Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501090010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The state Department of Environmental Quality, pushing to be more user-friendly for industry, rushes to issue environmental permits and is slow to enforce regulations, some employees and environmentalists say.
The agency's emphasis on economic development has overshadowed its mission to protect Virginia's natural resources and people's health, they say.
Some workers have been so demoralized in the past year that they have turned to a national whistle-blower protection group to challenge the department's policies.
``We've gotten a strong impression that people that are running [the department] are antagonistic to protecting the environment,'' said Joanne Royce, an attorney with the group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, of Washington, D.C.
Employees who have complaints about the agency's direction spoke with the newspaper on condition that their identities and positions not be disclosed.
The department's desire to avoid adversarial relationships with industries and localities, whom it refers to as ``customers,'' has influenced how permits are written, how fast they're issued, how policies are made and how enforcement is pursued, the employees say.
``The move to be touchy-feely with the regulated community sets the tone for the way we do our work, and the way we're told to do our work,'' one employee said.
``Politics of pollution. Unfortunately, that's where we are in a big way,'' another said.
Some environmentalists in Virginia echo those concerns, accusing DEQ of lowering standards for air and water pollution, crippling the staff's ability to aggressively monitor and enforce laws, and closing the door on full public participation.
``Are we going to wait until we have another kepone, Kim-Stan or Avtex?'' Patti Jackson, executive director for the James River Association, asked. ``I don't think we want any more of those.''
Allied Chemical's dumping of the pesticide kepone in the James River in the 1970s was one of the state's worst environmental disasters. The giant, leaking Kim-Stan landfill in Alleghany County also ranks among the worst stains on Virginia's environmental record, as does Avtex Fibers Inc.'s dumping of PCBs in the Shenandoah River.
Jackson and others say Secretary of Natural Resources Becky Norton Dunlop, and Department of Environmental Quality Director Peter Schmidt - both appointed by Republican Gov. George Allen - have steered the agency off course.
Dunlop did not return repeated phone calls and went out of town late last week. Schmidt, through department spokeswoman Michele Riedel, declined to be interviewed.
\ Since April 1, 1993, when four agencies merged to form the Department of Environmental Quality, the agency has been wracked by restructuring pains - shifting around programs and people, redefining policies, adjusting regional boundaries and revamping regulations. From the start, though, its primary mission was to streamline the permit process to make Virginia more user-friendly for economic development.
The agency was established during the administration of former Gov. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat. Some employees say the agency has gotten worse under the leadership of Dunlop and Schmidt.
``The emphasis in the past couple of years was to improve quality and speed'' of issuing permits, one person familiar with the agency's operations said. ``Now it's just speed.''
People in charge take a ``simplistic view'' that if a regulation inhibits industry, it should be changed or ignored, the person said. Employees said they are pressured to take the word of the applicant, not be too inquisitive and spend less time reviewing permit applications.
Last year, the department issued a report showing that Virginia issues environmental permits faster, and for less cost, than five other Southern states.
``That should come as good news for business and industries considering locating in the commonwealth,'' a cover letter read. The report showed that Virginia took an average of 43 days to issue major air permits and six to nine months for solid-waste permits, and ranked the fastest for hazardous-waste permits and water-discharge permits.
``We are trying to get these permits out as fast as we can, and at the same time protect the environment,''said Thomas Henderson, Roanoke regional director. ``I don't know if you'd call it pressure. We're just trying to balance the two. There's always some people that say we're going one way or another.''
The agency's change in direction has been welcomed by industry.
For years, industrial dischargers and localities with sewage treatment plants and solid-waste landfills had complained about delays in getting their permits. That's changing, said Carol Raper, vice president and general counsel for the Virginia Manufacturers Association.
The department's ``goals are exactly as they stated, that they want to serve their public, and, well, of course, protect the environment at the same time.''
Raper said she hears fewer complaints and more favorable comments about DEQ's performance from her members, 550 companies representing about 90 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state.
``Permits are the life's blood of an industry,'' she said, and getting them quickly is essential for competitive reasons. The department is more flexible and more willing to listen to the concerns and needs of business than in the past, she said.
Jackson, the James River Association executive director, said she and other environmentalists told Schmidt early on that they were worried about the faster turnaround time for permits. Schmidt assured them he would be tough on enforcement to maintain the quality of Virginia's air, water and land resources.
