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Show .............. Western Resources WRAP-UP 404' permit program, reasons against proposed revision By Helenf C. Mimberg Vernal Express V sh InRt on Corrcs pon dent Washington In the Pacific Nor-thest. Nor-thest. it's known as "musk-oxing," jnJ it basically means in context of government operations that the fcireaucrats get together, with eyes ' fivused a common goal, and cut the ij tspeto arrive quickly at a government govern-ment action. -Musk-oxing" is what most of the affected agencies, notably the National yjinne Fisheries Service and the U.S. Ftsh and Wildlife Service, would like the Administration to do in operating t' VM" permit program. Others call this process joint-pax-essing. I Section 404 of the 1972 Clean Water '.Act authorues the U.S. Army Corps of Eineers to issue permits for the discharge of "dredged or fill material" into specified disposal sites, particularly par-ticularly wetlands. The disposal of such !viste Wten mountains of waste in a 'major construction project to Binimiie adverse effects on the en-'vjvriment en-'vjvriment is the purpose of the "404' 'permit program. ) The administration of the 404 program has been under attack for Hscmetime, as critics charge it takes too lcr.$ to get permit approval for a cccstruction project to go forward. Last week's Western Resources Wrapup (WRW) outlined a case in-whing in-whing the Port of Kalama, Wash., where there was not only a three-year fcr.e span before the little port got a go-ahead go-ahead from the "feds" to embark on to construction projects, but it had to pve up one out of three acres that had been dedicated to project development i for wildlife habitat to get both state and ) federal approval to go ahead, according ac-cording to Port Manager John Fratt. Pratt claims his port had to pay "a -rcsom" to the wildlifers to get on w ith - txstruction. Other critics call this procedure "blackmail." A Presidential Task Force headed by Vice President George Bush on Rx-iatory Relief is expected to issue ry day now a series of directives to the nricus affected agencies to streamline vie 404 program, based on recom-v recom-v renditions that Assistant Army ".Secretary W.R. (Bill) Gianell'i '.. The wlldlif ers have reservations about .... the Gianelli recommendations. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, ; . tier Gianelli's jurisdiction, runs the W program, but the Environmental c - Protection Agency (EPA) under Anne i- M Gorsuch has a veto authority over Corps decisions under a ruling of forcer for-cer Attorney General Benjamin CMettionSept. 5, 1979. EPA has never tEed this authority. ... So where does EPA stand on proposed changes by Gianelli in the " administration of the 404 program? Officially it is going along with Gianelli. I'Dofficially it has none. WRW tried, ' ". rthout success, for two weeks to '.' determine EPA's position. One federal fiih and wildlifer called EPA "a silent partner." WRW found EPA not to be a . factor, one way or the other, because of ' starp internal splits between Mrs. Gorsuch and her political assistants atd agency careerists. "TENTATIVE STAND-OFF" A meeting of the Bush Task Force as held on March 29 attended by four "J key top officials, including Vice President Bush, Gianelli, Interior Sfcretary James G. Watt, who has the '. I'-S. Fish and Wildlife Service under his . ' jffisdiction, and Malcolm Baldridge, . ho has the National Marine Fisheries Service under his jurisdiction. Gianelli ' as chairman of the working group, on - hich Watt and Baldridge served, to -'ty to streamline 404 permitting Fwsdures. EPA, which also served on working group, was not at the s-'' March 29 meeting. Gianelli said wowing the meeting that the group ? : talked mainly about escalation of the a'. Permit process, which causes delay, j. jurisdiction of the categories of i Waters and wetlands under 404 at the i' Present time. u Gianelli told WRW he anticipated some degree of success" with the ommendations that he had made to Jtoamline 404, but the outcome was ,ay. We'll just have to see what ructions are given to the agencies," UlaneUi stated. The Bush Task Force is "fling for an April 1 deadline in ""ig its final determination on 404. li?1" tracking the same meeting WRW on March 31 that it had suited in a "tentative standoff," with indicating he did not want to limit categories of waters and wetlands reject to the 404 process or to seek jjMative changes in the program, but did favor administrative and . changes. That would mean Gianelli had prevailed on only ' tatf of his recommendations. James Tozzi, who has been in charge "e 404 program for the Bush Task ', told WRW on March 31 the Task r would probably issue its mar-Tj8 mar-Tj8 orders to the agencies "early h., Weelc " It was apparent on March Jia ii- deve'opers backing the recommendations and the fish ildlifers, who oppose them, are still jockeying for position. So nothing Is fued in concrete yet. Nut the fish and wildlifers were fur more optimistic about the Task Force directives than the developers. Some fish and wildlifers were elated with the course of events during the past several days. The North American Wildlife Conference meeting in Portland, Ore., from March 27-March 31 passed a resolution opposing major changes in 404 permitting. The Executive Committee of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies sent a telegram to the Bush Task Force on March 28 stating that the "benefits of the Corps '404' permit program clearly outweigh its costs." It said it opposed the Gianelli recommendations because they "would essentially eliminate the only national program effectively protecting (fish and wildlife) habitat from dredging and filling in waters of the United States." In lieu of the Gianelli recommendations, recom-mendations, this group of state agencies wants other efforts made to "impirove the efficiency of the existing program consistent with existing law and regulations," such as "musk-axing" "musk-axing" or joint permitting The Water Resources Congress and the National Water Resources Association lined up behind Ginanelli's recommendations. They found "horror stories" and held meetings with industry in-dustry to back his proposals for streamlining the 404 program. The fish and wildlifers, however, worked