Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990 TAG: 9004110403
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Because responsibility is split among so many agencies - ones regulating water, waste, air, public health and other regulatory responsibilities - Dr. Margaret Robinson said, "There's a question of leadership."
Bedford County's month-long fire in waste at a Montvale auto recycling plant last fall was a case where the private sector, not public officials, took the leadership role in getting out public health information, Robinson, health director for the New River Health District, told the state Council on the Environment.
In that fire, the primary spokesman was an environmental consultant hired by the auto recycler, not the many state agencies that monitored the fire.
Robinson said public health troubles are dramatic in the western half of the state - from sewage and mortuary wastes flowing into the James River at Eagle Rock in Botetourt County to household water coming to Russell County's Dante residents through an abandoned coal mine, to overcrowding and poor sewage treatment at Smith Mountain Lake to heavy metal contamination at Claytor Lake.
"If the public's health is the bottom line," she said, the state should remove financial and statutory restraints on public health officials so they can be real leaders on these issues.
"There is little authority in many cases for your public health people to respond, due to statutory and regulatory limits, financial limits, technical limits and, in some cases, political considerations."
Tom Howze, a resident of the New River Valley, pleaded with the 13 state officials and private citizens on the council to protect the fragile ecosystems and rare species he said are threatened by housing developments planned for the Nellies Cave area of Montgomery County.
Howze said state and local officials have done little to defend the property rights of poor black residents of the area. The council now is preparing a report for Montgomery County on protection of natural resources in Nellies Cave.
Howze's questions about how the Virginia Department of Transportation cooperated with developers to build a now-disputed road through the Nellies Cave community led council member George C. Freeman Jr., chairman of the state Board of Historic Resources, to suggest that the Transportation Department be represented on the council.
Council director Keith Buttleman questioned the proposal because the Transportation Department has no direct environmental responsibility.
Among the state agencies on the board are the Water Control Board, Department of Waste Management, Department of Air Pollution Control and Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Water safety in Western Virginia's fractured Karst geology, the dangers of longwall mining and gas wells and the need for statewide composting of leaves and dead trees were among the other controversies raised by the 70 people at the council's public hearing here.
James M. Moore, a Montgomery County supervisor, spoke as a private citizen to ask the council whether there should be special state regulations for development in the fractured Karst terrain like that in his county. In such terrain, polluted waters can travel quickly to ground water through sinkholes, fractured rock and caves underground.
Bernard Reilly, a leader of the Dickenson County Citizens Committee, urged the council to fight damage from longwall mining to homes and water supplies in his area. "When the longwall machine arrives in your neighborhood," he said, "life as you know it turns upside down."
He said his community's water bills, because of the environmental damage, are among the highest in the state. "If you had to pay to water your livestock, you'd have to print your own money." He begged the council to get mining inspectors out into the field, not back in their offices "bogged down with paperwork and reports."
by CNB