Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990                   TAG: 9004110483
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/10   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RALEIGH, N.C.                                LENGTH: Medium

SOUTH RANKED LAST ON ENVIRONMENT

The "green index," a report released this week by the Durham-based Institute for Southern Studies, examined 35 indicators of pollution, public health, workplace safety and environmental safety. Virginia ranked 39th on the list.

The top five states were Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Alabama was at the bottom, with six of its Southern neighbors.

George Hamilton, state planning director in Vermont, said the ranking "reflects the environmental policies that have been passed over the last number of years. There is a strong environmental ethic in the state. It's a bipartisan ethic that has been around for 20 years."

But Ned Farquhar, acting director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, said he was surprised that Vermont ranked No. 1.

"Our laws aren't that strong and our budget is pitifully low for environmental protection," Farquhar said. "But the people in our towns all care a lot about the environment so I really think it all comes back to individual action."

The study ranked the 50 states on a per-capita basis and other factors that would minimize differences in population size. The report was based on studies conducted in the mid- to late 1980s, most of them for the federal government, said Bob Hall, research director for the non-profit, independent institute and the study's author.

The study focused on the South and concluded that the region has become the nation's biggest waste dump, handling two-thirds of the nation's hazardous waste.

The bottom five states were Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Hall said Alabama brought up the rear because of "a combination of having some significant problems and not having policies, being slow in implementing good policies."

Environmental officials in Alabama do not have enough information to judge the report, said Catherine Lamar, a spokeswoman with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

But Pat Byington, executive director of the Alabama Conservancy, a statewide environmental organization, said he was not surprised by the state's last-place finish.

"The state of Alabama has a lot of programs they need to institute, environmental programs," he said. "We do not have a worker right-to-know law, we do not have a land-acquisition program or a toxics-reduction program - a pollution-prevention program. And we currently do not have a comprehensive solid-waste program, so we're far behind."

The Northeast and Great Lakesstates fared poorly on the institute's poison index, which includes standard measures such as pollutants, air quality and per-capita number of Superfund sites.