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Show Cal Black blasts EPA official "People here are angry, frustrated and concerned," San Juan county commissioner Cal Black told Barbara Blum, new deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during an afternoon meeting in Salt Lake City on Tuesday. Ms. Blum met mayors and county commissioners from throughout the state in the afternoon and heard charges that the EPA regulations are stifling economic growth, are insensitive to local need and conditions and are cluttered with red tape. Disagreement Over Clean Air Cal Black told Ms. Blum, "We get tired of people in Denver, or Washington, telling tell-ing us what to do about clean air when we've got it all around us and they're walking in filth and pollution." "I've been told there are many places in Utah where power plants can be built without causing any prob-, prob-, lems," was the reply Ms. Blum offered. "Where?" was Black's immediate im-mediate question. "Every place we choose, we're told it's unsuitable. We who live there (in southern Utah) should have some say about what is developed down there. We feel we're being treated like colonial peasants." Met with Leaders Ms. Blum also met business leaders in a morning session, and the environmental community com-munity at noon to hear worries about environmental threats in Utah and concern that environmental environ-mental goals may be eroded by Washington legislation. "President Carter's order... and he has impressed this on all his cabinet members... is to bring the public more into the decisiion-making process. And that's all the agencies, not just EPA," Ms. Blum commented at a press meeting in the office of Salt Lake mayor Ted Wilson. Learn Problems I'm here specifically to learn the problems unique to Utah, and one of them, I know, is the problem of developing your .- resources with their close proximity to national parks," she said. Regarding the Intermoun-tain Intermoun-tain Power Project being planned at a site about 11 miles from Capitol Reef National Park, Ms. Blum noted that it is facing the same environmental opposition as the ill-fated Kaiparowits Project Proj-ect for the same reasons. Interior Secretary Cecil An-drus An-drus has stated department policy as favoring retention of Class I (pristine) air quality in Capitol Reef as well as Canyonlands National Park. Utah's Congressional delegation dele-gation is pushing for relaxation relaxa-tion of the nondegradation policy enough to allow the IPP plant under the wire. Action Suspended Ms. Blum stated, Everything Every-thing is in a kind of suspension until we find out what Congress does with the Clean Air Act." She added, "EPA doesn't create most of the things it imposes on the public. Congress imposes the mandates on EPA, which simply carries them out." She continued, "An adversary adver-sary relationship between federal fed-eral and state regulatory programs is unnecessary. Andp that's one of the reasons I'm here, to find out where and why friction exists." Warns About Labels Mayor Wilson warned that there is too much labeling going on in Utah, and commented, "The public should be concerned about this. Labeling should stop. If someone speaks out about his environmental concerns he is immediately labeled as a screaming, raving environmentalist." environ-mentalist." Ms. Blum replied that the term "environmentalist" should not have a derogatory connotation. "Jimmy Carter is an environmentalist. I worked with him in Georgia. He's always going to come down on the side of environment and public health," she said. Ms. Blum was a leading figure in organizing and lobbying for environmental concerns in Georgia during Carter's gubernatorial years. She served as assistant director direct-or of the Carter-Mondale campaign for the presidency and was unanimously confirmed confirm-ed by the Senate as EPA deputy administrator last March. |