Word: epa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...agency took until two months ago to identify the 418 sites it regards as most dangerous. Of those, it has cleansed only five. Meanwhile, roiling criticism of the agency and its controversial administrator, Anne Gorsuch, attracted the attention of two congressional subcommittees, which began investigating charges that the EPA had made "sweetheart" deals with polluting companies and delayed cleanups for political reasons. When Gorsuch refused in December to turn over subpoenaed documents pertaining to 160 Superfund sites, she was cited for contempt of Congress-the first time in history for a Cabinet-level official...
...Superfund issue has exploded into a nasty struggle over power and poli cy that has shattered the once proud agency and deepened doubts in some quarters about the Reagan Administration's commitment to environmental protection. Last Monday, President Reagan tersely fired Rita Lavelle, the EPA official who oversaw hazardous waste programs, after she refused to resign at Gorsuch's request. Lavelle's ouster provided a glimpse into the bizarre infighting and bitter policy battles that have given the agency under Gorsuch the ambience of a Borgia palace on the Potomac. Appalled by allegations of perjury, conflict...
...embarrassed White House moved to contain the image spill, launching its own probe of the EPA and proposing a compromise to try to settle the contempt case against Gorsuch. But it could do little to muffle the echoes of earlier Capital scandals: whining paper shredders, charges of lying under oath, mysterious erasures on subpoenaed documents, leaked memos and harassment of whistle blowers. Problems began for Lavelle soon after she assumed the $67,200-a-year EPA post ten months ago. Ambitious but short on administrative skills, "she came into the agency like a Mack truck," said one former EPA official...
Lavelle further weakened her position by feuding openly with Robert Perry, EPA's general counsel. Their first big clash came last spring, when Perry urged her to avoid a conflict of interest in the case of the Stringfellow Acid Pits dump near Riverside, Calif., a high-priority EPA target site where 32 million gal. of toxic wastes had been dumped during 17 years. Before joining EPA, Lavelle had worked for the California chemical company Aerojet-General Corp., where she developed a public relations campaign to counter pollution charges against the company. It was a job that kept her busy...
...days before Christmas, the Federal Government released Environmental Protection Agency findings that oil mixed with the deadly poison dioxin, sprayed on unpaved streets a decade ago as a seemingly harmless means to hold down dust, had left dangerous concentrations of the chemical in the soil. But since the EPA samples were taken before Dec. 5, it is still unclear whether the flood waters washed away much of the chemical, making Times Beach safer, or unearthed more dioxin, spreading it throughout the town. The EPA plans new tests, scheduled for this week...