alleged environmental concerns); and Westlands Water District v. Department of Interior, 850 F.Supp. 1388 (E.D.Cal. 1994) (represented various clients owning about 15,000 acres of land in dispute regarding cut-off of water).

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