DATE: Wednesday, June 4, 1997               TAG: 9706040518

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   61 lines

ENVIRONMENTALISTS TO BOYCOTT SMITHFIELD

One of the largest environmental groups in Virginia announced plans Tuesday for a boycott of Smithfield Foods pork products over the July Fourth weekend because of the meatpacker's history of polluting local waters.

The Sierra Club of Virginia, outlining a monthlong public relations campaign, will urge shoppers across the state to skip Smithfield hams, sausages, hot dogs and barbecue meats when buying for holiday celebrations.

Actions planned against the Norfolk-based pork conglomerate include handing out pamphlets in neighborhood walks, asking political candidates to participate in ``Smithfield-free'' picnics, and distributing 16,000 bumper stickers that proclaim in red, white and blue lettering, ``Have A Smithfield Free 4th, Pollution Is Unpatriotic!''

``We're not trying to put anybody out of business; this is more of a symbolic protest,'' Sierra Club lobbyist Albert C. Pollard Jr. said at a news conference Tuesday.

Pollard and a handful of environmentalists gathered in a blowing mist at Ocean View city park and cooked non-Smithfield hot dogs and meats as a none-too-subtle launch of the boycott.

``We're saying to Smithfield Foods that we appreciate the tax dollars, we appreciate the jobs, but we don't appreciate all the pollution they've pumped into the Pagan River,'' Pollard said.

A Smithfield spokesman did not return phone calls, but a lawyer for the company called the action ``vigilante justice'' and said the boycott was uncalled for.

``They want to try to punish us outside the confines of a courtroom,'' said Anthony Troy, a Richmond-based attorney. ``And I for one don't appreciate their kind of vigilante justice.''

Two Smithfield slaughterhouses in Isle of Wight County have long been the focus of environmental complaints. For years the plants have discharged treated hog wastes, rich in nutrients and other pollutants, into the Pagan River, a tributary of the James River and Chesapeake Bay.

This practice, which in part is blamed for the Pagan being closed to shellfish harvesting since 1970, is poised to end this summer. At that time, the company will pipe all of its 3 million gallons of wastewater a day to a public treatment plant in Suffolk.

Smithfield Foods, one of the largest and richest companies in Hampton Roads, faces two lawsuits, in state and federal courts, for its past environmental practices. Both cases, which seek millions of dollars in fines for water pollution violations, are pending.

One environmentalist at the news conference Tuesday said she has boycotted Smithfield products for about a year. A year ago, Norfolk resident Robin Russ said, she e-mailed the company about its environmental record and never got a response.

``It's like, `We're big, we're bad and we don't have to care about you.' That really turned me off,'' Russ said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Sierra Club lobbyist Albert C. Pollard Jr., center, chats with a

woman at a news conference at Ocean View City Park Tuesday. ``We're

not trying to put anybody out of business; this is more of a

symbolic protest,'' he said.

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