Down in the Dumps at EPA

The White House looks for a successor, Congress looks for dirt

When the Administration needed a caretaker for the battered Environmental Protection Agency as it searched for a permanent replacement for departing Administrator Anne Burford, John Hernandez seemed a perfect choice. A water-pollution expert and former dean of engineering at New Mexico State University, Hernandez had distinguished himself as one of the few top EPA officials not caught in the crossfire of charges about sweetheart deals, political manipulation, conflict of interest and mismanagement. Some of his colleagues caustically pointed out that he could credit his clean slate at least in part to his exclusion from the agency's decision-making echelon. "He was lucky to get invited to meetings," said a former EPA official.

But even such a seemingly safe choice for acting administrator has turned into an exploding cigar for the White House. By week's end three House subcommittees and the EPA's inspector general were probing a spate of charges that Hernandez made improper decisions benefiting industry. Reagan aides, who had hoped that Burford's ouster would provide some breathing space and subdue the impression that the Administration has favored polluters, were foiled. Groused one White House official: "Every time we turn around, something is screwed up over there."

At first, things seemed to be going well. Although his chances were slim, Hernandez began actively campaigning to keep his job, signaling the White House that he could improve the agency's tarnished image. In a sharp contrast to the deep personnel and money cuts supported by Burford, he prepared supplemental budgets seeking more congressional funds. He also dismissed EPA Official Louis Cordia, who two years ago compiled a "hit list" of ideologically suspect agency employees.

At midweek the "fresh start" fizzled. Democratic Congressman James Scheuer, who heads one of the six congressional panels investigating the agency, charged that Hernandez personally intervened to allow Dow Chemical Co. to edit a July 1981 agency report about dioxin contamination of two rivers and a bay near its Midland, Mich., plant. EPA officials agreed to Dow's suggested deletions of critical passages linking the deadly poison to fertility problems and birth defects, as well as the conclusion that "Dow's discharge represented the major source, if not the only source, of [dioxin] contamination" in the waterways.

Testifying before the House Public Works Oversight Subcommittee, Hernandez acknowledged that he urged Valdas Adamkus, head of the EPA's Midwest regional office, to hear Dow out on the report but denied ordering him to let company officials make changes. In a stunning public break with his bosses, however, Adamkus testified on Friday that his staffers had been "forced" by Washington headquarters to strike out the passages. Hernandez was angry that the Midwest office had prepared the report in the first place, Adamkus said, and was "denouncing our report and calling the work of our regional people 'trash.' " Dow was saying little, in part because there is a Justice Department suit pending over the company's refusal to yield technical data about its toxic emissions to the EPA.