Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 11, 1993 TAG: 9308110162
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Environmental groups want to change that. Tuesday, an environmental coalition asked the federal government to take over the state's authority to issue water-pollution discharge permits.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, acting on behalf of eight environmental groups and two Virginia towns, filed the petition with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Virginia is the only state that denies citizens access to the courts to seek judicial review of water discharge permits, said Deborah Murray Wassenaar, a lawyer with the Charlottesville law center.
Towns and cities that take drinking water from rivers can't sue. Riverfront property owners who fear toxic contamination can't sue. Fishermen, boaters and other recreationists can't sue.
Under state law, only regulated industries - including publicly owned sewage treatment plants - can challenge a permit issued by the state.
Virginia has an agreement with the EPA to oversee numerous federal environmental programs, including issuing permits that allow limited water-pollution discharges.
The law center is asking the EPA to end that authority, Wassenaar said, "unless and until Virginia is able to and willing to change its law."
"That's very drastic," said Keith Buttleman, a spokesman with the newly created state Department of Environmental Quality.
He said the agency, along with Gov. Douglas Wilder's office, advocates broadening citizens' legal "standing" - the ability to sue in court.
But having the EPA step in would complicate and delay the environmental permit process, just when the state is attempting to streamline it by combining three agencies into his department, Buttleman said.
In the meantime, the law center also is asking the EPA to assume final authority on permits and to allow citizens to sue in federal court, Wassenaar said.
"I don't think they'll [the EPA] just sit on it," she said. The petitioners want quick federal action so the General Assembly "gets the message" before the end of the 1994 session, she said.
The issue of citizens' standing has been the subject of numerous court cases and legislative bills in Virginia in the past couple of years.
The General Assembly, driven by the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, passed a bill this year that granted more access for citizens to challenge air-pollution permits. That law became effective July 1.
Among those represented by the law center are the towns of Fries and Ashland, whose drinking water comes from waters potentially contaminated by discharges. Fries has been fighting a long-standing battle against the city of Galax, which discharges into the New River upstream from Fries in Grayson County.
Others are the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, Virginia Wildlife Federation, Virginia Audubon Council, Audubon Naturalist Society, Conservation Council of Virginia, Southeastern Association for Virginia's Environment, Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited and Virginia B.A.S.S. Federation Inc.
A national watchdog group this year ranked Virginia 14th-worst in the nation for toxic chemical discharges into surface waters. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group pointed out in its report that New York and New Jersey - both traditionally viewed as heavy polluters - ranked better than Virginia.
by CNB