Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991 TAG: 9102260208
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Virginia office of the Environmental Defense Fund said it plans to file suit in federal court challenging the EPA decision to allow Virginia's 1.2 parts-per-quadrillion standard for dioxin to stand.
David Bailey, director of the Virginia office, said the EPA ignored substantial evidence about the limit's inadequacy, which was offered during a hearing process.
"EPA decided corporate profits are more important than the lives and livelihoods of Virginians," Bailey said.
Virginia's limit was adopted by the state Water Control Board last May at the recommendation of its executive director, Richard Burton.
Burton has said the state had to balance the economic costs of removing dioxin from paper mill wastes against the health risks posed by dioxin, a chemical byproduct of making bleached paper. Dioxin is a suspected cause of cancer.
The state's three bleached-paper mills - Westvaco at Covington, Union Camp at Franklin and Chesapeake Corp. at West Point - had supported the 1.2 parts-per-quadrillion standard. That is 100 times higher than the .013 standard that the EPA recommends and 20 times higher that the .06 limit suggested by the state Health Department.
The standard controls the maximum amount of a pollutant allowed in state waters. The limit is designed to protect the use of lakes and streams for drinking, fishing or swimming; and is applied to industries when they seek waste-water permits.
"While the EPA recommends a more conservative .013 parts per quadrillion, Virginia's standard is still acceptable with the bounds of current EPA guidance," the agency said in a news release Monday.
Bill Small, manager of the Westvaco mill, said he was pleased with the EPA decision and said maybe now the dioxin issue can be put to rest. However, the decision will not have an economic effect on the mill, because Westvaco already has spent $11 million to clean up its dioxin problem, Small said.
The production of dioxin at the Covington mill has been cut below detectable levels since June 1989, he said.
The Environmental Defense Fund, in concert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, already has sued the EPA in federal court challenging Maryland's dioxin standard, which is the same as Virginia's. The fund also has filed suit against the state Water Control Board in state court.
Peter deFur, a fund scientist in Richmond, said his organization will be filing another lawsuit against the EPA within the next few days, opposing the standard it approved for Virginia.
DeFur said most states have the more stringent standards for dioxin than the EPA has approved for Virginia. In fact, the EPA has said Union Camp must meet North Carolina's .014 parts per quadrillion standard at its Franklin mill because it discharges waste water into the Blackwater River which flows into North Carolina.
"Merely because a person is unlucky enough to reside in Virginia, his or her dioxin exposure will be 100 times greater than a citizen's in North Carolina," Bailey said.
Having different standards for different states holds the danger of encouraging states to sell themselves to industry on the basis of their weaker pollution standards, deFur said. In this particular case it penalizes Union Camp, which has announced plans to patent a process for cutting dioxin from the paper-making process, he said.
DeFur acknowledged Westvaco's efforts and said the company is headed in the right direction. But he said dropping below detection levels in the mill's discharge should not be used as a landmark. The measurement of success should be whether dioxin continues to show up in fish in the Jackson River, he said.
Levels of dioxin above acceptable levels in the tissue of fish taken from the river has led the Health Department to post warnings to fishermen along the river. Dioxin was found in fish as far downstream from Covington as Amherst County.
by CNB