Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9406200046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
One advantage to Peter W. Schmidt's new job is that he can wear a bow tie to the office.
"In the concrete industry," he explained last week, "anyone who wears a bow tie is immediately suspicious. Since I'm not at an industry meeting right now, I thought I could get away with it."
He can get away with dapper ties, but Schmidt is attracting plenty of curious stares as he settles in as the new director of the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Schmidt is a genuine curiosity - a concrete block executive in the role of environmental watchdog. His appointment earlier this month was the most audacious example of Gov. George Allen's business-first approach to the environment.
"I've seen a couple of eyes roll in meetings I've had here," Schmidt acknowledged.
Schmidt, a ruddy fellow who played rugby with Allen during their graduate student days at the University of Virginia, was eager to reassure environmentalists and DEQ employees that he harbors no hidden agenda to pave the state with cinder block.
"We're not going to give away the store to industry," he said. "We must strike a balance between a healthy economy and healthy environment."
Balance, however, is in the eye of the beholder.
Allen is intent on swinging the pendulum toward industry. Secretary of Natural Resources Becky Norton Dunlop said Schmidt was tapped for DEQ because he "shares our philosophy."
"He comes in with a heavy burden because the administration has not been environmentally friendly, either in their statements or their actions," said David Bailey, a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, D.C.
"I think most of the environmental community will want to work with him and will wait and see to give him the opportunity . . . to take a more balanced approach," Bailey said.
Schmidt has a mixed environmental record as part-owner and executive of Allied Concrete Co., a Charlottesville company with operations in Suffolk and Chesapeake.
Allied has no major environmental problems, but the company has shown an occasional disregard for the state permitting process, according to documents provided by DEQ.
In one such case in 1988, the Department of Air Pollution Control issued a notice of violation after regulators learned that Allied had failed to get air discharge permits for a plant expansion in Suffolk. Allied had set up four cement silos without "bag houses" to control emissions.
Schmidt, who was in charge of buying and expanding the Suffolk plant in 1985, took full responsibility for the violation.
"We thought more about making block than getting permits. We made a mistake," he said.
Schmidt served on a DEQ committee that earlier this year came up with draft regulations that would clear the use of fly ash in coal mine reclamation, soil amendment or fill material.
The regulations could help the Allied Concrete subsidiary - Agglite Corp. of Chesapeake - find new markets. The company has a patented process for using fly ash in lightweight concrete block and has explored other uses. But public concern that the material contains trace amounts of dangerous heavy metals has limited its application.
"If DEQ has its imprimatur on it, then it makes it easier for us [Agglite] to talk with others about it," Schmidt said.
At the moment, the fly ash regulations are blocked by an Allen moratorium on new state regulations. Schmidt said he hoped the governor - his new boss - would make an exception in this case because the regulations would enhance economic activity, not only for Agglite, but also for coal companies and electric utilities.
Schmidt, who is on a four-year "sabbatical" from Allied Concrete, said he would distance himself from any decisions involving permits or enforcement action against his company to avoid a possible conflict of interest.
"The way to handle it is to be as much of a disinterested party as I can be," he said. "I'm wise enough to know there are times to look out for your own interests, and there are times to look out for the better interest of the commonwealth. This is one of those."
Environmentalists hoping to demonize a rough-edged, cigar-smoking concrete mogul will be disappointed on meeting Schmidt.
He is a friendly guy with a disarming wit, a big vocabulary and a self-deprecating sense of humor.
An interview Thursday coincided with his office's issuing a health advisory for the Richmond area because of ground-level ozone concentrations. The air was so hazy that Schmidt complained that he could barely see the James River, a few blocks away from his 10th floor DEQ office in the Richmond business district.
What does his department plan to do about air pollution?
"We'll close the blinds, at least for today," he quipped.
Like Allen, Schmidt is a die-hard Wahoo. He followed a family tradition by attending UVa, where his father was a two-time national boxing champion.
Schmidt established a reputation of his own in Charlottesville. He played defensive back on the UVa football team, boxed as a light-heavyweight and was elected president of the class of 1970. He still wears a gold ring from IMP, a secret society at UVa.
After graduation, Schmidt got an MBA at the Darden School at UVa and was a teaching assistant for the football team when George Allen arrived as a freshman quarterback. They later played rugby together when Allen was a law student.
Last year, Schmidt contributed $1,500 to Allen's gubernatorial campaign.
He sent a resume to Allen seeking a position on the Solid Waste Advisory Board. Dunlop called in April. "She said, `I'd like to talk with you about something else,' " he recalled.
Despite the controversial issues he will deal with, Schmidt sees his main role at DEQ as a manager who can help settle a fledgling department formed 14 months ago by the merger of three separate agencies that issued permits for air, water and solid waste.
His first task, he said, is to get workers from the three agencies to pull together.
The scope of the task - 800 employees administering highly complex programs in offices spread across the state - dwarfs anything Schmidt has done before. Agglite had a dozen employees.
"Peter is the type of guy who in one way or the other will make himself available to each one of the employees," said Jim Izard, manager of Agglite. "The bottom line with Peter Schmidt is that he is extremely conscientious. He set the pace for our company, and we all followed him."
In his first few weeks, Schmidt has kept what he calls "concrete hours," arriving at the office by 6:30 a.m. He is commuting on the weekends to and from Virginia Beach, where his wife and three children will continue to live.
Conceding that he is a neophyte on many DEQ issues, Schmidt joked that he may have to dust off his boxing gloves to settle running confrontations with the federal Environmental Protection Agency - over emission testing of automobiles in Northern Virginia and citizen challenges to environmental issues.
"Maybe they'll lock Mr. Kostmayer and me in the same room," Schmidt said, referring to Peter H. Kostmayer, EPA's regional administrator. "That could be an easier way to settle things."
by CNB