Robert Smith is an environmental lawyer focusing on air pollution, toxic tort litigation and regulatory matters. Through in-depth scientific technical knowledge and legal skill, he assists clients in a broad range of environmental issues.

Mr. Smith’s experience in cross-examining expert witnesses in scientific and engineering matters provides value-added service in litigation involving environmental damage (primarily the effects of industrial pollution), air and water pollution. He deals with permitting, the environmental aspects of planning and zoning approvals, and has extensive experience addressing technical and scientific issues in toxic tort litigation.

For more than 25 years, his environmental regulatory work has emphasized new source review, PSD and Title V requirements of the Clean Air Act on behalf of various electric utility and industrial clients.

Mr. Smith’s civil damage litigation has covered alleged environmental and personal injury from industrial emissions and occupational exposures, as well as toxic tort litigation involving chemical and asbestos exposures. He also has extensive experience litigating the design and environmental impact assessments of landfills.

A select overview of Mr. Smith’s work includes:

A. Air Permitting, Regulation Development and Compliance

• For more than 20 years prior to the bankruptcy and sale of Bethlehem Steel’s largest plant in Sparrows Point, Maryland, he was primarily responsible for all air permitting, compliance and regulation development work. This included multiple challenges to EPA’s approvals of SIPs affecting the plant, formal commenting on numerous air regulations, negotiated rewriting of the State’s air regulations applicable to the steel industry, securing numerous permits, and defending the company on compliance matters.
• In the 1980s and 1990s, he created and managed, along with Venable’s other environmental attorneys, a trade group that included most of Maryland’s heavy industry facilities.  For this group, he was principally involved in commenting on, and negotiating changes in, a significant number of proposed State regulations, including those involving Title V, new source review, NOx budgets, a permitting program for broad air toxics, and VOC control requirements.
• From the 1970s until its sale to Alcoa, Mr. Smith represented the Eastalco Aluminum Reduction Plant in Frederick, Maryland on all its air-related environmental matters including: the wholesale rewriting of Maryland fluoride emission standards; PSD permitting of a new reduction line and many less extensive plant modifications; and the defense against litigation filed by area farmers alleging farm animal, crop and personal health damages from fluoride emissions.
• For many years, Mr. Smith successfully represented Rockville Crushed Stone (a Montgomery County, Maryland quarry) in repeated, extensive and highly-publicized efforts by EPA, Maryland, and NIOSH to curtail its operations due to the presence of naturally occurring asbestos in its stone. He became highly familiar with the extensive literature on the identification, measurement, toxicology, epidemiology and exposure assessment methods applicable to asbestos. His successes led to subsequent involvement in asbestos tort litigation (dealing primarily with the cross-examination of expert witnesses on exposure, toxicology and risk assessment).
• More recently, Mr. Smith represented a large Maryland stone quarry against highly publicized charges that crystalline silica emissions from its facilities were causing cancer in nearby neighborhoods. His work defending against those claims involved extensive analysis of the silica exposure and toxicology literature, site-specific air dispersion modeling and the development of risk assessments to characterize the actual risks.
• Since 1982,he has represented the Virgin Islands Water & Power Authority on all major air matters, involving numerous PSD and NSPS approvals by Region 2, and the defense against many EPA enforcement actions. On behalf of the Authority, he drafted and helped secure passage of a provision in the 1990 Clean Air Act authorizing the EPA Administrator to waive certain CAA requirements applicable to the Authority, and he has secured such waivers on its behalf. He also has represented the Authority in negotiating a global settlement involving numerous alleged violations of the CWA, the CAA and RCRA.

