Dana B. Mehlman

Dana Mehlman helps companies manage environmental challenges that carry real operational and financial consequences.

With almost 25 years of experience in the environmental, health and safety, and sustainability fields, including almost a decade as an environmental engineer, she brings a practical, business-first approach to three principle areas: assessing risk associated with environmental contamination issues, the environmental components of commercial transactions, and compliance counseling.

Dana advises on matters involving due diligence, permitting, remediation, and contaminated property management. She evaluates environmental site assessments, reviews permits and regulatory records, and crafts the contract terms—representations, warranties, indemnities, insurance provisions, and disclosures—that support mergers and acquisitions involving complex environmental risk. She mitigates, prevents, and controls fines, external costs, and environmental risks by effectively confronting compliance and enforcement actions, addressing notices of violations, and leading settlement negotiations with state and federal environmental agencies regarding alleged EPCRA, FIFRA, CAA, CWA, and RCRA violations. Dana also guides clients through CERCLA matters from initial notice through long-term stewardship and each milestone between, and she counsels on wind energy projects, solid waste facility permitting, siting, and operations, and subsurface soil and groundwater concerns.

Before joining Vedder, Dana worked as an Environmental Manager for a major global fertilizer company and as an Environmental/Geotechnical Engineer at a global consulting, design, and construction services firm. She is a licensed Professional Engineer in Illinois and Georgia. 

Experience

• Advised Wynnchurch Capital on environmental risks and operational liabilities in its acquisition of Industrial Service Solutions, helping the firm evaluate compliance issues across a multi-facility industrial services platform.
• Guided Vance Street Capital’s portfolio company, Excel Scientific, through environmental analysis in its acquisition of Innovize, ensuring clear visibility into regulatory obligations affecting advanced medical manufacturing operations.
• Led environmental diligence for Resco Products in its sale to RHI Magnesita, assessing environmental liabilities across multiple U.S., U.K., and Canadian sites to support a smooth transaction.
• Directed environmental diligence for the Krause Group in its sale of Kum & Go and Solar Transport, evaluating fuel storage systems, environmental liabilities, and site-related compliance risks across a large multistate footprint.
• Resolved a significant USEPA Region 5 enforcement action by negotiating a Consent Agreement and Final Order that reduced the client’s proposed RCRA penalty from $460,875 to $20,000 with secured approval of an innovative Supplemental Environmental Project.
• Assessed manufacturing clients’ product lines for California Proposition 65 applicability and compliance and defended against enforcement claims, helping clients mitigate operational and reputational exposure.