Environment: Ruckelshaus' First Year

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"You're the enforcer," President Nixon told William D. Ruckelshaus when he swore him in as the Environmental Protection Agency's first administrator. As an afterthought, he added: "You're going to be called a lot worse."

Surprisingly, after a full year in office, Ruckelshaus, 39, has not been called anything a lot worse. Environmentalists generally praise the big, bespectacled ex-Justice Department lawyer as Nixon's best appointment. Even businessmen temper their complaints. In Washington, one good-humoredly introduced Ruckelshaus (who comes from a long line of Indiana Republicans) as "the greatest friend of American industry since Karl Marx." The consensus is that he has been aggressive but fair.

Visible Violators. The aggressive part was quickly established—even though his personal style is amiable. When the EPA was just a week old, Ruckelshaus startled the mayors of Atlanta, Detroit and Cleveland by giving them 180 days to come up with a plan to correct water-quality violations—or else. In ensuing months, he ordered action taken against some 185 other water polluters, including Armco Steel, U.S. Steel, Koppers, U.S. Plywood-Champion, ITT Rayonier and a host of municipalities. The agency recently broke all precedent by getting a federal court order forcing 23 plants in Birmingham to cut back on production during a five-day temperature inversion that was creating dangerous air pollution. Mercury discharges, thermal pollution, auto emissions—under Ruckelshaus' direction EPA has demanded (and got) action to help curb them all. EPA's general policy, Ruckelshaus told TIME Correspondent Sam Iker, is "to single out violators with the greatest visibility in order to get the message across."

Ruckelshaus has not hesitated to dispute other federal agencies' plans when they concern the environment. EPA opposed one of the Bureau of Reclamation's dam-building projects, the Interior Department's tentative approval of the trans-Alaska pipeline and, reportedly, the Atomic Energy Commission's nuclear test at Amchitka. As a result of such actions, Ruckelshaus has been called "the loneliest man in Washington." He shrugs:'"In a job like this, you're bound to ruffle some feathers."

Heavy Pressure. What makes his accomplishments even more impressive is the fact that EPA began as one of the most fragmented and confused bureaucracies in Washington —"a mess" is Ruckelshaus' word for it. It was supposed to amalgamate the functions of some 15 federal bodies with environmental responsibilities (air and water quality, pesticide tolerance, radiation). Some employees changed offices and telephone numbers more times than a harassed bookie. Ruckelshaus, charged with responsibility for an area of enormous voter concern, was under heavy pressure to produce instant results. It was, he recalls, "like trying to run a 100-yd. dash while undergoing an appendectomy."