Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 14, 1995 TAG: 9507140061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No issue illustrates that better than Virginia's laws limiting citizens' right to sue the state over air and water pollution permits, said Pete Kostmayer, who headed the EPA's mid-Atlantic region until last month.
"It seems to me so clearly biased," Kostmayer said. "It penalizes the families and citizens of Virginia but gives an advantage to industry."
Kostmayer plans to be in Richmond today to meet with members of Campaign Virginia, which formed in January to focus on citizens' legal "standing."
In Virginia, only the person, company or locality that wants to discharge pollution into state waters can challenge in court a permit issued by the Department of Environmental Quality.
For example, farmers living downstream from a pulp mill can not challenge the mill's water discharge permit even if they fear their cows would sicken from drinking polluted water.
The law regarding air pollution permits is less restrictive, allowing citizens who can show an immediate, substantial and financial interest in the permit to challenge the department's decision.
Virginia is believed to have the strictest standing laws of any state.
"We just felt people were terribly unaware of the issue," said Jim Sharp, director of the new group. "It's people's individual rights to protect their environment and their health."
Moreover, the EPA says Virginia is violating federal laws.
Last year, the agency, with Kostmayer still head of Region 3, rejected Virginia's plan to meet new federal clean air rules, citing the state's standing law as one of the problems.
Allen responded by suing the EPA in a multi-pronged attack on the federal agency's authority over states.
"The governor made it pretty clear. We think the standing law [for air permits] is good, good enough to go to court," said Mike McKenna, director of policy and planning for the Department of Environmental Quality.
McKenna said he's never seen evidence to show that states with broader standing laws have cleaner water and air. "I'm sure it gets you more lawsuits," he added, touching on one of the chief arguments made by the administration and industrial sector who oppose opening the courtroom door for citizens.
McKenna admitted that the differences between the standing laws for air and water permits are confusing, and said the law for challenging water discharge permits ought to be revisited.
"I think it's something we - and I mean everyone in the commonwealth - should take a hard look at," he said.
But the citizen standing issue is not one of the department's major concerns, McKenna said. It's more a judicial matter to be hammered out in the General Assembly.
Enter Campaign Virginia. Members hope to raise awareness among Virginia voters by going door to door. They have collected 30,000 signatures on a petition since January, Sharp said.
They also urge people to write letters, and, unlike most other canvassing groups, offer to return to pick up the letters for mailing. So far, people have sent more than 600 letters to Allen, and more than 400 to the EPA on the standing issue.
The group will canvass within a two-mile radius of Richmond, and it will come as far west as Lynchburg, Sharp said.
Kostmayer, who knows Allen and was a congressman from Pennsylvania before joining the EPA, had harsh words for the state's Republican governor.
Of the five states and the District of Columbia under his purview at the EPA, "Virginia was by far the most intransigent," Kostmayer said. "It's no secret nationally that George Allen is in the sack with all the industries in the state."
Allen's stance on the standing issue epitomizes his coziness with industry, he said, and he lauded the efforts of groups such as Campaign Virginia.
"These groups, these kind of underfunded citizen groups, which are largely volunteer, they're our only hope."
Kostmayer was forced to resign from the EPA June 2 after he refused to approve a billion-dollar highway project in West Virginia that his staff had determined would wreak havoc on acres of unfragmented forests and miles of streams. He also objected to construction of a pulp mill in West Virginia that would discharge cancer-causing dioxin into a river.
Kostmayer now is heading up an environmental committee under the auspices of Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell. He said he has thought about running for office again.
by CNB