Joseph Middleton
Email - Joseph Middleton
Phone - 303/382-2906
Joseph Middleton joined Temkin Wielga & Hardt in 2005. His practice embraces all the firm's areas of specialty, including environmental concerns associated with property development and transactions, environmental due diligence, environmental compliance and environmental and natural resources litigation. Joe focuses particularly on commercial transactions involving complex environmental issues and matters arising under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Clean Water Act. With other members of the firm, Joe has represented clients in multi-million dollar CERCLA response cost actions, Natural Resource Damages actions and enforcement proceedings under both state and federal laws.
Joe received his undergraduate education from Tulane University and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He earned his J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law in 2004, where he received the Florence Scrivner Memorial Scholarship and the Scholastic Excellence Award in Natural Resource Law. While at DU he served as a technical editor for the Denver Journal of International Law and Policy.
Representative Matters
- Defended a major U.S. mining company in a CERCLA case arising out of historic uranium mining operations on Native American lands in Washington State, and obtained a judgment of liability against the United States based on its own status as an owner of the site.
- Advised a private equity company on environmental concerns associated with the acquisition and cleanup of contaminated real property transferred in the $70 million purchase of a major U.S. drilling company.
- Advises the fiduciary of an estate owning real property contaminated by dry cleaning operations on environmental matters associated with the cleanup of the property.
- Advises a major international mining company on its obligations, under a foreign investment contract, to divest shares of its subsidiary operating a copper and gold mine in Asia.
- Jointly advises a PRP group in ongoing negotiations with federal and state authorities implementing a $23 million CERCLA cleanup at a former mining site in Nevada.
- Advised a foreign private equity company on the potential acquisition of rights to develop a wind energy project on Native American lands in South Dakota.
- Represented a local electronics recycling firm in an administrative enforcement action initiated by the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment.
- Advised a banking client regarding environmental risks related to foreclosure on a property contaminated by an adjacent Superfund site.
Publications
- Bull Mountain Pipeline Decision Provides Test Case for Roadless Rule Interpretation, 21 Rocky Mtn. Landman 3 (2008).
- The Television Without Frontiers Directive and Cultural Protectionism, 31 DEN. J. INT'L LAW & POL'Y 607 (2003).