``That scenario might work, but if the permit [contains] no or few limits, then there's nothing to enforce. Then it's a real shell game,'' Jackson said.
Employees say enforcement is slack and getting worse. They say there's little follow-through and no consistency, and that sometimes problems that are found aren't cleaned up or fixed.
\ While industries and other dischargers have a louder voice in agency decisions, other people - ones who live downstream or downwind from a discharge source or near a dump - are not heard, critics say.
``Anybody who wants to get something changed in [a] permit will have to move a mountain,'' Jackson said. ``We are ignored, virtually ignored, in public comment time, because they know we can't ever go to court.''
In Virginia, only the applicant seeking a water-discharge permit can take the agency to court. For air permits, the law was recently changed to allow such judicial access, called ``standing,'' to citizens who show an immediate, substantial and pecuniary interest, said Kay Slaughter, with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville. But the state standard is more restrictive than allowed under federal law, she said. The center has challenged both state laws.
The Allen administration has refused to change the rules on air permit challenges and defied repeated warnings from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to do so.
On water permits, Slaughter said the EPA is considering a rule that all states must grant the same citizen standing.
The denial of judicial review was partly the reason a group of employees sought help from the whistle-blower protection group to question DEQ's policy for setting organic compound limits in waste-water discharges. One of their concerns was that the policy was not written but handed down orally, and was applied inconsistently to permits.
One employee, shortly after joining DEQ, was amazed to find that decisions often are made by unwritten policy rather than regulations.
``I kept asking, `Where's the book of policies?' And there wasn't anything, and there isn't anything,'' the employee said.
Regulations must go through public hearings. But citizens have no influence over internal policy, the employee said. ``The public's not getting their shot at it,'' he said.
\ Some employees say that most people in the agency want to do a better job protecting the environment, but dare not agitate higher-ups.
``I think they know what's right, but they're all afraid their names aren't going to appear on an organizational chart,'' one said.
The recent firing of Don Shepherd, who had 15 years' experience heading the air division in Roanoke, sent shock waves among rank-and-file. Shepherd had disagreed with the Richmond office about an industrial permit and disclosed the dispute at a public hearing.
Schmidt personally fired Shepherd because Shepherd had not put up a unified front, according to a later statement by Schmidt. State workers at Shepherd's level normally are protected from changes in the political climate, and employees say the firing had a chilling effect.
For months, the department has been undergoing a restructuring, as have other agencies, under orders from the governor. The final structure won't be made public until around March1. In the meantime, staffers don't know what job - if any - they'll be assigned.
The department employs about 750 people, which is 75 percent of the staff the General Assembly authorized, at the department's recommendation, when it created the agency in 1993.
Allen's proposed budget would eliminate 370 of the authorized positions. Many jobs to be eliminated are not filled, but it's ``hard to imagine a scenario'' that wouldn't include some layoffs, said Julie Overy, a spokeswoman for Dunlop, the secretary of natural resources.
Critics say other proposed changes could hurt the agency. When DEQ was created, its budget was supposed to be $115 million by mid-1994. The budget now is $82 million, with a proposed reduction of $1.5 million.
Allen's proposed budget also includes a decentralization of activities, such as permitting, enforcement, emergency response and environmental monitoring. While the seven regional offices will pick up those responsibilities, they apparently won't get more money.
Jackson said the move will so burden the regional offices that they won't be able to keep up with enforcement and inspection duties.
Slaughter, with the environmental law center, said regulators could become too cozy with industries and localities if all the oversight is farmed out to the regional offices. After working together for months to negotiate technical details on complex permits, staffers aren't likely to feel comfortable playing the tough cop when it comes time to enforce the rules, Slaughter said.
``It may be a surprise to a lot of people, but most people in [the department] are concerned about doing a good job,'' one person said.
The employees say they chose environmental science careers because they wanted to help ensure that the air, water and land are healthy for future generations. All they want, they say, is to do their jobs.
``If we err,'' another worker said, ``We err on the side of water. We all have kids and grandkids.''
Monday: The Environmental Protection Agency has been asked to investigate water-discharge permits issued for Martinsville and Henry County.
by CNB