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

DATE: THURSDAY, September 22, 1994                   TAG: 9409300011
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                  LENGTH: Medium

ALLEN STANDS BY CHOICES FOR AIR BOARD

Gov. George Allen said Wednesday he's sticking to his two appointments to the Air Pollution Control Board despite questions about whether they are too tied to business interests.

Allen withdrew the appointments shortly before the General Assembly was to have voted to confirm or deny them Monday. After consulting with the attorney general's office, Allen said he is satisfied they meet the legal requirements for serving on the five-member board charged with protecting air quality.

``Both these people are competent and qualified,'' Allen said in a telephone interview.

But Sen. Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax, said he's not satisfied that the appointments are legal. The Privileges and Elections Committee that he chairs will take up the appointments when the assembly meets again next week.

In July, Allen appointed to the board I. Russell Berkness, retired chairman of Berkness Control & Equipment Corp. in Richmond, an air-pollution equipment sales company, and Jo Anne Scott Webb, president of Scott Pallets Inc., which makes wooden pallets in Amelia County.

State law requires that a majority of the board represent ``the public interest.''

The other three board members are Sam C. Brown Jr. of Virginia Beach, a retired Virginia Power executive; Timothy E. Barrow, a Virginia Beach planning consultant, and Horace McClerklin, an Alexandria lawyer.

Kay Slaughter, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, said Brown, Berkness and Webb represent business interests.

``If approved there will be an illegal majority of members on the board who professionally and financially are tied to industry,'' she said.

Allen conceded that Webb is aligned with industry, but he said Berkness receives little income from his former company. State law defines air board appointees aligned with industry as those who get a significant portion of their income from a business.

``There's no doubt he's fully qualified and capable and knowledgeable about the subject. I didn't just pick him out of the blue,'' Allen said.

The appointments could throw into question the legality of recent board votes. Those actions included two moves decried by environmentalists: the relaxing of regulations for medical waste incinerators and a scaling back of air pollutants the state regulates.

by CNB