Linda R. Larson
Linda is a partner at Marten Law Group with over 25 years of environmental law and land use experience. Over the course of her career, she has managed numerous complex litigation matters on issues ranging from site remediation to endangered species, and has particular expertise with marine resources and endangered species and sediments issues.
Linda was previously a partner with Heller Ehrman in Seattle where she chaired the firm’s Northwest environmental practice, managing environmental attorneys in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska.
She received her J.D. from University of Washington Law School in 1978 and her B.A., magna cum laude, from University of Washington in 1975. After graduating, Linda served as staff counsel and aide to Senator Warren Magnuson on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and as an attorney with, and Special Assistant to the Deputy Administrator of, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
Linda is active in community affairs. She served on the Board of Trustees of the Seattle Public Library from 1997 to 2006 and was President of the Board in 2002 and 2003 during the design and construction of the internationally recognized Seattle Central Library. She is currently on the Boards of Directors of Public Radio International and Crosscut LLC, and on the Board of Trustees of the Seattle Public Library Foundation.
Representative Cases Include:
- Acted as lead counsel to ASARCO LLC, a former mining, smelting and refining company, to defend ASARCO in the first evidentiary estimation hearing in connection with the largest environmental bankruptcy case in United States history. The hearing, at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas, involved a $406 million dollar claim for response costs brought by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the State of Nebraska. Although the hearing took place in the summer of 2007, a ruling is still pending.
- Represented major fishing processing company in challenge to National Marine Fisheries Service allocations for multi-million dollar Bering Sea Pacific Cod Fishery.
- Acted as lead coordinating counsel for multiple fishing industry parties in the defense of a challenge under the Endangered Species Act involving steller sea lions and the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska fishery management plans; Greenpeace, American Oceans Campaign v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 237 F. Supp. 2d 1181 (W.D. Wash 2000), 106 F. Supp. 2d 1066 (W.D. Wash. 2000), 198 F.R.D. 540 (W.D. Wash. 2000), 80 F. Supp. 2d 1137 (W.D. Wash. 2000), 55 F. Supp. 2d 1248 (W.D. Wash. 1999).
- Represented a municipality in Eastern Washington in a cost-recovery and contribution action seeking to recover millions of dollars in remediation costs for a drinking water well field that was contaminated by solvents flowing from an adjacent military base. The site was deemed a federal Superfund site.
- Defended Alcoa, Inc. in the remediation of contaminated sediments and associated uplands at a former aluminum smelter along the Columbia River, including the negotiation of a consent decree under the Washington Model Toxics Control Act and resolution of allocation issues between client and other potentially liable parties.
- Represented a group of sports fishermen in successfully challenging a proposal by the City of Tacoma to double its diversion of water from the Green River. The Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board adopted the client’s position that Tacoma’s environmental impact statement failed to adequately consider the impacts of the diversion on steelhead and salmon habitat.