THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 23, 1996 TAG: 9610230475
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 74 lines
Smithfield Foods Inc. has violated national clean-water laws 5,000 times since 1991, evidence that Virginia has gone soft on polluters, the regional head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency charged Tuesday.
``They should have brought Smithfield into compliance a long, long time ago,'' W. Michael McCabe, the EPA's regional administrator, said in criticizing Virginia's enforcement of environmental laws. ``This is such an obvious, persistent case of noncompliance. That's what makes it so serious.''
His harsh comments came one day after the U.S. Department of Justice sent Smithfield Foods, a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest meat packers on the East Coast, an ``executive order letter'' threatening a civil lawsuit for years of polluting the Pagan River in rural Isle of Wight County.
Smithfield Foods answered that letter publicly Tuesday in a two-page statement expressing confusion and dismay over the federal order. The Justice Department has told the Norfolk-based company that it can pay $3.5 million to the U.S. Treasury as a settlement or face legal action in federal court.
``The letter does not give any particulars concerning the basis for the demand, nor any reason why the federal government should be filing suit on top of the state's suit,'' Smithfield's statement says.
The company is referring to a separate lawsuit filed Aug. 30 by Virginia Attorney General James S. Gilmore III. That suit seeks a fine of between $750,000 and $2 million, state officials have said, for unspecified pollution violations.
Gilmore, a Republican who plans to run for governor next year, filed the state's case just days after learning that federal lawyers were preparing their own lawsuit.
Conservationists charged then that Gilmore was trying to appear tough on environmental issues while shielding Smithfield Foods from stiffer, federal court action.
Under the national Clean Water Act, the federal government may not sue a suspected polluter if a state is ``diligently pursuing'' that polluter. McCabe said the Justice Department can get around this hurdle easily.
``We don't believe Virginia is diligently pursuing Smithfield Foods. So that's that,'' he said.
McCabe said the federal lawsuit seeks penalties dating to 1991 because ``that's as far back as we can go; there's a five-year statute of limitations'' under the Clean Water Act. He said Smithfield Foods has ``hundreds of hundreds'' more violations before 1991 that the government can't go after now.
State environmental officials have charged that the recent flurry of tough talk from the EPA is motivated by politics.
Virginia is under a Republican administration that has tried to work with business and industry instead of hammering them with government rules, and the EPA is dominated by a Democratic president who wishes to keep the status quo, state officials have said.
Lawyers for Smithfield Foods echoed that sentiment in a previous interview, although the company did not mention politics in Tuesday's two-page statement.
The company was miffed that the EPA could criticize a 1991 agreement between Smithfield Foods and Virginia that relaxed limits on certain pollutants in exchange for a promise to one day pipe those pollutants to a sanitary sewage system.
The EPA, the company said, gave ``tacit approval'' to the deal, which now is coming to fruition.
Smithfield Foods hooked up to the Hampton Roads Sanitation District this summer. This connection, which will end decades of hog wastes going into the Pagan River, should be complete by spring 1997.
But McCabe said the EPA did not endorse the 1991 agreement. Indeed, the agency counts as violations those discharges that comply with relaxed state rules since 1991. Hence, the figure of 5,000 violations, he explained.
Further, McCabe rejected claims that the EPA is playing politics, noting that he told Virginia officials six months ago in a private meeting that the agency had ``deep concerns'' about the state's enforcement record under Gov. George F. Allen.
Virginia officials have said their number of enforcement cases is down because more companies are complying with state regulations.
KEYWORDS: ENVIRONMENT POLLUTION EPA SMITHFIELD FOODS by CNB