DATE: Wednesday, September 10, 1997         TAG: 9709100804

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  135 lines

BEYER BLASTS GILMORE'S ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD

Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. blasted his gubernatorial opponent on environmental issues here Tuesday, linking a recent Chesapeake Bay tributary fish kill to failing pollution-control policies under the current administration.

Beyer, a Democrat running against Republican James S. Gilmore III, sent a letter asking Del. Jerrauld C. Jones (D.-Norfolk/Chesapeake) to hold hearings on the cause of the recent outbreak of Pfiesteria piscicida, a deadly microorganism that has closed down the lower Pocomoke River for almost two weeks.

``Future pfiesteria blooms in Virginia could be catastrophic to our health, natural resources and economy,'' Beyer wrote Tuesday to Jones, chairman of the Committee on the Chesapeake Bay and Its Tributaries.

While Beyer and his aides declined to blame Gov. George F. Allen and Gilmore, the former attorney general, directly for the fish kill, the lieutenant governor used his call for a pfiesteria hearing as a platform to lambaste the Republicans' environmental record.

``In the last three and a half years, the Allen-Gilmore administration has failed to protect Virginia's environment,'' Beyer's position paper states.

Beyer's press conference announcement Tuesday preceded a broad attack on Allen's environmental protection policies, calling the state's pollution case against Smithfield Foods ``the greatest embarrassment of this administration .

``Smithfield has been held accountable, but not by Virginia,'' he said, referring to the state's lawsuit that had to be withdrawn and re-filed in July.

In a separate suit filed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, a U.S. District judge fined Smithfield $12.6 million last month for polluting the Pagan River with hog waste since 1991.

A spokesman for Gilmore's campaign said the Beyer announcement revealed little new and pointed out that Beyer had criticized policies in effect during his term as lieutenant governor.

``Where has Don Beyer been for the last seven and a half years?'' said Gilmore spokesman Mark Miner. ``Why would voters choose political rhetoric when they can vote for real accomplishments. Jim Gilmore has a record of accomplishments.'' Miner said Gilmore, as attorney general, had a record of ``vigorous enforcement of environmental laws,'' including a $1.3 million coal cleanup settlement in Southwestern Virginia.

Beyer, in his first comprehensive position paper on the environment, committed Tuesday to rebuilding an embattled state Department of Environmental Quality, increasing environmental law enforcement through inspections and fines, imposing a temporary moratorium on ``new major'' landfills and giving localities the power to ban imported waste.

He cited his legislative record and a recent business experience restoring an environmentally damaged brownfield as examples of his commitment to environmental issues.

But it was the pfiesteria announcement that connected Beyer's electoral initiatives to today's most publicized highly toxic organism - a microscopic marine animal suspected of killing more than 13,000 fish in the Pocomoke River in Maryland and Virginia and implicated in short-term memory loss of 13 Maryland watermen and state officials.

It has killed nearly a billion fish in North Carolina.

The recent pfiesteria scare, Beyer said, can be connected to high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen in and around Chesapeake Bay. Several environmental groups have agreed with Beyer's assertion that elevated nutrient levels may have transformed pfiesteria into a lethal, lesion-forming microorganism for fish.

``This should be a call to arms to reduce nutrient pollution,'' Beyer said, speaking from the Elizabeth River Park and Boat Ramp in South Norfolk.

But Virginia is not on track to reduce such pollution by 40 percent by the year 2000, Beyer said, citing a recent report of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission on the Chesapeake Bay Agreement of 1987.

At the campaign rally, which attracted about 20 people, Beyer's environmental address was given in the shadows of the old J.G. Wilson property, which, until recently, was slated to be the site of a trash terminal.

The current property owners, Environmental Solutions Inc. of Richmond, recently told community leaders in South Norfolk that they have abandoned immediate plans to ship containers of municipal solid waste through a terminal on the banks of the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River near Poindexter Street.

Several civic groups - whose members flanked Beyer on a grassy slope overlooking the distant shipyards and grain silos along the banks of the Elizabeth River - had pressured the City Council earlier this year into enacting new restrictions on city permits for terminals processing trash.

Beyer said his visit Tuesday was to honor Chesapeake's efforts in stopping the trash terminal as an example of citizen initiatives that should be replicated throughout the state.

``They said it would be sealed up, but we don't know what type of garbage it would have been,'' South Norfolk resident Winslow G. Bullock said at the rally. ``I'm glad Mr. Beyer is here because the trash could come back if we don't tell other states we don't want it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot

After an environmental issues speech Tuesday in Chesapeake, Lt. Gov.

Donald S. Beyer Jr. chats with Bettie Gordon.

Graphic

SOME KEY POINTS

Key points of Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr.'s environmental

plan:

Rebuild the Department of Environmental Quality by appointing

qualified people to take charge, put the environment before politics

and rekindle employee morale. Beyer called the current department a

``ghost land.''

Beef up enforcement of Virginia's environmental laws. Beyer said

fines dropped 90 percent last year to $4,000.

Retain Virginia's authority to issue air and water permits and

not hand it to the federal government.

Protect Virginians from in-state and out-of-state trash by

imposing a moratorium on new major landfills while the state

conducts a solid waste review, increasing state inspections of

landfills, supporting legislation in Congress that would give

localities the power to ban imported waste and increasing civil

penalties for transporting, disposing or storing hazardous waste.

Commit to clean rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay. Beyer

said the state should monitor for more pollutants than it does and

redouble its efforts to meet the goal of reducing nutrient and

phosphorous entering the bay 40 percent by 2000.

Ensure a safe and reliable water supply, starting with a

statewide approach to managing Virginia's water supply.

Strive for better air quality by working with the private sector

to develop cost-effective ways to control emissions.

Expand public participation in the permit process, include

citizens in all stages of environmental policy development and

create a partnership with local governments to better enforce

environmental laws.

Expand and improve Virginia's parks, whose system was ranked 50th

in the nation, Beyer said. Virginia has spent only 42 percent of the

money authorized to buy more land for parks, about $40 million of

the $95 million dedicated for parks through voter-approved bonds, he

said.

Source: Staff reports and Beyer campaign documents KEYWORDS: GUBERNATORIAL RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES

ISSUES ENVIRONMENT

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