DATE: Saturday, August 16, 1997             TAG: 9708160273

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   51 lines

8 NORTHEASTERN STATES DEMAND MORE POLLUTION CONTROL BY EPA

The yearlong regional war of words over air pollution became a legal battle this week, when eight Northeastern states demanded that the Environmental Protection Agency impose strict new controls on power plants as far away as Ohio and Georgia.

The targeted facilities include some in Virginia and North Carolina.

The Easterners say they have already taken tough steps to control smog-producing gases, at great expense to their economies and inconvenience to their citizens, only to find they still cannot meet federal clean air standards because of pollution blowing across state lines.

Midwestern politicians and industrialists, who would face tough decisions if the EPA acts, angrily refuse to take the blame for Northeastern pollution. The Northeasterners are attacking them, the officials said, because they lack the will to force unpopular programs like mandatory car-pooling on their citizens.

Filing separate petitions Thursday asking the EPA to enforce a little-used section of the Clean Air Act were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Scientific studies have shown that pollutants can travel hundreds of miles on prevailing winds, contributing to acid rain, smog, and high levels of dust in the atmosphere. But scientists disagree over whether pollutants routinely travel such long distances, or whether it happens only under certain unusual weather conditions.

The regional quarrel highlights differences that are as much economic and political as they are environmental, with Midwesterners worried about the effects of pollution controls on their industrial economy and Northeasterners reluctant to place the burden on cleanups directly on voters' backs.

``These claims from the Northeast are just a smokescreen that's almost as thick as the emissions from the millions of cars and trucks that clog their roads each day,'' said John McManus, environmental manager for American Electric Power Co. of Columbus, Ohio.

Environmental protection officials in the Northeast estimate that about one-third of the region's smog-causing nitrogen oxide comes from cars, about one-third comes from local power plants and industries, and about one-third comes from out of state, carried westward and northward by prevailing winds to spots as remote as Maine's Acadia National Park.

Though EPA officials declined to comment publicly on the Northeast states' request, EPA Administrator Carol Browner has repeatedly said the country would see major reductions in air pollution levels if all power plants were required to cut down on pollutants coming from their smoke stacks.

The agency has 60 days to decide whether to act on the request. KEYWORDS: EPA POLLUTION ENVIRONMENT

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