THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996 TAG: 9610020601
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER AND DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: 93 lines
Virginia has sharply cut back its pursuit of polluters and has blocked tough-minded federal enforcement of environmental laws, the regional head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency charges in a recent letter to state officials.
In the unusually blunt letter, EPA regional chief W. Michael McCabe accuses Gov. George F. Allen's administration of seeking fewer and weaker penalties against companies with histories of polluting Virginia's soil, water and air.
One such example, according to McCabe, is Smithfield Foods Inc., the meat-packing giant with headquarters in Norfolk and slaughterhouses in Isle of Wight County.
In his Sept. 19 letter to Thomas C. Hopkins, director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, McCabe notes that the state filed a civil lawsuit Aug. 30 against Smithfield Foods just days after learning that federal lawyers were preparing their own case against the Fortune 500 company.
``It appears to EPA that the commonwealth responded as it has in the past,'' McCabe wrote, ``i.e., as soon as DEQ was informed that EPA intended to initiate enforcement measures, a quick action was taken by the commonwealth in an attempt to block the federal process.''
McCabe wants Virginia to drop its lawsuit and join in a concerted effort against Smithfield Foods for fouling the Pagan River with excessive hog wastes and nutrients from its aging sewage plants.
The state responded to the offer Tuesday.
``Of course not; it's our case; it's our responsibility,'' said T. March Bell, deputy director of DEQ, the state's environmental regulatory agency.
Bell disputed other charges levied by McCabe and suggested that the EPA, not the state, acted in bad faith on Smithfield Foods.
He said enforcement actions are declining in Virginia, as McCabe charged, but only because more companies are complying with state and federal environmental rules.
Bell declined to offer specific compliance rates, however, saying Virginia measures how companies perform environmentally through ``a compliance model'' favored by the EPA.
``The Allen administration has been in office 33 months, and they bring one disputed case against us now,'' Bell said. ``Frankly, we're confused by this reaction.''
McCabe's letter is the latest flashpoint between the Allen administration and the EPA, which have fought bitterly over myriad issues, including clean-air rules, the right of citizens to challenge state pollution permits in court and of state commitments to the Chesapeake Bay cleanup.
In an interview late Tuesday, McCabe said he tried to explain EPA's concern privately six months ago in a meeting with state Secretary of Natural Resources Becky Norton Dunlop and other Allen appointees.
Specifically, he asked state officials about falling enforcement statistics, which, McCabe maintains, ``are a signal to the regulated community that Virginia may not be willing to enforce the laws.''
In 1993, for example, the year Allen was elected on a business-first platform, Virginia initiated 123 enforcement actions for various pollution violations, with 28 seeking specific financial penalties, he said.
Since then, McCabe said, DEQ has been downsized and the number of enforcement cases that recommend fines has diminished from 12 in 1994 to six in 1995.
Penalties collected during those years: $318,802 in 1993, $149,576 in 1994 and $26,500 in 1995.
Bell responded Tuesday as McCabe said state officials did when first confronted with such statistics.
``We have a successful record on enforcement because we stress compliance. We're compliance enthusiasts. We see enforcement as a tool to improve the environment, not to put a trophy on the wall,'' Bell said.
Bell also noted that three examples of alleged state interference in federal enforcement, each involving municipal sewage plants, occurred when L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, was governor.
McCabe's letter came in response to one written by Hopkins, DEQ's director, on Sept. 4. Hopkins sounded concerns that the EPA had not adequately informed the state of pending enforcement actions against Smithfield Foods.
He said the EPA ``actively concealed'' its intentions at a time when Virginia was holding off on its civil case as a courtesy to a federal criminal investigation into company pollution reports that were allegedly doctored.
McCabe conceded that the EPA did not tell the state of its plans at a meeting in July. But, he noted, Virginia did not seem interested then in pursuing a legal case against Smithfield Foods.
Instead, McCabe said, the state appeared content that Smithfield Foods would soon cease its discharging of watery wastes into the Pagan River by piping it to a public treatment plant in Suffolk.
The state and EPA also exchanged salvos over the handling of an enforcement case against Allied Signal Inc. Following discharges that resulted in large fish kills last year, the company was fined and then it paid for state experts to monitor a cleanup, Bell said.
But the EPA feels the state blocked tougher federal efforts to exact a larger fine.
``The actions by the commonwealth to shield two violators (Smithfield and Allied Signal) from legitimate federal enforcement has provided no basis and little hope for any effective cooperation on enforcement matters,'' McCabe wrote. by CNB