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

DATE: SUNDAY, November 5, 1995                   TAG: 9511060076
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ELKTON                                LENGTH: Short

VA. PLANT JOINS ANTI-POLLUTION PROGRAM

A pharmaceutical company with a Rockingham County plant is among seven businesses chosen for a national program designed to have corporations develop their own pollution reduction plans.

The Merck & Co. Inc. facility in Elkton will be part of ``Project XL - Excellence and Leadership,'' a program President Clinton announced Friday in Washington.

Plant officials are seeking an 85 percent reduction of the plant's toxic emissions by the end of the year. The company, based in New Jersey, employs about 700 in Elkton.

Under a 1986 federal law, businesses face no limits on toxic output and no regulations for reducing that output. The law simply requires that all businesses that release toxic chemicals make the information publicly available.

Merck's 1993 total of more than 1.5 million pounds of emissions accounted for nearly 86 percent of Rockingham County's total toxic releases, according to reports by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Virginia Emergency Response Council.

- Associated Press

by CNB