DATE: Thursday, September 18, 1997          TAG: 9709180372

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   88 lines

ALLEN TARGETS FUNDS TO FIGHT FISH KILLER BEYER ASKS CLINTON FOR AID TO STUDY PFIESTERIA

With a deadly microorganism suspected of killing fish in the lower Pocomoke River, and perhaps causing lesions on other fish in the Rappahannock River, Virginia leaders responded in earnest Wednesday.

Gov. George F. Allen announced an $800,000 research initiative - and a pledge to ask for $1.5 million more next year - to speed scientific efforts at understanding this one-celled, flesh-eating microbe known as Pfiesteria piscicida.

Also Wednesday, the Democratic candidate for governor, Donald S. Beyer Jr., asked President Clinton for federal funds and expertise in the war against pfiesteria, whose suspected presence has closed five miles of the Pocomoke River in Virginia, may have sickened 28 Marylanders and has scared away Chesapeake Bay seafood lovers and tourists.

The flurry of political action comes two days before the governors of mid-Atlantic states meet in Annapolis, Md., for a pfiesteria summit, and a month after the microorganism first was linked to thousands of dead fish in the Pocomoke River, which marks the Virginia-Maryland border on the Eastern Shore.

Little is known about pfiesteria. It is thought to exist in fresh and salty waters throughout the region, usually living in bottom sediments. But, the current scientific theory goes, it becomes extremely aggressive in the presence of low oxygen and high nutrients, attacking and killing fish and causing flu-like symptoms and memory loss in humans who wash against it.

A professor at North Carolina State University is credited with discovering pfiesteria, which is blamed for killing more than a billion fish in the Tar Heel state in recent years.

On Wednesday, Allen said he was allocating $600,000 from the Governor's Economic Contingency Fund for pfiesteria research by the Virginia Department of Health. Another $200,000 will pay for better laboratory technology and training, including the purchase of a new scanning electron microscope.

In addition, Allen is creating a special pfiesteria research unit within the Department of Health, increasing water-quality monitoring and establishing an expert medical team, to be chaired by Dr. John R. Taylor, professor of neurology at the Medical College of Virginia.

``We're trying to build on the approach we've taken throughout this period - letting sound science steer our public health policies,'' said Julie Overy, an Allen spokeswoman.

Earlier Wednesday, Beyer held a news conference on the banks of the Rappahhanock River, where lesioned fish have shown up in significant numbers the past week, to announce his own initiative.

Beyer, who has made environmental protection a key issue in his bid for governor, released a two-page letter he wrote to the White House asking for federal funds and expert assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

``Virginia can do more to inform Virginians, to protect our waterways and to ensure we have every available resource devoted to this potentially damaging microorganism,'' he said.

Beyer also urged that emergency funds be allocated to help Virginia farmers plant winter cover crops. This would control fertilizers and chemicals from washing off farm fields and sparking what scientists believe is pfiesteria's sudden change from quiet bottom-dweller to predator.

In addition, the candidate also called on the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to report on the adequacy of existing controls of farm runoff, and to consider new restrictions on the poultry industry, whose chicken manure is believed to be a cause of pfiesteria's evolution.

Chicken manure, like all human and animal excrement, is rich in phosphorus and nitrogen - two nutrients that plague water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and are the suspected igniters of pfiesteria.

Similarly in North Carolina, manure from hog farms has been targeted by scientists studying the pfiesteria-related fish kills in waterways there.

Wilmer Stoneman, a spokesman for the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, which represents 36,000 farmers statewide, said Beyer's announcement was premature and unfair.

``Without question, it raises concerns that he's targeting a specific industry when even the scientists haven't made the connection'' between pfiesteria and chicken manure, Stoneman said. ``That sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to me.''

Likewise, Beyer was criticized by his Republican rival, James S. Gilmore III, for urging action before scientific results are in.

``We think he shouldn't be making political hay from a serious environmental and scientific issue,'' said Reed Boatright, a Gilmore spokesman. ``He ought to wait until all the science is in before leading with his mouth.''

Page Boinest, a spokeswoman for Beyer, countered that Gilmore has yet to offer anything for quelling the pfiesteria problem.

``Where's he been throughout all this?'' she asked. ``At least we're trying to step up the activity in Virginia.'' KEYWORDS: FISH KILL PFIESTERIA VIRGINIA

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