Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501230030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN MCCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
With just hours to spare on its deadline, the EPA faxed letters late Thursday to the state Department of Environmental Quality objecting to the permits for two sewage treatment plants in Henry County and one in Martinsville.
``We consider it a real victory,'' said Jeff DeBonis, executive director of a whistle-blower protection group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER. The organization represents a small band of DEQ workers who claim their agency has been issuing illegal and inconsistent water permits, including ones for the three plants.
``They made a difference in their local environment. This is the essence of what working for the public trust is all about,'' DeBonis said.
Department officials on Friday defended the three permits as meeting federal regulations for protecting the water quality of the Smith River.
``It's not common, but it's not unusual'' for the EPA to have objections to major water permits, said Robert Burnley, a top administrator at the Department of Environmental Quality. The problem arises from differing interpretations of technical points.
``I think we'll come to a resolution fairly quickly,'' perhaps in a couple of weeks, Burnley said. ``It's no big deal.''
PEER disagrees. The group, which has filed objections to at least nine other permits around the state, views the EPA's decision as a precedent for perhaps hundreds of others.
``There's more permits they're going to see again. They're going to see the same issues over and over,'' said PEER attorney Joanne Royce.
Five top EPA officials met with Royce on Wednesday to discuss concerns of the state employees, who have remained anonymous. But on Thursday, the EPA made no mention of the employees' chief concern - that the state allows more lenient standards for some industries and municipalities to discharge organic waste than is healthy for Virginia's rivers and streams.
The EPA has said that other states, like Virginia, have followed the same policy for 20 years - with EPA's approval. Royce said the EPA appears reluctant to change the policy, which might affect thousands of permits throughout the country.
The federal government concurred with PEER on other issues in the three sewage plant permits.
The state must not raise the amount of color allowed in the effluent, often discolored from dyes used in the area's textile industry. The limits originally were set in response to problems about 20 miles downstream at Eden, N.C., which draws drinking water from the Smith.
The Martinsville plant permit also must include limits for copper, lead and silver because the discharge could exceed state water quality standards for those metals, according to the EPA.
And lastly, although the state has approved a dechlorination plan for one of the Henry County plants, the plant must stop using chlorine to disinfect waste water because it discharges to a classified natural trout stream, the EPA said.
Bill Farrar, spokesman for the county's Public Service Authority, said, ``We have continued to use chlorine with no detectable harm to the environment.'' Building an alternative disinfecting system would cost more than $2 million, plus $230,000 in annual operating expenses, he said.
As for discoloration, a strictly aesthetic issue, Farrar said, the county could save hundreds of thousands of dollars if allowed the higher limit, which results in no visible difference to the water.
by CNB