Land Use & Environmental Law
For 50 years, the lawyers of Murray Plumb & Murray have successfully guided their clients through the maze of environmental land use and regulation. Long before other Maine law firms began exploring environmental law, our attorneys acquired extensive experience dealing with all of the major local, state, and federal regulatory agencies.
Land use regulation is a dangerous territory to explore without an experienced guide. It requires specialized and comprehensive knowledge even to know which agencies have jurisdiction over a project or property – let alone what permits are needed or what regulations are controlling.
This is where we can be uniquely helpful. We know the territory. We have assisted our clients in obtaining land use permits for everything from a backyard deck to a series of multi-million dollar power plants. Whether it be a swimming pool or shopping center, single-family home or entire subdivision, private landing or public marina, ham radio antenna or regional telecommunications network, septic system or commercial gravel pit, we have helped build them all.
We’ve also defended our clients in actions ranging from prosecutions for violating municipal setback regulations to potentially crippling Superfund clean-up suits. We’ve resolved claims including illegally-filled wetlands, leaking underground storage tanks, illegal subdivisions, hazardous wastes at an abandoned tannery, gasoline contamination of water supplies, and myriad zoning violations. Our lawyers handle site remediation, represent parties in environmental clean-up litigation under Superfund and Maine state clean up laws, defend companies penalized for violating environmental standards, advise companies on how to comply with complicated environmental regulations, and represent developers on brownfield redevelopment matters.
Our experienced practitioners have helped navigate – and even create – the new regulatory world in which energy and environmental issues converge. We’ve worked with clients to develop complex renewable energy projects from project finance, construction, and permitting to energy generation and purchase; launch electric vehicle programs; and develop green building projects.
Whatever land use problem you face, odds are overwhelming we’ve seen and solved it many times. Before embarking on a development project or replying to a regulatory agency, call us first.