Roux Associates was approached jointly by two clients, an insurance company client and one of our industrial clients, to help them both settle a claim for environmental liabilities. Our two clients requested that we provide a fair and balanced estimate of past and future environmental costs at seven chemical plants. Roux agreed to take on the project with the understanding that we would not be involved in any subsequent insurance negotiations. All parties agreed to Roux’s role as a non-binding arbiter of environmental costs. A significant portion of this role involved differentiation of normal environmental compliance costs from costs associated with contamination of groundwater and off-site property. Roux performed site visits, reviewed records at company headquarters and at state regulatory offices, and developed site-specific environmental estimates to complete site clean-up to risk based standards. 

Within six months of being retained, Roux was successful in assisting the two parties in reaching an amicable settlement regarding several hundred million dollars worth of environmental costs. By sharing Roux Associates as a resource, both parties to the settlement saved millions in litigation costs and duplicative consulting costs, and a settlement was reached much sooner because both parties were starting from the same environmental cost estimate.