within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal and state agencies and in Congress to line up support for alternatives alter-natives to Gianelli's proposals, and their lobbying appears to have been more effective. "Where we made our error," Joseph Tofani of the Water Resources Congress told WRW on March 31, "is that we didn't go to Republicans up for re-election" to enlist their support. "They the fish and wildlifers) got to Sen. (John B.) Chafee if-F.I.) and others up for re-election this year in the Senate, and we didn't," Tofani stated. Fourteen organizations representing the bulk of the nation's fishermen and hunters have formed an umbrella group to battle the Gianelli proposals, and they have been mailing out for weeks advisories to local chapters as to how to proceed. "Politicians can count," Tofani. an old Washington hand, observed to WRW on March 31. There are a lot of developers and would-be developers around, he noted, but there are ev en more fishermen and hunters. The Interior Department estimates there are 44 million fishermen fisher-men and 17 million hunters in this country over the age of 16. and the majority are male, middle-class and probable voters. TRY "MlSK-OXING"& STOP STATUTORY CHANGES The fish and wildlife groups are keen on getting the Bush Task Force to order "musk-oxing" or joint-processing by interested agencies to speed up the permitting process. They are equally keen on stopping any legislative proposals to change the present 404 permit system and oppose narrowing the definitions of waters and wetlands subject to 404. There are several reasons for this. Many sincerely believe "musk-oxing" "musk-oxing" works. Marvin Moriarty, who works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, started holding meetings at his home near Annapolis, MD., in 1976 to get state and federal agency officials together to speed up the processing of 404 applications. He swears by joint-processing. joint-processing. "There are 404 delays, people are hurt by them, but, you betcha, joint-processing works," Moriarty told WRW on March 30. When he started getting people together to speed up 404 applications in 1976, Moriarty was assigned to the Service's Glouchester Point, Va., substation; now he is working on 404 permits in the Service's Washington office. The joint-processing joint-processing experiment which began in the Moriarty living room in 1976 is now an established procedure of Corps of Engineer district offices in Norfolk, Va., and Baltimore, Md. They hold monthly meetings on permit applications ap-plications with other interested agencies. Similar meetings were held by the Corps and other agencies in the Pacific Northwest for several years until Gov. Victor Atiyed, R-Ore., withdrew with-drew Oregon state agencies from the meetings because of complaints by developers, WRW was told. Fish and wildlife groups oppose any changes in statue law Gianelli has proposed several (see last week's WRW) because they don't want to open up the Clean Water law and the Endangered Species Act, both up for extension this year, to extensive amendments. They are quite emotional about major changes in either law Chafee has stated flatly he will not consider any changes in the 404 provision of the Clean Water Act in his Senate Environmental Pollution Subcommittee this year. Interior has proposed nochanges in the Endangered Species Act this year, pending a review of this program. Finally, the fish and wildlifers oppose major changes in the 404 permitting process because it works to their advantage. ad-vantage. The mere threat of delay, which they have in the present system, gives them a tremendous amount of clout. It allows them to get conditions and restrictions into permits which would not be possible under the Gianelli proposals. "It's the way we protect the butterflies," one fish and wildlifer noted. Whatever the Hush Task force does, Gianelli can always take another crack at this problem thru the Corps' rule-making authority in this area, and the fish and wildlifers are well aware of thiit, too. OII.SUAI.K ROUNDUP Tosco announced on March 30 that the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corp. had, after a review of the cost of its Colony Oil Shale project in Western Colorado, approved a second drawdown of funds totaling $105 million under Tosco's loan guarantee with the government. The new drawdown will carry Tosco thru the April September period, it said. Energy Secretary James B. Edwards on Aug. 5 approved a $1 1 billion loan guarnatee for Tosco, headquartered in jo& Angeles, toward its 40 percent share of the Colony project, on which its partner is Exxon. Administration of the loan guarantee was transferred to the Syn Fuels Corp. from the Department of Energy in February. Since then the cost of the Colony project has increased from $3.1 to $3.7 billion, so the Syn Fuels Corp. took another look at the loan guarantee before releasing the money on March 30 for the second drawdown of federal funds. The staff of the Senate Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee headed by Sen. John Warner, R-Va.; expects to have a counter proposal on oil shale ready by April 2 to submit to Sen. Gary Hart, D Colo., on response to a proposal that Hart submitted to Warner last month. They are attempting at-tempting to avoid a Senate floor fight over an oil shale leasing bill (S 1484) reported out of the Senate Energy Committee in December over Hart's opposition. Hart has proposed a compromise to the long-term oil shale leasing bill which would not allow Interior In-terior to lease more than four more pxiblic tracts in the next ten years w ith not more than one to be an open-pit mining operation, and one to be a multi-mineral multi-mineral development lease. Occidental Oil Shale, Inc., closed its Denver office on March 31. It said in an announcement received about March 23 all of its w ork w ould be conducted out of its office in Grand Junction, Colo., headed by Vice President John B. (Jack) Rigg, a native of Grand Junction. Junc-tion. White River Shale Oil announced about March 15 it is planning to spend $100 million in 19R2 and 1983 to develop oil shale deposits in the Uintah Basin in eastern Utah, L.Y. Siddoway of the Uintah Water Conservancy District of Vernal, told the House Public Works Appropriations panel on March 29. |