Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 45

Opinion SATURDAY Dec. 31, 1977 Facem 4 I EDITOR'S NOTE: Sandra Gardebring is executive rector of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. She was interviewed for Face to Face by Stephen Alnes, The Star's editorial editor. Slil Ski a. Sandra Gardebring Stephen Alnes Environmentalists, 2nd act not so dramatic QWhat are the major environmental issues undW your jurisdiction facing Minnesota in the next five years? A I think in Minnesota there's always been very strong public support for conservation programs before we called them environmental programs.

I think there is an overall change in the level of public support as people perceive other, needs of society conflicting with environmental needs, notably the need for additional energy resources. I think there's a very strong core of people who are very jommitted to environmental matters, but I think generally, perhaps, the heyday of the movement is over and it may be a more difficult time for regulatory agencies like the PCA for that reason. A I think there are probably two specific ones and then kind of a general area that I should mention. First, I think, is the whola area of additional natural resource exploitation and development, additiopal taconlte mining, the potential for copper-nickel min-' ing, the potential for peat harvesting all of those raise significant environmental questions that are going to have to be addressed. Second is the whole area of generation of electrical energy and the related environmental impacts.

We know that even though predictions of needs have gone down in the last year, we're still talking about six or eight or 10 additional sites for power plants. We know we are limited in terms of areas where air quality allows additional coal-fired plants. This agency always has had a concern about additional nuclear plants in the state and I think that's increased, given the prob- lems of waste disposal from the nuclear plants. Finally, I guess, is what I call sort of a second generation of environmental problems, and I think that's really best illustrated by the hazardous-waste issue. As we develop regulatory programs to restrict hazardous waste and to see that it isn't thrown into the environment with inadequate waste-treatment practices, that in itself raises additional environmental concerns because of the need for a hazardous waste landfill or a high-temperature incinerator or a waste-reduction facility of some sort.

We are, I think, identifying more subtle problems. We are able to measure, for example, toxicmaterials in ambient air and water samples at very, very low levels. Our analytical techniques are getting better all the time. So I think some of the gross problems are being resolved. What we're looking to now are the most subtle problems that are probably more difficult to resolve.

They require more sophisticated treatment techniques. The health people can't tell us what the safe levels are for some of the exotic, complicated chemical formulations that we find. The PCB thing is kind of a classic case and I think there are going to be more and more of those as our analytical techniques get better. QYou mentioned the need for a number of more power plants. We can clean up each of those individual plants only to a certain- degree.

As we get more plants Isnt the overall effect one of deterioration in quality even though each new power plant is cleaner "than the last new power plant? A That's a serious problem and is something that is specifically addressed by the amendments to the clean air act in the program called "prevention of significant deterioration." It's clearly true the al additions of air pollutants over a period of time cause deterioration. The federal law's provision on significant deterioration says that in areas where air is already cleaner than the national ambient standards, facilities located there can degrade the air only to a small incremental amount and once that increment is used up you can't go in there. Doesn't that suggest that at some point down the line we simply will not be having any economic growth or development that requires the use of the environment, pollution of the environment, in order to function? Hasn't it shifted in some ways, though, from be- ing sort of a philosophical or emotional kind of movement into agencies like yours where yon have to decide how much pollution is acceptable? A I think that's right and that's why it's more dif- icult in some ways. When this agency was first created, I think it was in the glow of that emotional stage and I think now we are to the times where we have to deal with difficult questions like overall deterioration of air quality. There's an air-quality policy that's now in the clean air act called the trade-off policy.

If NSP wanted to build a power plant in the metropolitan area, even though it met all of our emission standards, it would have to show that in some of its other power plants or in some other sources it had reduced emissions by an equal amount so there can't be any incremental gains in this area because we're already over ambient standards. That's a very difficult kind of program to work out in a regulatory agency because you are impacting sources and individuals who are unrelated to the project. NSP might buy up a whole lot of gravel operations and shut them down in order to work a net gain in particulates, for example. There's sort of secondary impact. That's more difficult than the times when we could raise and wave our green ecology flags and all sort of be moving in the same direction.

I think the choices are harder. How about over the longer range beyond Ave years? Do you see something additional coming up? A I don't think so. 1 think both the amendments to the federal water act and the clean air act that we've just experienced in the last six months are really looking to a kind of maintenance program. I think we are hoping that within the next five, eight years or so, we'll have gotten a handle on some of the major problems find it will really be kind of a planning effort, a kind of wiser decision-making process. Are wt making any progress toward a cleaner environment or are things happening so fast and on such scale that we actually are falling behind in terms of clean air and clean water? A I think it's a little hard to measure.

1 think we're making progress in numerical terms. We know, for example, in Minnesota that of the major dischargers into watercourses about 85 to 88 percent are now in compliance with both state and federal standards. There are some rivers and streams in the state that are being noticeably improved. I think when the Duluth-. Western Lake Superior sanitary district's major new plant goes on line in about a year that there will be a real startling improvement in the water quality in the St.

Louis River and in the Duluth harbor. A I don't think so. I think what it suggests is that the costs of waste treatment are likely to increase because the level of treatment will have to be greater. I think there are some tilings coming, for example, on the air side as we get to a stage when older motor vehicles with less efficient emission controls are coming off the roads and as wt. get to a stage when the more stringent controls apply to more vehicles we should achieve some net gain in air quality.

So there are some things over the long term that will help Clearly, waste treatment is going to be more costly. Clearly there are implications for the location of power plants; for example, the location of industrial development is probably going to be significantly impacted by the different kind of things we are talking about. I think there's room for growth but it's going to be limited in these other ways. QHave there been any najor change in the envi- ronmental movement In the years that you've observed It? QDo you need any additional legislation for your agency to be effective? A I think the one thing we are going to need in one of the upcoming sessions it is not an agency bill this year but I think we are going to be asking for it again next year is a bill requiring vehicle inspection and maintenance in the seven-county area. It is needed because we probably can't meet the federal air quality standards for vehicular emissions without that kind of a program and there are some fairly stringent requirements in the air act that would probably require something like that.

Secondly, we are probably going to need some additional legislation in the hazardous-waste area. We're looking to the concept of the state-owned, state-operated facility where the long-term costs of maintenance, long-term liability are borne by the state..