LLM prepares credible and thorough analyses of environmental liabilities and potential remediation costs for litigation and regulatory disputes.  We have worked with individual companies and various PRP groups to evaluate the magnitude, appropriateness, and evidence supporting various environmental costs.

Incurred Cost Reconstruction
LLM has utilized forensic accounting techniques to reconstruct and verify the investigation, remediation, and oversight costs at thousands of environmental sites.  Our experience in collecting data from a variety of corporate accounting and information systems allows us to quickly and efficiently obtain and assimilate relevant cost data.  We understand what drives environmental clean-up costs and how to provide credible supporting cost documentation.

Future Cost Quantification
LLM has significant experience analyzing and estimating both known and unknown potential future environmental liabilities. We have developed detailed, site-specific, activity-based estimates of future investigation and remediation costs, as well as more general industry-based studies for locations where site-specific data is limited. We have also developed and implemented template-based approaches that combine certain aspects of the “site-specific” and “top-down” approaches.

Agency Oversight Cost Analysis
Government methodologies for calculating direct and indirect agency oversight costs can result in significant billings over and above other site-specific costs. Because case law often limits a PRP’s options for reducing these bills, LLM takes a measured, proactive approach in assessing the cost/benefit of performing billing reviews and/or challenging cost billings. Based on our experience, we focus on the following:

  • Verify costs are incurred consistently with the National Contingency Plan (NCP)
  • Examine direct cost documentation to identify potential billing errors, including inadequate documentation, costs inappropriately assigned to the site, and activities not performed during known response period
  • Evaluate billings for double counting, mathematical errors, or other issues
  • Evaluate the appropriateness and methodology for allocating internal agency costs, determining overhead rates, non-response cost categories, and other issues that may influence claimed costs