ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 10, 1996 TAG: 9611110047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE ENVIRONMENTAL Protection Agency is concerned that the state's air and water are suffering, using the Smithfield Foods Inc. issue as a prime example.
Gov. George Allen and federal environmental protection officials never have been on friendly terms, but in recent weeks their chilly relationship has escalated nearly to outright conflict.
The Environmental Protection Agency has accused the Allen administration of drastically reducing enforcement actions against industries that foul the state's air and water.
Allen says fewer companies are being punished because his administration is helping them comply with environmental standards, so there are fewer violations.
Federal and state authorities also are at loggerheads over sanctions against Smithfield Foods Inc. for polluting the Pagan River. The EPA has told Smithfield to pay the federal government $3.5million or face a lawsuit seeking more money. The state has filed its own $3million suit - a move environmentalists say is intended to undermine the EPA action.
And most recently, EPA withheld $1.6million from the state Department of Environmental Quality because the federal agency is getting only three-fourths of the state's discharge monitoring reports. DEQ officials blame a computer problem and say it will be fixed within a month.
Lori Martin said she has heard that story before.
``October of 1994 was when they stopped entering data into the system,'' said Martin, chief of the national pollutant discharge elimination system for EPA. ``We have been on top of them since then, and we've been told `one more month' since about the spring of 1995.''
Without the discharge monitoring reports, Martin said, it was difficult for the EPA to tell whether the state was adequately policing polluters.
Of more concern to the EPA, however, is a big drop in punishment the state has meted out to corporate polluters since Allen took office in January 1994. The agency says water pollution penalties collected by the state dropped from $318,802 in 1993 to $26,500 last year. Also, the number of cases in which fines were sought went from 28 to six.
``This has been sort of ongoing, that EPA has not been happy with the level of environmental enforcement going on in Virginia,'' said EPA spokeswoman Ruth Podems. ``We have explicitly stated that to their secretary of natural resources in public documents.''
Environmentalists see some irony in the law-and-order governor's treatment of environmental scofflaws.
``It seems like they want to lock up everyone but corporate polluters,'' said Albert Pollard, state Sierra Club director.
``We're not seeing the environmental results of this so-called `compliance assistance,''' said the EPA's Podems. ``Unfortunately, sometimes with corporations you need the hammer of enforcement to get the required results.''
That is exactly what both state and federal officials claim to be trying in the Smithfield case, but each side questions the other's motives.
Allen and his aides claim it's all been election-year politics by the Democratic Clinton administration.
``I don't know that we've been under attack that much from EPA until the last 60 days, leading up to the election,'' said Secretary of Natural Resources Becky Norton Dunlop.
``They're using politics as an easy way to explain away some of the true environmental enforcement problems that exist in the state,'' Podems countered. ``We were looking at Smithfield for a long time.''
The state's suit, the EPA said, could have been filed to take advantage of a law that bars federal action if a state already is vigorously pursuing sanctions against a polluter.
``You can't ever really be sure what motivates someone else, but all evidence points to the state subverting the federal government,'' Podems said.
Tensions between Allen and the federal government perhaps have intensified, but they are nothing new. Allen has filed lawsuits challenging national voter registration laws and environmental legislation giving citizens the right to sue air polluters. The air pollution case is now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Allen also has bucked the federal government in education, rejecting Goals 2000 grant money because he claims it invites federal intrusion into local schools. Virginia is the only state not taking the money.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB