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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 30, 1993                   TAG: 9303300216
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION CONSOLIDATED

A new state environmental agency designed to streamline the regulation of air, water and waste matters is seen by some business groups as another layer of bureaucracy.

The Department of Environmental Quality that begins operating Thursday will consolidate management of the environment, a job now handled by four separate agencies.

But skeptics fear the new agency is promising more than it can deliver.

A group of 15 businesses and business associations felt so strongly about the issue that they led a failed lobbying effort in the 1993 General Assembly to have the department killed, or at least postponed.

Under the present system, water and air pollution and waste management laws are administered by the State Water Control Board, the Department of Air Pollution Control, the Department of Waste Management and the Council on the Environment.

- Associated Press

by CNB