
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 21, 1993                   TAG: 9309210110
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

REPORT: AGENCY MADE A MESS OF FEDERAL LANDS

The Interior Department has allowed the environment to be trashed, permitted its workers to face dangerous conditions and run up a $200 billion cleanup bill, according to a Senate committee report to be released today.

Interior manages 440 million acres of public lands, most of it in the West. The department controls 20 percent of the nation's surface area and 60 percent of the subsurface area.

The department is responsible for running national parks and wildlife refuges, restoring public lands mined for coal and managing water and hydroelectric power projects.

The study, critical of Interior's problems, was conducted by the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. The report estimates it could take 30 years to clean up the department's environmental messes.

"We are facing a public safety and financial crisis that could rival what was found at our nation's nuclear weapons facilities," said Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, committee chairman.

Among the problems identified in the report:

Dangerously high levels of soil, air and water contamination from mines and smelters. Some of this pollution has killed grazing horses and cattle.

Deaths and injuries at inactive and abandoned mine sites. Since 1977, at least 162 people have died at these sites.

Department employees suffer chemical exposure injuries and illnesses with alarming frequency. Their injury rate is four times higher than that for Energy Department employees who work at the nation's most dangerous facilities.

Unexploded ammunition on public lands is a growing problem. The Fish and Wildlife Service alone controls 20 sites in 12 states with suspected or documented unexploded ordnance.

Mercury contamination from oil and gas wells may be widespread. Last June, Louisiana posted a fish consumption advisory because mercury levels in the soil were above Food and Drug Administration levels for safe consumption.

In the past 16 years, the department has corrected less than $1 billion worth of the estimated $60.8 billion of environmental, health and safety problems related to coal surface mining.

Interior has the worst occupational, safety and health record of all federal agencies; its rate of lost time due to injury and illness is 67 percent above the federal average.

Interior officials are expected to testify on the report at a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing today.

Glenn called on the Clinton administration to take the study seriously for the sake of the environment and Americans' pocketbooks.

"Just as inattention to a problem led to an enormous cleanup price tag at the Department of Energy, the longer we turn a blind eye toward cleanup on Interior's lands, the more this balloon mortgage payment will grow," he said.

The report's conclusions surprised even environmental activists in Washington.

"That's really shocking," said Ed Hopkins, environmental director of Citizen Action, a consumer and environmental group.

by CNB