Mr. Barger’s practice focuses on environmental, land use, natural resources, regulatory, and zoning law. He has experience representing clients both in court and before administrative agencies such as the Ohio EPA and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Prior work experience includes employment by companies in the mining and gas industries. Mr. Barger is a member of the National Stone Sand & Gravel Association’s Council of Counsels, the Ohio Aggregates and Industrial Minerals Association, the Ohio Farm Bureau’s Healthy Water Ohio work group, the Ohio Forestry Association, the Ohio Water Resources Advisory Group and the American, Ohio State and Columbus Bar Associations.

John Gardella is a co-owner of CMBG3 Law and a trial attorney with over 19 years of environmental litigation experience and over 75 cases tried to verdict. He is chair of the firm’s PFAS practice group and represents companies in PFAS litigation, including class action, pollution, injury and medical monitoring cases. He represents a defendant in the AFFF MDL, as well as companies involved in PFAS litigation in state and federal courts. For his work in environmental and PFAS related matters, Mr. Gardella was recognized in 2023 as one of the top 20 environmental lawyers in Massachusetts. In addition to his litigation work, Mr. Gardella guides companies through PFAS compliance needs, including compliance with state-level product reporting obligations, TSCA and TRI reporting, and numerous other U.S. federal, state and E.U. specific PFAS regulations. He assists companies with risk assessment efforts related to PFAS, including developing diligence programs internally to minimize future compliance and litigation risks. Mr. Gardella is a frequent speaker and author on the subject of PFAS, and is regularly sought after for his thought leadership by media, including Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

Dr. Sawyer is a professor with The Ohio State University, School of Earth Sciences. Her main areas of expertise include hydrogeology, surface water-groundwater interactions, and coastal hydrology. Dr. Sawyer and her research group focus on understanding interactions between surface water and groundwater in streams, rivers, estuaries, and coasts. The team also focuses on determining hydrologic controls on the movement of nutrients, contaminants, and heat in watersheds. Dr. Sawyer earned her Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin.

Mr. Smith’s interest in ground water (groundwater) dates back to his teenage years when, while pulling and setting pumps for his father’s rural Ohio plumbing business, he literally had the black and brown products of well microorganisms on his hands. Later, that experience led to his pioneering work in the application of biofouling testing methods in groundwater system analysis. He also listened to the water cascading in the rock wells of his Ohio home country and wondered about the flow of water underground. Today, Mr. Smith is one the nation’s foremost experts on the diagnosis and treatment of well problems and performance deterioration, and well and wellfield asset management. He is a Certified Ground Water Professional (CGWP) by the National Ground Water Association, a Registered Geologist with the Commonwealth of Kentucky (he would have an Ohio registration if there were one), and has been consulting in the ground water field since 1983. In addition to his consulting career, he has also worked for the National Water Well Association (now NGWA), developed the curriculum and instructed ground water science and technology at Wright State University (where he developed portions of the WSU IRIS distance-learning hydrogeology training program), and taught biology courses and advised hydrogeological engineering projects at Ohio Northern University. Mr. Smith has spoken on well maintenance and asset management, rehabilitation, and microbiology topics in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England, Tanzania, Slovenia, Jordan, and throughout North America. In recent years, he has become active in the effort to equip professional water sector capabilities and to develop water supplies in Tanzania and other developing countries. He is currently also a partner in a water management and construction company, Ground+Water Tanzania Ltd. and its Ohio-corporation affiliate Earth Water Services Africa LLC. Mr. Smith is the author or co-author of numerous works, including contributions to well maintenance and rehabilitation practice, most recently in book form, he and Allen Comeskey have contributed Sustainable Wells: Maintenance, Problem Prevention, and Rehabilitation (CRC Press). He is also a coauthor of both the 1992 Australian Drilling Manual and the 1997 edition of its successor, Drilling (CRC Press), a major contributor to AWWA’s Manual M21, Groundwater (two editions) and ASCE’s recent Hydraulics of Wells text, and a principal author-editor of NGWA’s Manual of Water Well Construction Practices, as well as contributing to the Water Well Journal, National Driller, GeoDrilling International and other publications. Mr. Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree with majors in Biology and Earth Science from Wittenberg University in 1977 and a Master of Science (MS) degree from The Ohio State University in 1984.