Brenda H. Gotanda, LEED AP

Biography:

Brenda Hustis Gotanda is a partner with Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox LLP, an environmental and energy law firm based in suburban Philadelphia. She is Co-Chair of the firm's Sustainability practice and is a LEED® Accredited Professional. Ms. Gotanda has over 18 years of experience in counseling and representing clients on a broad range of environmental, energy, land use, and health and safety matters. Her practice includes environmental aspects of business and real estate transactions, green building, sustainability, renewable energy and energy efficiency, due diligence, site remediation, brownfields redevelopment, risk management, spill prevention planning and emergency response, permitting, auditing, and defense of agency enforcement actions. She has handled a wide range of matters including those addressing the regulation of solid and hazardous waste, water quality and wastewater, air emissions, and chemical substances.

Brenda has represented and counseled a wide range of clients, including manufacturers, retailers, real estate developers and management companies, REITs, oil refineries, railroads, chemical companies, colleges, camps, municipalities and development authorities, in the following types of matters:

• 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, negotiating environmental insurance policy terms, and preparing institutional controls and environmental covenants;
• Development of 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");
• Green building legal agreements and LEED© certification;
• Purchase of alternative energy and drafting terms of power purchase agreement for retail chain;
• 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);
• Cross-cutting regulation of specific substances such as asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls ("PCBs"), and lead;
• Site remediation under federal and state cleanup programs, including securing remedial action consent decrees with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"), settling federal CERCLA and RCRA liability at EPA Superfund sites, negotiating administrative settlements for EPA removal actions, and securing liability protections through state voluntary cleanup programs such as Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ("PADEP") Buyer-Seller Agreements and Act 2 demonstrations of attainment;
• Defense of enforcement actions by federal, state, and local agencies, including responding to orders, information requests, penalty assessments, and cost recovery claims, and negotiating settlements;
• Development of environmental, health, and safety regulatory compliance programs and regulatory compliance auditing;
• Defense of Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA") enforcement actions;
• Permitting issues, including National Pollution Discharge Elimination System ("NPDES") discharge, wastewater pre-treatment, water allocation, Total Maximum Daily Load ("TMDL") development and implementation, wetlands, stormwater, waterfront development, soil erosion and sediment control, air emissions, hazardous waste treatment, sanitary landfill, etc.;
• Negotiation of innovative agreement under EPA’s Project XL to enable specialty chemical company to achieve better and more cost-effective environmental results under an alternative regulatory program; and
• Toxic Substances Control Act ("TSCA") pre-manufacture notification issues and new chemical registration requirements in the United States and foreign markets, including the European Union, Canada and Asia.
  

Ms. Gotanda is listed in The Best Lawyers® in America (2009-2011) and in Pennsylvania Super Lawyers® (2010, 2011) for environmental law. She is AV Preeminent Peer Review Rated through Martindale-Hubbell®. She was also listed in Pennsylvania Super Lawyers/Law & Politics as a "Pennsylvania Rising Star" (2005-2007) for environmental law and was listed in the Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly as a "Lawyer on the Fast Track" (2005). In 2009, MainLine Today listed her as a "Top Lawyer" in environmental law. Brenda was 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 actively involved in the community. She currently serves as Chairperson of the Radnor Township Environmental Advisory Council ("EAC"). In addition, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council ("DVGBC"). She is a founder and Director Emeritus of SWEP and served for seven years as Co-Chair of its Scholarship Committee. She has served as Co-Chair of the Environmental Law Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association and chaired its Public Service Subcommittee. In addition, 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.

Brenda has organized educational programs and been a frequent speaker on various environmental, energy, health, and safety topics, including green building, corporate sustainability reporting, green claims, water permitting and regulation, wetlands, impaired waters and TMDL development, OSHA compliance, asbestos and lead paint regulation, agency inspections and enforcement, brownfields redevelopment and site remediation, due diligence in corporate and real estate transactions, and waste management. She has 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.

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 BD+C)

Memberships:

• Bar admissions in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
• Delaware Valley Green Building Council
• Society of Women Environmental Professionals of Greater Philadelphia
• Radnor Township Environmental Advisory Council
• Philadelphia Bar Association
• American Bar Association, Sections Law Practice Management and Environment, Energy, and Resources
  

"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.