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

DATE: MONDAY, July 17, 1995                   TAG: 9507170108
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD                                 LENGTH: Medium

SMITHFIELD WASTE FILES ARE MISSING

State Department of Environmental Quality records show that documentation for about 5,000 laboratory tests performed on slaughterhouse waste water discharged in 1992 and 1993 cannot be found.

Test results show Smithfield Foods has violated state water pollution regulations at least 23 times since May 1994, DEQ records say.

Sources told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the employee in charge of the meatpacker's records is under federal investigation. Spokesmen for the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment.

Smithfield Foods Vice President Carl J. Wood Jr. said the employee responsible for testing the discharges had been assigned other duties.

State and federal laws require that the company keep test records for three years. Conviction could result in a maximum 15-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

``It's my understanding that the FBI and EPA are undertaking investigations of the Smithfield employee who was in charge of the [waste water] treatment plants,'' said Amy Clarke, interim director of water enforcement at the Department of Environmental Quality.

That employee, Terry Rettig, formerly managed Smithfield Foods' waste-water treatment plants. He still works on special projects for the $1.5 billion-a-year meatpacking company, Wood said.

Rettig said the investigations are ``news to me.'' He declined to comment further.

The problems at Smithfield Foods surfaced in May 1994 while DEQ officials were inspecting the company's two plants in Smithfield.

Together, the plants slaughter more than 16,000 hogs a day and process the meat into bacon, sausage and ham.

Blood, hair, feces, water, flecks of meat and bits of bone pass through filters and are treated with microorganisms. The remaining waste water - 3.7 million gallons a day from the two plants - is released into the Pagan River.

Many people swim, ski, fish and crab in the salty brown water of the Pagan. From the meatpacking plants, the river flows through the town of Smithfield and Isle of Wight County before it flows into the James River. About 18 miles farther, the James empties into the Chesapeake Bay.