Douglas S. Arnold

Regulatory Compliance and Audits

• National environmental compliance counsel for six Fortune 500 companies with facilities in multiple locations in the United States.
• Conducted environmental compliance audits of client facilities in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, along with developing compliance strategies to address results and mitigate future potential liability from enforcement actions and citizen suits.
• Overseeing a multimedia compliance audit (e.g., wastewater, hazardous waste, and air emissions), including a two-day inspection of a food and beverage facility in California.
• Overseeing a wastewater compliance audit for a food and beverage research and development facility in Georgia.
• Defending a paper and pulp manufacturer against an enforcement action seeking suspension of wastewater discharges for prior repeated exceedances of permit limits, which if implemented, would result in a facility shutdown.
• Oversaw a compliance audit of wastewater and waste generation practices at a plastics fabrication facility in Iowa in a follow-up to an EPA Region 7 inspection as part of a pre-enforcement settlement of alleged violations.
• Implemented a compliance audit of a specialty automobile parts facility in Alabama in response to a Clean Water Act citizen suit letter. Used audit findings to negotiate a pre-litigation settlement with a corrective action plan to be implemented over 24-month period. No penalties or fines were given to the client.
• Oversaw the annual compliance audit of a construction equipment manufacturer’s operations in the United States for a three-year period as part of a settlement with EPA headquarters for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act.

Environmental Litigation

• Won summary judgment on Atlantic Research grounds in a CERCLA cost recovery suit involving past and future cleanup costs exceeding $400 million. The Eleventh Circuit upheld the dismissal on appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a subsequent petition for certiorari.
• Recovered 90% of all past and future cleanup costs, approximately $10 million, on behalf of a client following its purchase of a site with groundwater contamination caused by a prior owner’s operations in the 1970s.

Doug Arnold is the immediate past co-chair of the Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources Group. He has a national practice and over 30 years of experience representing clients in environmental and toxic tort litigation, along with regulatory compliance matters. Doug also defends clients in EPA and state enforcement matters involving CERCLA, the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), and RCRA.

Doug is recognized in Chambers USA, Who’s Who Legal: Environment, The Best Lawyers in America^® since 2007, and The International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers. In 2021, Doug was recognized by client counsel in Acritas Stars for outstanding service and in Lawdragon’s 500 Leading U.S. Environmental & Energy Lawyers guide. He is also a prior co-chair of the Environmental & Energy Litigation Committee of the ABA Section of Litigation and chair of the Environmental Enforcement and Crimes Committee of the ABA Section of Environment, Energy & Resources. Additionally, Doug is a prior chair of the Environmental Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia.

Doug currently serves on Alston & Bird’s Diversity Committee and previously served on the Hiring Committee.

Bar Admissions

• District of Columbia
• Georgia

Education

• University of Georgia (J.D., 1991)
• University of Virginia (B.A., 1988)