Walter Mugdan

Walter served as Chair of the Environmental Law Section of the State Bar Association from 2006-2007.  He has been a member of the Executive Committee of that Section since 1985.  He was a Section officer from 2002 until 2007.  Previously he served as Chair of the Section’s Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Site Remediation Committees, and he has served three times as Chair of the Section’s Nominating Committee.  Mr. Mugdan has been employed since 1975 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2. Since 2017 he has served as Deputy Regional Administrator.  Prior to that, he served for ten years as director of the region’s Superfund and Brownfields programs. From 2002 – 2008 he served as Director of Environmental Planning & Protection, responsible for the region’s air, water, hazardous waste, pollution prevention and environmental assessment programs. Previously, Mr. Mugdan served as Regional Counsel since 1995. He joined EPA Region 2 in 1975 as a staff attorney, and subsequently served in various supervisory positions in the Office of Regional Counsel. Mr. Mugdan is a frequent lecturer and has authored numerous publications on environmental law and regulation. He was an Adjunct Professor at Pace University Law School teaching Superfund law (1991 – 1997); and served as Director of U.S. EPA’s annual Trial Advocacy Institute from 1992 to 2019.  He has lectured at many law schools, including Columbia, NYU, New York Law School, St. John’s, Hofstra, Rutgers, SUNY-Buffalo and the University of Michigan.  He earned his J.D. (1975) and his B.A. (1972) from the University of Michigan.  Since 2002 Mr. Mugdan has served as President of the Udalls Cove Preservation Committee, a local conservation group in northeastern Queens; and as President of the Westmoreland Association, a local homeowners association, also in northeastern Queens.