Environmental & Land Use

Wisconsin Environmental Law Attorneys

Garvey McNeil & Associates' Environmental & Land Use attorneys have significant knowledge and experience and a track record of success in protecting the land, air and water pollution. We provide a unique combination of political and legal experience that positions us to provide unparalleled representation for individuals, citizens' groups, environmental organizations, tribal interests, and local governments when their health and property values are threatened by pollution.

Our experience includes successful cases before the Public Service Commission, the Environmental Quality Board, circuit courts, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, and in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Our legal team also includes the former director of the Nature Conservancy, who provides unparalleled representation to clients seeking to protect natural areas from development while maximizing the financial benefits from those transactions.

Ensuring Clean Air

• Representing two nonprofit environmental groups, we filed suit and forced a large coal-fired power plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to reduce its air pollution emissions and comply with the Clean Air Act.
• We represented a citizen group before the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and defeated a proposal to spend rate payers' money to build a large, polluting, coal-fired power plant that would have been the most expensive power plant in the country.
• We successfully enforced the Clean Air Act against a coal-fired plant in the middle of downtown Madison, requiring pollution controls and significant reductions in pollution emissions.
• We successfully represented an environmental organization in securing significant pollution reductions from a coal plant in Kentucky and we are helping clients in Iowa, Michigan, Indiana and Kansas fight for cleaner air by reducing power plant pollution.
• We have represented Sierra Club, Clean Wisconsin, the grassroots organization SOUL (Save Our Unique Lands), and the Madison Chapter of the Audubon Society in challenging electric transmission lines and coal-fired power plants before regulatory agencies.

Ensuring Clean Water

• Our attorneys represented a grassroots organization in successfully enforcing the Clean Water Act when a large utility company illegally discharged toxics into the Wisconsin River.
• We successfully represented an organization fighting an industrial food processor for illegal phosphorous discharges into an important local fishery.
• We defeated an unlawful decision by the Department of Natural Resources' that would have allowed an international corporation to pump massive amount of groundwater and deplete an important local fishery.
• On behalf of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, the Sierra Club, 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, Clean Wisconsin, and the River Alliance of Wisconsin, we successfully challenged an unconstitutional law that would have allowed a large corporation to destroy protected wetlands.
• We represented the Town of Nashville and numerous environmental groups and individuals in successfully preventing a mine in Crandon, Wisconsin, that would have located a toxic mining practice at the headwaters of the Wolf River
• We have successfully represented numerous individuals when their properties were contaminated by others. Through our understanding of the laws and the technical issues involved, we were able to obtain new water systems, money damages, and clean-up of contaminated wells and sites for our clients.

Ensuring Environmentally Sound Land Use

• We successfully represented numerous organizations and neighbors in preventing factory farms that would have located thousands of animals near houses and schools without adequate health protections.
• We have helped our clients prevent harmful effects from improperly sited ethanol plants that would have spewed air emissions into sensitive areas.
• We have been successful in preventing "big box stores," gravel pits, highways and other unsuitable land uses in neighborhoods and important natural areas.
• Our experienced attorneys have assisted landowners on legal matters such easements, annexations, condemnation, and eminent domain issues.

If you have a complex land use, clean air, or clean water legal matter with which you need assistance, let the law firm of Garvey McNeil & Associates, S.C., help you. Our attorneys have over 100 years of combined experience making sure the environment and our clients' rights are protected.Contact our office by phone at 608.256.1003 to speak with one of our lawyers.