DATE: Tuesday, October 21, 1997             TAG: 9710210272

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  115 lines

STATE PROPOSES LETTING TYSON DUMP MORE AMMONIA IN STREAM THE PROPOSAL IS "PATENTLY ABSURD," AND ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP SAYS.

The state's position on the issue is ``patently absurd,'' the group says.

The proposal is ``patently absurd,'' an environmental group says.

Sandy Bottom Branch is a small stream causing a big debate - about Virginia's commitment to cleaning up Chesapeake Bay and to combatting the fish-killing microbe Pfiesteria piscicida.

A leading environmental group, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is labeling as ``patently absurd'' a state recommendation to let chicken giant Tyson Foods dump as much as 267 percent more ammonia into Sandy Bottom Branch than state law allows.

But state and company officials defend this proposed regulatory relief, saying any additional ammonia would not harm aquatic life in the Eastern Shore stream. They base their conclusion on biological tests conducted by Tyson Foods since 1988.

Ammonia, a toxic compound, also is a nutrient pollutant composed mostly of nitrogen. States bordering Chesapeake Bay, including Virginia, have pledged for a decade to cut levels of nitrogen and phosphorus by 40 percent by the year 2000 as a central vehicle for reviving the renowned estuary.

And these nutrients, especially in chicken manure, are blamed by many scientists for turning pfiesteria into an aggressive predator. The microbe has killed thousands of fish in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina and is believed to have caused memory loss, skin lesions and nausea in more than two dozen humans.

About 2,000 fish died this summer near the mouth of Pocomoke Sound, an event that in part caused Virginia to close parts of the important seafood waterway for six weeks.

Sandy Bottom Branch feeds into Pocomoke Sound.

``There's no way they can justify this environmental irresponsibility,'' said Roy A. Hoagland, the foundation's staff attorney in Richmond. ``They want to increase pollution, when everyone else around us is saying we need to decrease pollution in these waters.''

Added Harold Marshall, an Old Dominion University pfiesteria researcher: ``It certainly runs counter to the trend we're seeing in Virginia and Maryland, where we're trying to reduce nutrient loads into the system.

``This sounds like something that should be examined very carefully,'' he said.

The world's largest producer of chicken and poultry products, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods discharges up to 1 million gallons of wastewater a day into Sandy Bottom Branch from a processing plant in Temperanceville, in rural Accomack County.

The stream, which winds west from the plant for about 1.5 miles, was listed last year for the first time as an ``impaired'' waterway by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The designation means that swimming and other human contact can be a potential health hazard. It was based on a finding that worms and other tiny creatures in bottom sediments were suffering from an unknown pollution source, according to state records.

The fact that Virginia is proposing to relax toxic-pollution standards in a waterway recognized as impaired is another reason environmentalists are protesting.

``That, alone, is enough to block this,'' Hoagland said. ``But when you factor in the nutrients and the pfiesteria, you really can't ask for a more simplistic scenario of problems. This is common sense.''

State officials said Monday that, if approved in coming months, the proposed relief would be ``one of the first'' times such a concession was granted in a damaged waterway.

Under its state permit, Tyson Foods can lawfully discharge up to 4.2 pounds of ammonia a day into Sandy Bottom Branch, or about 1,500 pounds a year. But it's the concentration of ammonia in the stream that's at issue.

As recommended by the state, the toxicity standard for ammonia that Tyson must meet would be relaxed by 27 percent in summer, to 2 milligrams per liter of water, and by 267 percent in winter, to 5.9 milligrams per liter, according to Virginia records.

Neither state nor company officials could say Monday what benefits Tyson Foods would derive from the change. But a published overview in the Virginia Register of Regulations said the company would not have to pursue ``very expensive'' upgrades to its waste system to meet ammonia limits, especially in winter months.

The relief proposal was supposed to undergo a public hearing last month in Accomack County. It was about this time that Virginia was under fire from scientists and government officials in other states for not doing enough to combat pfiesteria. The hearing was abruptly canceled.

Jim McDaniel, deputy state director of environmental affairs, said Monday that his boss, Thomas Hopkins, canceled the meeting so he could ``more fully be briefed'' on related issues, including pfiesteria and nutrient reduction.

A new hearing on the proposal has been scheduled for early December, and written public comments will be accepted through late December, state officials said.

In defending the move, Alan J. Anthony, a state director of environmental science, said ammonia from Tyson Foods and nutrients from the company are two separate issues - a position that environmentalists scoffed at.

While conceding that ammonia is a nutrient, Anthony said the state's task here is only to gauge the toxic impact of ammonia on Sandy Bottom Branch. In that test, Tyson Foods shows no new impact on aquatic life, he said.

But, as Hoagland pointed out, ignoring the potential damage that nutrients could spur in a waterway that feeds Pocomoke Sound, where a pfiesteria-like organism has been found, is short-sighted.

``It's like conducting public policy with horse blinders on,'' he said.

Before any new standards could take effect, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would have to approve them. Tom Conlon, an EPA water pollution-control engineer who has been studying the proposal, said the federal agency has not taken a position as yet.

``We do have a conflict here,'' Conlon said Monday. ``This is a source of nitrogen, a significant source of nitrogen. But we'll wait to see which way the state goes with this.'' ILLUSTRATION: STAFF/File photo

Nutrients in chicken manure are blamed for turning the fish-killing

microbe pfiesteria into an aggressive predator. It has killed

thousands of fish in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.

Graphic

Map

Tyson Foods Plant in Accomack County KEYWORDS: WATER POLLUTION PFIESTERIA

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