Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 9, 1995 TAG: 9501100040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A group of frustrated state employees says the Department of Environmental Quality has been issuing permits that violate laws, scientific principles, Virginia's streams and the public trust.
The staffers have turned to a national whistle-blower protection group to expose the agency, claiming that policies for some water-quality standards violate state and federal laws. Further, the policies are used inconsistently and fail to fully protect the environment and public health, they say.
Over the past year, the workers have sought help from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., that protects government whistle-blowers.
Since June, PEER has objected to 12 water-discharge permits on behalf of the employees, said Joanne Royce, an attorney with the group. Eight permits are in Western Virginia, including two sewage-treatment plants in Henry County and one in Martinsville, a Botetourt County commercial development and a Bedford County industry.
PEER also has asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the department and its officials for issuing permits ``if not illegally, certainly arbitrarily, because they change standards, depending on pressure'' from the permit applicant, Royce said. The group likely will file more objections over the coming months, she said.
She estimated that about 20 staffers have contacted PEER to voice their concerns or have sent supporting documents. The department employs about 750 people.
Department spokeswoman Michele Riedel said the agency's policies adequately protect people's health and the environment. She noted that most streams that are monitored in Virginia meet water-quality standards.
Riedel characterized PEER's allegations as a disagreement over technicalities and said the agency has offered to meet with the group to discuss the matter.
The key issue is how the state measures discharges of organic compounds, called BODs for ``biochemical oxygen demand,'' which rob streams of oxygen, essential for fish, plants and other water life. PEER also alleges lax limits on chlorine, phosphorous, fecal coliform bacteria, color levels and toxins.
Staffers sought PEER's help because they are not ready to ``come out of the closet'' for fear of losing their jobs, an employee said, one of eight people interviewed for this story who spoke only on condition of anonymity. The move may be especially risky in the current political climate, as Gov. George Allen's administration trims budgets and jobs to pay for prison construction and tax cuts.
But the employees say they've had enough. For years, they say, managers and higher-ranking officials in Richmond have stymied their efforts to change the policies and apply them equally to all dischargers. While some permits meet the standards, the employees say, others don't.
``The thing that bothers a lot of us more than anything is being told legally and technically, `You're right, but we're not going to do it [that way],''' said one employee, who has worked for the department in its various forms for more than 10 years. ``We're more or less begging EPA to come down and make us do it right.''
|n n| BODs are a catchall group of pollutants found in municipal and industrial waste-water discharges. Hundreds of permits across the state contain BOD limits, but those limits have been based on inconsistent and unwritten policy, according to PEER.
Some use daily maximum levels, which PEER and its Virginia members say is the correct measure. Others allow the dischargers to apply monthly or weekly averages, a more lenient standard.
Water-quality standards for dissolved oxygen are set as daily maximums for each Virginia stream. The employees contend that discharges for BOD averaged out over a week or month don't guarantee that sufficient oxygen levels are maintained in a particular stream on a daily basis.
When employees questioned the BOD limits, they found there was no written policy. They were told ``that's the way we've always done it,'' one worker said. ``We were told to shut up.''
PEER says the department, in its scramble to come up with a written policy, produced ``draft'' memos in August to explain the policy. One memo stated that the original engineering rationale is ``lost in time and not documented.''
The employees acknowledge that it's hard to determine whether the BOD levels in question, or other problems they're bringing to light, have harmed human health or the environment. There's no smoking gun, as one employee put it.
The employees are concerned about the big picture.
``We're supposed to be here to prevent water problems to begin with,'' an employee said. ``Now, without a fish kill, it seems it's not going to happen.''
Martinsville's sewage-treatment plant permit was one of the first to be challenged.
According to PEER, the department's computer model shows that the plant could discharge up to 680 kilograms of BODs every day and still maintain water quality in the Smith River. The draft permit loosens that standard by allowing a monthly average of 680 kilograms per day. In other words, Martinsville's discharge could vary widely on a daily basis, above and below the limit, as long as it averaged out to 680 kilograms per day.
At PEER's request, the department held a combined public hearing in October on three permits - the Martinsville plant and Henry County's two sewage-treatment plants, which also discharge into the Smith River and whose permits contain weekly vs. daily limits.
Neil Obenshain, permit director for the agency's Roanoke region, said the whistle-blower group, which he described as ``just another environmental group,'' had an opportunity to air its concerns like any member of the public.
``We felt that the permits as drafted would maintain [water] quality,'' he said. The agency applies monthly and weekly averages because the waste-water-treatment systems don't respond quickly to changes in the effluent from day to day, he said. Likewise, rivers and streams don't react to sudden changes, and so escape adverse effects, he said.
The state Water Control Board passed all three permits at its December meeting. The permits recently were sent to the EPA for final approval.
``The whole issue came up to our surprise,'' said John Dyches, director of water resources for the city. ``We haven't busted a BOD limit in years.''
Dyches said the city always has been allowed to measure the organic compound discharges as monthly and weekly averages. In November, for instance, Martinsville's average for the month was about 53 kilograms, far less than the 680 kilograms allowed, Dyches said.
``If they would have changed our permit, they would have had to change all the permits in the state,'' he said.
Riedel, the department's spokeswoman, said that tightening the requirements for BOD would increase significantly the cost of waste-water treatment, ultimately paid by taxpayers.
But the whistle-blowers want future permits to include the tougher standards. It's not unusual for dischargers around the state to exceed BOD limits on any given day, posing a potential threat to aquatic life - and possibly public health, one employee said.
For example, according to agency records reviewed by PEER representatives, Martinsville had excessive discharges in five months between February 1990 and January 1991, before Henry County built another sewage-treatment plant to handle part of the flow.
In May 1990, Martinsville peaked out one day at 3,170 kilograms - nearly five times higher than allowed. Three other days that month, the plant discharged 845, 971 and 782 kilograms, but the monthly average stayed below the required 680 kilograms.
In a recent letter to the EPA, PEER urged the federal agency to set a precedent in the Martinsville and Henry County permits.
The employees see the EPA as their last resort. In Virginia, citizens are denied ``standing'' - the right to seek judicial review of water-discharge permits. Only the discharger is allowed to challenge the agency's decisions in court.
Last month, the EPA told the employees it found no indication that Virginia is issuing illegal permits. Monthly or weekly averages of BOD don't immediately affect water quality, and other states in addition to Virginia have been using the same method for as long as 20 years, wrote Victoria Binetti, chief of the permits-enforcement branch for EPA's Region III.
PEER wrote a five-page, detailed letter urging the EPA to reconsider. Discharges of organic compounds can lower oxygen levels within hours or days, causing fish kills if severe enough.
``We've got a very long presentation of technical and legal issues,'' one employee said. ``We're going to keep going up the line.''
by CNB