Information provided by: Times News Online News & Information Service

Associated Press

CLINTWOOD, Va. (AP) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants federal regulators to suspend permits for a chip mill out of concern that the wood processing plant will harm endangered species in Southwest Virginia.

The agency asked the Environmental Protection Agency to look into the environmental impact of the plant in Dickenson County. David Sternberg, an EPA spokesman, said a reply was being prepared.

The chip mill's owner, the Pittston Co., said the wildlife service's concerns are unfounded.

Pittston, which has large coal-mining operations in southwest Virginia, began operating the chip mill in July on a former coal-processing site. The company owns about 150,000 acres of forest in the region and wants the mill to produce about 250,000 tons of chips each year for use in making paper.

Critics say the wood cutting will muddy the county's streams and rivers and deter tourists. They collected more than 5,000 signatures on petitions and staged a protest at the Capitol in Richmond during the summer.

The critics also took their concerns to Roberta Hylton, the wildlife service's southwest Virginia field supervisor, who wrote to the company asking for information.

Randy Toms, president of Pittston's forestry unit, Mountain Forest Products, replied that the company had all the required government permits and intended to log its lands using accepted anti-erosion practices.

Ms. Hylton wrote the EPA and the U.S. Office of Surface Mining that the wildlife service was concerned about discharges from the mill and the general effects of increased logging in the basins of the upper Tennessee and Big Sandy rivers. She said the region is home to more than two dozen endangered species, including the Virginia big-eared bat, the bob turtle and birdwing pearlymussels.

"The risk for impacts to fish and wildlife resources from logging to satisfy the appetite of the Mountain Forest Products chip mill is of great concern to the service," Ms. Hylton wrote.

Walter Crickmer, who oversees Pittston's forest operations in Virginia, said the company asked the wildlife service if there were any concerns about the property and got no response other than blanket admonitions about not harming endangered species.

Crickmer said the company will cut about 1 percent of its forest holdings each year, and that it wants to log in a way that brings back more desirable hardwood species that have been reduced by past logging practices.

He said the chip mill site had long been fouled by coal refuse, which was produced when there were no government regulations on mining. As part of the chip mill construction, he said, the company cleaned up the ground and the water.

"We've gone from moonscape - leftover mine refuse from the '40s and '50s - to a 1999 state-of-the-art reclamation job," he said. "And I'll tell you, buddy, it cost us."

As the number of chip mills in the Southeast has increased from 32 in 1985 to 140, the debate has grown over whether they damage the environment or produce needed jobs.

Virginia has four large chip mills in Dickenson, Fluvanna, Campbell and Pittsylvania counties. A legislative study commission is looking at the economic and environmental effects of chip mills and will report to the 2001 General Assembly.