THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, June 6, 1995 TAG: 9506060284
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is intervening in the growing debate over how Virginia wants to control TBT, a highly toxic boat paint, at major shipyards in Hampton Roads.
The EPA told the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality on Friday not to issue a water-pollution permit to Newport News Shipbuilding that, as written, includes no numerical limits on TBT.
Short for tributyltin, TBT is a tin-based antifoulant that keeps barnacles from collecting on ship hulls. Studies have shown the chemical damages various shellfish and fish. Workers and divers exposed to the paint have complained that it burns their skin and causes nausea.
``We want some time to gather more information . . . about what this could mean to water quality and marine life in Virginia,'' Bob Koroncai, EPA's permit chief for the mid-Atlantic region, said Monday from his Philadelphia office.
Environmental groups, which have protested the proposed change in state policy as a backslide on one of the most toxic chemicals in the Chesapeake Bay, applauded the EPA order.
One state officials almost seemed relieved that the federal government, in ordering a 90-day halt to the proposed permit and a study of TBT trends in Hampton Roads, was entering the debate.
``They've told us we're probably right in our determination, but they want to do more study before making any decision. Frankly, we concur with that,'' said Frank Daniel, regional director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, at a breakfast meeting Saturday in Virginia Beach.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation first raised questions about the proposed scrapping of TBT limits for shipyards last month, after noticing that a permit renewal for Norshipco in Norfolk lacked restrictions on the once-popular paint.
That permit, however, slipped past the EPA's scrutiny and is not being halted for additional study, Koroncai said. ``We just missed it,'' he said.
Virginia in 1987 banned TBT from boats shorter than 82 feet in length. The proposed policy change would not affect this law.
It would, however, alter a regulation passed in 1988 by the state Water Control Board, which set a 1-part-per-trillion standard for state waterways.
State environmental officials say that the limits based on this standard, which are being built into pollution permits for shipyards, are too low to even be monitored, let alone enforced.
Newport News Shipbuilding was about to get TBT limits added to its permit when company officials told the state that they were too cumbersome. After a review, the state agreed and decided to drop the limits.
Until now, shipyards have contracted with Old Dominion University and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, a branch of the College of William and Mary, to test their discharge for TBT in the parts-per-trillion. But the tests are expensive and difficult to arrange.
The state, meanwhile, has not invested in the technology needed to measure TBT at such tiny levels, Daniel said, and thus has little way to keep tabs on what shipyards are doing with TBT.
Roy A. Hoagland, staff attorney for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said Saturday in a mini-debate with Daniel that the answer to this problem is not to simply do away with all permit limits, but to come up with a more enforceable standard.
The EPA has had such a numerical standard pending since 1988, Koroncai said, but has yet to formally adopt it across the country.
KEYWORDS: HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCE WATER POLLUTION by CNB