ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 15, 1996 TAG: 9607150109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE RADFORD ARSENAL and Saltville's former dump are among hazardous waste sites state officials say they hope can be cleaned up faster than through the federal program.
Gov. George Allen's administration has blocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from listing seven hazardous waste sites on the Superfund cleanup list - including at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant and the former town dump in Saltville.
The administration used a little-known federal provision signed into law last summer that prevents the EPA from spending money to list a Superfund site unless it is requested in writing by a governor.
To date, Allen's secretary of natural resources, Becky Norton Dunlop, has requested Superfund status for four sites - all active federal installations - and specifically denied listing for seven sites.
The sites denied Superfund listings include three former military installations, including the arsenal, two private sites - Beverly Exxon in Staunton and Norfolk-Intercoastal Steel - and the former town dump in Saltville.
State officials say they are avoiding Superfund on those sites because the program is slow and bureaucratic. They say they're exploring all options for getting the sites cleaned up, and consider the EPA's Superfund program a last resort.
``Our overall goal is to get the sites cleaned up,'' said Erica Dameron, who oversees Superfund for the state Department of Environmental Quality. ``We felt we would gain more by not listing these sites.''
Virginia is one of six states that have exercised their new power to keep the EPA from including hazardous waste sites in the Superfund program, according to the agency.
While the EPA waits for some indication from the states whether they intend to support a Superfund designation, hundreds of other hazardous waste sites remain in limbo.
``Far fewer sites are being listed,'' said Kevin Wood, EPA's regional coordinator of the listing process in Philadelphia. ``And it's not just in Virginia, it's nationwide.''
The EPA also is holding back on analyzing hazardous waste sites. The agency doesn't want to spend a lot of money studying a site only to have a state block it, said Robert Myers in the EPA's Washington Superfund office.
The provision that gave Superfund veto power to the governors was a single paragraph in a spending bill for fiscal 1995. It also appeared in the federal budget bill for fiscal 1996, which ends Sept. 30. And it is contained in the leading versions of Superfund reauthorization bills, which would make it a permanent part of the Superfund program.
The paragraph was not widely discussed before or after those bills became law. The top regional community involvement officer for the Superfund program in Philadelphia was unaware of it last week.
Adam Babich, an attorney for the Environmental Law Institute in Washington and a close observer of environmental law, said he also didn't learn about it until last week.
``If anybody would know about it, I would hope to,'' Babich said.
The provision threatens to do more harm than good, Babich said. The EPA was already keeping hazardous waste sites off the Superfund list if it had evidence the state could handle the cleanup, he said.
``All it does it make it harder for EPA to do its job,'' Babich said.
Giving governors the final say over Superfund listings could also inject politics into what should be a technical decision, Babich said.
``If instead, you're allowing politicians to veto these decisions, you're turning that system on its head,'' he said.
Dameron disagrees: ``I think it opens it up for discussion. If a site is truly contaminated, I don't think any amount of political pressure would keep it from being cleaned up somehow.''
Virginia retains the option to recommend those sites for the Superfund program later, Dameron said.
``If in the future we don't see that those avenues are working, then we could always go back and see if listing would be more appropriate,'' she said.
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