THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 1996 TAG: 9605210005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Newport News Shipbuilding has been operating under an expired water-pollution permit since 1991.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is scheduled to act tomorrow on a proposed permit. Chesapeake Bay Foundation officials, along with a present and a former DEQ official, argue that the permit may allow more toxic pollution into the James River and Chesapeake Bay and violate the state department's own regulations.
State officials counter that the permit is a compromise between science and economics that will still protect the water.
Initially, the state environmental agency quietly dropped from the proposed permit all restrictions on TBT, short for tributyltin, a paint additive designed to kill whatever would attach to the hull of a ship and reduce speed. TBT is highly toxic, though Virginia is the only state that limits its use at shipyards.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation scientists caught the change and protested. The federal Environmental Protection Agency brought pressure on the state agency to restore the TBT restrictions.
When they were reinstated, another key requirement was quietly relaxed. The DEQ Hampton Roads office agreed with Newport News Shipbuilding that pipes discharging stormwater from the shipyard should be exempt from biological testing. Instead, under the proposed permit the discharge would be chemically tested for eight specific chemicals. If the water were found to be contaminated, more expensive biological testing - seeing if shrimp and other organisms could survive in the water - would be required later.
Again, Chesapeake Bay Foundation scientists caught the relaxation in testing and complained. Through the Freedom of Information Act, the foundation obtained a memo from DEQ's own toxics-program manager stating that the tests being dropped are, in fact, ``appropriate and required'' by state regulations. But the DEQ ignored its toxics-program manager's opinion.
Scott Flanigan, a former senior environmental engineer with DEQ who helped draft the original permit proposal, also argued against relaxing testing requirements. ``I can picture a plume every time there's a storm, a plume washing from that property and affecting organisms, and that's not going to be caught.''
Flanigan argued that rainwater will wash over all kinds of materials at the shipyard, and more than just the eight chemicals to be tested for will be washed off.
Once permits are signed, he said, it is very difficult to reopen them to require more-stringent testing.
Newport News Shipbuilding spokeswoman Jerri Fuller Dickseski argued that of 56 biological tests on shipyard water that would be expected to contain more pollutants than mere storm runoff, such as water at the bottom of dry docks, every test but one showed the water met environmental standards. Thus, she argued, the biological tests on stormwater runoff are unnecessary.
Given the polluted state of Chesapeake Bay, however, we would rather take the cautious route and use biological testing on storm runoff. Such tests can reveal the harmful effects of combinations of substances washing from the shipyard.
It appears that a deal was struck between the shipbuilding company and DEQ: When the TBT requirement was restored, another testing requirement was relaxed. DEQ's Hampton Roads director Frank Daniel said the state runs the risk of being sued by the shipyard if the permit isn't acceptable to the company.
That may be, but the DEQ also runs the risk of permitting further pollution of the Bay if it ignores the advice of some of its own experts on what testing is required. by CNB