Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 10, 1992 TAG: 9201100353
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PLAN FOR ENVIRONMENT AGENCY WELCOMED
Twenty years ago, a young environmental consultant named Elizabeth Haskell convinced Gov. Linwood Holton that Virginia's environmental agencies should be under one roof.That fell by the political wayside, but Haskell, now Virginia's secretary of natural resources, may finally see Virginia consolidate its agencies as other states did years ago.
Gov. Douglas Wilder mentioned the plans in his State of the Commonwealth address Wednesday night.
He wants to create a new "department of environmental quality" with the staffs of the Department of Air Pollution Control, state Water Control Board, Department of Waste Management and Council on the Environment. If the General Assembly approves, it would begin a year from now.
This is not a cost-cutting move. "We don't anticipate any cuts," said Bernard Caton, Haskell's deputy secretary.
In fact, the state wants to hire more than 200 new environmental workers, increase inspections and do more monitoring for environmental violations. A position paper says businesses and institutions seeking environmental permits could get "one-stop" service at the new department, rather than go separately to the agencies.
Under the proposal, Caton said, the air pollution staff would gain 109 workers in the fiscal year beginning July 1; waste management would get 55 more people; and the water board would grow by about 59. Agencies have been short-staffed in recent years.
Legal authority of the air, water and waste-management agencies and their regulatory boards would not change. The council's advisory board would be abolished.
Environmentalists around the state said Thursday that a new superagency could bring more comprehensive environmental protection.
That was Wilder's pitch Wednesday night. "This reorganization will acknowledge that pollution knows no boundaries," he said.
Gerald McCarthy, executive director of the Virginia Environmental Endowment, was director of Holton's newly created Council on the Environment in 1971. McCarthy hired Haskell then to study the consolidation issue. Their merger plan died the following year.
"It's long overdue," McCarthy said of an umbrella agency for the environment. He believes, however, that a single regulatory body - not three - would be more effective.
McCarthy was surprised when Wilder's mention of a new department drew applause from legislators. "Who knows?" he said. "It might be a winner."
Environmentalists long have complained that Virginia's regulation is disjointed. In a crisis, there is no single environmental authority to explain the total impact. Instead, people living near the pollution piece together information from state agencies whose workers are careful not to speak beyond their agency's narrow legal mandate.
Western Virginia's environmental crises in recent years, such as pollution from the Kim-Stan landfill in Alleghany County and a long-smoldering fire at a automobile-parts dump in Bedford County, have drawn state investigators from air, water and waste-management agencies, as well as state health and emergency services officials.
The proposed new department would not include some environmental workers, such as those at the Health Department or the Department of Agriculture's Pesticide Control Board. "It doesn't address all the fragmentation," said Jason Gray of the Virginia Water Project.
Caton acknowledged that Virginia has a ways to go. "In the past in Virginia," he said, "we've tended to deal with environmental matters on a piecemeal basis."