Environmental Consultants and the Law: The Changing Role and Professional Liabilities of Geoscientists in Today's Oil and Gas Industry

Thomas W. Clawson

The oil and gas industry is undergoing extensive changes in response to economic and regulatory forces. Accompanying those changes, the role of geoscientists in the industry also is changing. Along with their more traditional roles as finders and producers of petroleum, today's geoscientists also provide important services as environmental consultants.

Environmental professionals increasingly are called upon by companies, lending institutions, and governmental regulatory bodies to investigate and assess the possible contamination of properties, and to advise on such matters as a company's past or present compliance with both state and federal environmental laws. Occasionally, environmental consultants are called to testify as expert witnesses in courts or before administrative bodies. Concomitant with these new developing roles is the liability that environmental professionals face if mistakes are made and damages result. Depending on the situation, such damages can be extensive and their imposition ruinous.

To protect themselves from exposure to liability, environmental professionals should be knowledgeable about the risks involved and the professional standards of care required in providing professional opinions, as well as the limits to reducing their liability through contractual arrangements. In addition, geoscientists who testify as expert witnesses should be aware of the changing nature of expert scientific testimony that has resulted from recent court decisions. This paper will describe and discuss some of the legal ramifications of practicing as an environmental consultant and how such environmental professionals can avoid some of the accompanying legal pitfalls.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91020©1995 AAPG Annual Convention, Houston, Texas, May 5-8, 1995