• A large iron foundry in air compliance matters at facilities in New Jersey, New York, Alabama, Utah and Ohio.
• A national chemical manufacturer in air permits and compliance for plants in Illinois and Louisiana.
• The region’s largest medical waste incinerator in securing air permits, developing comments on proposed EPA regulations and negotiating a consent order.
• A major Maryland poultry manufacturer in an EPA enforcement action related to water discharges and pfiesteria.
• A major manufacturer of power generation equipment in a threatened New York State enforcement action alleging violations of noise emission standards.
• A pulp and paper manufacturer in its air permitting, and in defense of allegations of PSD violations by EPA Region 3.
• A Maryland glass manufacturing facility.
• Marriott Corporation in its air permitting for a hotel in the Virgin Islands.
• A W.R. Grace chemical plant (air permitting) and a yeast manufacturing facility (air permitting, and water allocation and discharge matters), both in Baltimore; and the permitting of several Maryland power generating stations, including a major facility permitted for Reliant Energy.
• A national quarry and cement manufacturing company in connection with quarrying operations in Western Maryland.
• A Maryland acoustical and electric guitar manufacturer, in its air-permitting requirements.
• Aluminum reduction facilities in South Carolina and Washington, in air permitting matters.

• Early in his practice, Mr. Smith handled all expert witnesses and technical issues (dispersion modeling, emission and exposure assessments, and biological impacts) in a suit against Westvaco Pulp and Paper.  It alleged widespread damage to Christmas tree farms in Western Maryland. Two public utilities were co-defendants in that case.
• Adjudicatory hearing challenges to permitting and design characteristics of two public landfills (involving technical groundwater monitoring, modeling issues, and scientific analysis of the efficacy of various landfill designs and liner materials).
• Defense of a pizza manufacturer in an EPA enforcement action under CERCLA and EPCRA for an ammonia release, and various reporting requirements.
• Defense of Bell Helicopter (Fort Worth, Texas) in an EPA enforcement action for alleged NESHAP violations.
• Defense of the environmental manager of a major refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas in a federal criminal enforcement action alleging violation of NESHAP requirements.
• Defense of a Region 2 enforcement action against Eco-Electrica, a new power plant in Puerto Rico co-owned by Edison Mission Energy and Enron, for alleged violations of NSPS requirements.
• Responsibility for the technical scientific and regulatory aspects in defending a threatened criminal enforcement action against a national asbestos abatement company for alleged violations of NESHAP regulations governing asbestos removal projects.
• Responsibility for the technical issues in defending Bethlehem Steel in a citizens’ suit brought by a national environmental group alleging thousands of violations of Bethlehem’s NPDES permits.
• Representation of Reynolds Metals in a class action brought in federal court in New York for alleged health, vegetation and human health damages from the fluoride and hydrocarbon emissions of one of its aluminum reduction plants. Mr. Smith also represented Reynolds in discussions with German air officials in Hamburg about potential effects on vegetation from fluoride emissions from a new aluminum plant.
• Representation of Anaconda Aluminum (then owned by Atlantic Richfield) in a suit brought by the Justice Department, alleging that emissions from its aluminum reduction plant caused extensive damage to Glacier National Park’s forest. Mr. Smith handled the only deposition taken in the case, of the Government’s lead causation expert, which resulted in a favorable settlement shortly thereafter.

• In the 1980s, Mr. Smith was the Venable attorney primarily responsible for all expert witnesses and technical issues in two multi-plaintiff tort lawsuits filed by employees of a tire manufacturing facility. Plaintiffs alleged a broad range of cancerous and non-cancerous diseases had been caused by hundreds of chemicals used to make tires.  The case involved exposure and epidemiologic evaluations, as well as expert witnesses, for all those diseases and chemicals. This sparked Mr. Smith’s keen interest in the appropriate elements of proof of causation in toxic tort settings and an understanding of the common misunderstanding and misapplication of causation requirements in much of toxic tort case law.
• Mr. Smith’s scientific knowledge of asbestos, gained by representing Rockville Crushed Stone, and issues relating to proof of causation from the tire-maker’s litigation, led to extensive work with expert witnesses in numerous asbestos toxic tort cases. This in turn yielded a familiarity with numerous experts and the extensive literature relating to their testimony on epidemiologic, exposure assessment, risk assessment and causation. As a result, he has amassed a significant electronic archive of witness articles and testimony transcripts.