DATE: Friday, October 31, 1997              TAG: 9710310026

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: BY ROBERT PERKS 

                                            LENGTH:   92 lines

VIRGINIA ELECTION BRINGS HOPE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

As a native Virginian, I am saddened by the commonwealth's drift away from its traditional political civility toward nasty partisanship. Nowhere is this trend more disturbing than in Virginia's civil service.

There was a time when public employment in the Old Dominion was considered genteel and civic-minded, with many appointees serving both Republican and Democratic governors. This spirit of nonpartisan service ended with the election of Gov. George F. Allen. As one of his first official acts, he demanded the resignation of all professional-level appointees and issued an executive order forbidding civil servants from communicating with legislators.

Governor Allen later backtracked on these initiatives, but his message was clear: State employees who spoke out against his policies or failed to toe the party line were no longer welcome in Virginia.

Efforts to force political allegiance fell hardest on the newly created state Department of Environmental Quality. Allen's declaration that ``Virginia is Open for Business!'' clashed with the agency's environmental-enforcement mission. Something had to give. So Allen launched an attack on DEQ. Several top environmental managers were fired or forced out; the agency suffered mass layoffs; and, even though it was newly formed, DEQ was subjected to three reorganizations, one on top of the other so that the participants in this game of bureaucratic musical chairs did not know where they were sitting.

In 1996, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of state and federal government resource professionals, surveyed all DEQ employees and found:

93 percent of managers and 70 percent of employees felt that the regulated community excessively influenced DEQ decision-making;

56 percent of managers said they had received orders to ignore environmental laws;

every manager and 79 percent of all employees reported that hiring was no longer based on professional merit, as Governor Allen tried to pack DEQ with political cronies.

These startling results were later confirmed by a two-year investigation of alleged DEQ mismanagement by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. While these findings provoked momentary public outrage, ``business as usual'' has continued at DEQ.

The significance of this trend is even more evident in the contrasting responses to the fish-killing outbreaks of pfiesteria in tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay by Maryland and Virginia. Maryland has taken a proactive stand, bringing in outside experts and sending people into the field to research possible causes. Virginia, by contrast, has hunkered down, denying the significance of problems.

When seven Virginians, including a state Marine Resources Commission inspector, came down with pfiesteria-poisoning symptoms, including open sores, skin lesions and short-term memory loss, Virginia's assistant epidemiologist publicly responded:

``If it was a major public health problem, wouldn't we have higher numbers? If I went out and asked people out at shopping centers, you'd find seven people with the same symptoms. Does that mean that shopping centers are a danger to human health?''

This is hardly the attitude of a dispassionate public health professional.

Meanwhile, a private physician who had treated one of the afflicted Virginians faulted the state neurological examination, which lasted only five minutes and consisted of basic questions such as the president's name and the day of the week. The physician noted that the skin biopsy was done by the Virginia team too late to be of any value.

Virginia officials have since announced that they could find no human health effects from pfiesteria exposure. To alleviate public concern, the state plans to spend money for an ad campaign to promote Virginia seafood. Virginia's political defensiveness about a microbial outbreak highlights how deeply ideology has penetrated its scientific agencies, to the detriment of the environment and human health.

PEER recently asked DEQ employees for suggestions about what the next governor should do to fix the agency. Removing politics from environmental decision-making topped the list. From DEQ employee suggestions, PEER fashioned 10 reform principles to return the environmental-protection agency to its mission. We submitted these recommendations to the two major party candidates for governor. Don Beyer, the Democratic candidate, endorsed the PEER principles and released a similar blueprint for environmental reform. Jim Gilmore, the Republican, ignored the employee initiative. Gilmore recently unveiled a ``plan for stewardship'' that gives little indication that he wants to change the direction established by George Allen.

It should be of concern to all Virginians when the state's environmental and public health professionals are forced to overlook, underreport and mask real problems. All the while official statements claim that our air and water are clean and safe. I am pained that my native state has traded science and sensibility for a ``know-little, do-nothing'' approach to governing. I can only hope that the upcoming elections will usher in a new era of accountability and a genuine concern for the public interest. MEMO: Robert Perks serves as national field director for Public

Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) in Washington, D.C. KEYWORDS: ANOTHER VIEW

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu