Maritime Expert Witness Services - Services - Environmental Issues

The owners of a former shipyard in a riverside urban location wanted to sell the property for development as a large shopping center, but first faced significant costs for environmental remediation. The site's sellers turned to Fisher Maritime to define which other parties may have had partial responsibility for the site contamination in order to share the clean-up costs. Fisher Maritime analyzed the historical records of work performed at the shipyard site, including ship construction and ship scrapping. Fisher Maritime's personnel testified in state court to identify the sources of the various contaminants and to identify the parties that brought those contaminants to the site. That testimony, coupled with that of experts in other fields, was instrumental in a favorable ruling from the court for Fisher Maritime's client, the shipyard, as to allocation of costs among several parties.

Fisher Maritime provided expert witness services to one of four parties litigating over the remediation of a portion of a former US Government shipyard developed during WWII. Fisher Maritime provided an expert report that combined its insight of the maritime industry and the documentary evidence from the files that thoroughly discussed the history of the site inclusive of ownership, occupancy, and the industrial uses of the site. Fisher Maritime's report linked all the identified major site contaminants to various ship-related activities as appropriate. The history of the site, as researched and described by Fisher Maritime, was more complete and comprehensive than prior site histories; it was sufficient to give the four involved parties a basis for allocation of the site remediation costs without further litigation.