| Copyright Richmond Newspapers, Incorporated Nov
5, 2004
At Virginia's top pollution-fighting agency, the
environment is changing.
An effort by the Department of Environmental
Quality to become more open with the public is convincing some of
its toughest critics.
"I think perhaps the atmosphere has changed between
the DEQ and the environmental community," said Jim Sharp, director
of the conservation group Campaign Virginia.
"There seems perhaps to be more of a willingness to
work together to protect the environment."
The DEQ runs programs to protect people from air
and water pollution and to regulate the disposal of trash and other
waste.
The agency is trying to improve communications with
the public, in part to repair damage from two incidents that smacked
of government secrecy.
The incidents, a confidential agreement with a
trash company in December 2002 regarding trash-barge rules, and a
closed meeting in July 2003 in which the barge rules were discussed,
enraged environmentalists, who felt the public was kept out of the
loop.
Since spring, DEQ officials have been meeting with
environmentalists to come up with ways the agency can be more
open.
That task force submitted its report yesterday. It
includes several recommended actions that DEQ officials say have
begun or will begin soon. They include:
* Alerting the public earlier when the DEQ
considers issuing a permit for an industry to discharge waste. Now,
people can react during a comment period after a permit is proposed,
but many people feel the permit is nearly a done deal by then.
* Holding public hearings at more convenient times
- perhaps at night.
* Having DEQ officials address the public and write
public notices in clear, jargon-free language.
The agency has been working for months to put
together a fill-in- the-blanks prototype for jargon-free notices. It
should be ready by early next year.
"We are doing all this because people I respect
kept telling me we are doing a bad job of it, and I want to do a
better job," DEQ Director Robert G. Burnley said yesterday.
"I just want to do a good job of involving
[environmentalists] and every citizen out there because what we do
is so important to people. It affects the quality of their life the
air they breathe, the water in the creek behind their house and the
use of their land."
During the meetings that began in spring, it became
clear that DEQ officials and environmentalists had very different
views of the agency. DEQ workers thought they were helping the
environment. Environmentalists thought the agency was too friendly
with industries.
"We've always tried our best to protect the
environment, but it became obvious that not everyone saw our actions
that way," said DEQ spokesman Bill Hayden.
As part of its openness initiative, the DEQ is
holding public meetings around the state. About 55 people turned out
for one Oct. 19 at the agency's Piedmont regional office in Glen
Allen.
One person who attended, Robbie Robertson, a board
member of the Virginia Forestry Association, said he does not think
the DEQ has a pro-industry tilt.
"I think they try to cut it down the middle," said
Robertson, whose group represents timber companies and owners.
Formed by merging several agencies in April 1993,
the DEQ has suffered image problems virtually from its
beginning.
In 1994, Republican George Allen took office and
declared Virginia open for business. He cut staff at the DEQ, and
morale dropped.
In 1996, the General Assembly's investigative
agency blasted the DEQ, calling it politicized and cozy with
polluters. Allen officials dismissed that as political sniping.
Much of the controversy quieted after Gov. Jim
Gilmore, Allen's Republican successor, appointed lawyer Dennis
Treacy to direct the DEQ in 1998. Treacy was widely credited with
restoring fairness and openness.
In 2002, Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner named
Burnley to run the DEQ. Burnley had left the agency during the Allen
years, and his return was widely seen as a plus for the
environment.
The agency ran smoothly for a while as Burnley,
among other things, revised a river-protection program that had
fallen dormant during the Allen years.
Then the two trash-barge incidents - the
confidential deal and the closed meeting - embarrassed the DEQ, as
well as the office of Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, which
advises the agency.
Largely out of disgust with the incidents, Patti
Jackson, director of the conservation group the James River
Association, declined to participate in the task force that sought
ways to improve the DEQ.
But Jackson called the DEQ's openness initiative "a
very genuine outreach effort."
"I think the cause of all this was somewhat
unfortunate, but they have sort of taken the concerns to heart and
made a concerted effort to listen."
Still, Jackson isn't so sure the DEQ is a changed
agency. "I think it's going to be a work in progress."
ON THE WEB
READ MORE: The DEQ task-force report is on the Web
at: www.deq.virginia.gov/taskforce
Credit: Times-Dispatch Staff Writer Contact Rex
Springston at (804) 649- 6453 or
rspringston@timesdispatch.com |