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

DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995                   TAG: 9501090033
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ANGRY FOREST SERVICE WORKERS CREATE WHISTLE-BLOWER GROUPS

In 1989, a veteran Forest Service employee in Oregon blew a whistle that still resounds across the country today.

After 12 years as a timber planner, Jeff DeBonis had seen enough mismanagement within the federal agency. He launched a group called Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics for the rank-and-file who felt compelled to expose waste, fraud and illegal activities.

The group now numbers 10,000 dissidents who have helped draw attention to what they see as the Forest Service's timber industry bias and its retaliation against employees who speak out for protecting the woods, soil, plants and animals within the national forests.

But environmental mismanagement, DeBonis soon discovered, exists throughout the many federal agencies that oversee natural resources, as well as at the state level. In 1993, he formed another whistle-blower protection group - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER.

``It's for federal and state resource professionals committed to sound stewardship of the environment,'' said Joanne Royce, an attorney with the nonprofit group, based in Washington, D.C.

PEER's purpose is to organize the employees; put them in touch with one another; inform the public, Congress and other top officials about wrongdoings; defend and strengthen their right to speak out about environmental violations; and serve as a public land management watchdog.

What battles PEER chooses to fight depends on the members. ``We sort of go where the state and federal employees lead us,'' Royce said.

The group has focused on natural resource issues in Western states, such as timber sale fraud, overgrazing on public lands, poorly regulated mining, nuclear waste cleanup cost overruns and delays, and misuse of federally subsidized irrigation water. It has chapters in California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Alaska and Georgia.

And last year, a Virginia chapter was formed. About 20 employees of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality have sought PEER's help to stop the issuing of what they say are illegal water-discharge permits.

Virginia appears ``hellbent, it looks, to roll back [environmental] regulations,'' Royce said.

Kay Slaughter, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, said Virginia should be fertile ground for PEER. She has heard from many disheartened employees in the past couple of years who bemoan the direction of Virginia's natural resource policies, she said.

With an annual budget of just over $250,000, and a good dose of national press coverage lately, PEER has chalked up a number of success stories. The organization stopped the transfer of one federal whistle-blower out West, reached an out-of-court settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency involving an employee who exposed wetlands violations, and has received several civic awards.

In Virginia, at PEER's request, the Department of Environmental Quality has held public hearings on several water-discharge permits, and may hold more.