
          LEAF
          By Johnson, TimTim Johnson
          Vol. 6, No. 2, 1984, pp. 5-9
          
          Atlanta environmentalist Deborah Sheppard was organizing a state
conference for a coalition of environmental groups in 1982. Among the
offers of volunteer help she received, one stands out.
          "This woman called. She was a mother of two, a former nurse with
the World Health Organization and a law student at the University of
Georgia. She was a ball of fire--talking about all the things she and
her partner were doing. Upon graduation, they planned to open an
Atlanta office of LEAF, the Legal Environmental Assistance
Foundation.
          "She overwhelmed me with her energy and enthusiasm," Sheppard
says. "Then she said that she was the low key partner."
          When Vicki Breman called, very few Georgians knew her or her
partner, Laurie Fowler. But they had been laying groundwork for years,
and eighteen months later, were among the best known and most
effective environmentalists in the state.
          Breman began law school at age thirty-seven. At Athens, she met
Fowler, twenty-five, also specializing in environmental law.
          After hearing Birmingham attorney Suzi Ruhl talk about the LEAF
office in Alabama, Fowler and Breman decided to start their own firm
in Georgia.
          "We weren't sure if we should be a LEAF chapter or merely model
ourselves after what LEAF was doing," Fowler recalls. "We talked with
activists all over Georgia about what the needs were and we decided to
join with LEAF."
          A native of Marietta, Georgia, Fowler had worked with the Sierra
Club Legal Defense Fund in San Francisco, the National Clean Air
Coalition in DC, and environmental attorney Roger Leed in Seattle.
          In its short existence, LEAF has become a remarkably effective tool
for environmentalists in the Deep South. Its offices in Atlanta,
Birmingham, Knoxville and Tallahassee, have opposed strip-mining, the
spraying of paraquat in Georgia's mountains, the construction of a
nuclear power plant, air pollution, and hazardous disposal of toxic
wastes. And, belying the usual sprout-eater image of
lawyer-environmentalist groups, LEAF has targeted its resources to
come to the aid of poor and working-class Southerners, the traditional
victims of industrial toxins and chemical wastes both on the job and
in their neighborhoods.
          Toxic waste dumps, sanitary landfills, notorious polluting
industries and major highways appear with more than coincidental
frequency near poor neighborhoods.
          In Alabama, where LEAF was organized by Birmingham attorney Ruhl in
1979, much of the group's efforts have 

dealt with toxic waste
disposal: currently operating landfills, abandoned dumps that contain
chemical wastes and proposed dumps.
          LEAF'S Jeff Roseman, an Alabama epidemiologist, helped in
investigation of the health of residents of Triana, and black
community whose water was poisoned with DDT by the Tennessee Valley
Authority and the US Army. DDT levels in fish and in Triana residents
were the highest ever recorded in a US population. The government
settled out of court, paying residents more than twenty million
dollars.
          In promoting alternatives to the dumping of toxic wastes in
Alabama, LEAF argues that virtually all toxics now created by industry
can be safely disposed of with current technology. (Radioactive wastes
are a major exception.) It has filed comments with the state of
Alabama in support of applications for alternative disposal
technologies and has drafted model legislation to provide tax
incentatives for the applicants. Alabama's toxic law, which LEAF has
targeted for reform, now automatically grants a permit to dump within
ninety days of application if the state doesn't act on the request.
          "Our goal is to make Alabama's law at least as stringent as the
federal law," says Suzi Ruhl. "If not, then we will move to have the
federal_government take over enforcement."
          Currently, underground injection of toxics is prohibited in
Alabama, but Stanley Graves, one of seven commissioners of the state's
Department of Environmental Management, owns a well drilling company
and is pushing for injection. So far, LEAF has successfully opposed
Graves.
          Alabama LEAF is also fighting a DEM effort to allow blanket permits
for emitting pollutants into state waterways. Present law requires a
permit for each water site that a company wants to pollute. LEAF is
opposing a change in the law which would allow one permit to cover all
the discharges of a company. With the law changed, a coal company
would need only a single permit to dump wastes into streams anywhere
in Alabama.
          "If the law gets changed," Ruhl points out, "a coal company could
apply for a discharge permit on June l, then there would be a hearing
on June 15. Then, in December, you might hear that the company was
going to pollute the water in your community, but you would not get a
hearing because the company would already have its permit."
          Citing the legislative history of the Clean Water Act, LEAF has
argued in written comments that the single permit proposal violates
the intent of Congress. "If the change goes through the legislature,"
Ruhl says," we'll sue. They're probably waiting for us to disappear,"
she adds, referring to the Alabama Department of Environmental
Management, "but we won't."
          LEAF is also grappling with air pollution in Alabama. It organized
a state conference and is a cofounder of the Alabama Coalition for
Clean Air. Pointing to deleterious 

health effects. it is opposing
Alabama Power Company's efforts to convert two natural gas fueled
steam generating plants in downtown Birmingham to coal.
          In addition to providing counsel for individual members,
LEAF-Alabama serves as the legal arm for two chapters of the Audubon
Society, the Alabama Conservancy and the Sierra Club.
          Even as attorney Ruhl sets about to organize a LEAF office in
Tallahasse, she continues to coordinate the work on Alabama toxics
issues while attorneys Larry Putt and Sally McConnell carry on other
concerns.
          "We've grown faster than I ever expected," says Suzi Ruhl. LEAF is
currently operating in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida. The
goal is to expand into seven more Southern_states. All the staffers
are natives, most are women.
          "Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council
and the other national environmental law groups are very active in
other areas of the nation," LEAF boardmember Ogden Doremus notes, "but
they don't have offices down here. So we're doing it ourselves."
Doremus, an attorney from Metter, Georgia, has argued many
environmental cases over the last thirty years.
          
            Stones in Their Pathway
          
          Florida is the nation's fastest growing state and many developers
there see ecological concerns as nothing more than stones in their
pathway to profits. LEAF-Florida, which did not begin operations until
January of this year, is already involved in several efforts to
protect the state's close-to-the-surface groundwater from
contamination and from depletion under the pressures of population
growth and development.
          LEAF-Florida is monitoring a state department of health
epidemiological study of the impacts of the controversial fungicide
ethyl dibromide (EDB).
          Joining with the Romona Civic Association and residents of
Jacksonville, LEAF is involved in a PCB clean-up and public_education
project at a chemical storage site which exploded, contaminating the
surrounding community. One of the aims here is to have the site
included on the Superfund list, making it eligible for federal
money.
          
            LEAF-CAO
          
          The LEAF-Central Appalachian Office opened in Knoxville in 1982
with support from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. Attorney Carol
Davis left her job with the US Department of Interior's Office of
Surface Mining to work on strip-mining issues. Attorney Gary Davis, an
appalachian native and former aide to California Governor Jerry Brown,
is covering toxics. Davis set up California's program for alternatives
to land disposal of toxic wastes, a model. LEAF boardmember Neil
McBride, an attorney with Rural Legal Services in Tennessee, has
worked with Ralph Nader on 

environmental issues, including a
well-known investigation of pollution on the Georgia Coast described
in the book The Water Lords.
          In Tennessee, LEAF has taken on the US nuclear facilities at Oak
Ridge where, from 1950 through 1963, nearly 2l/2 million pounds of
mercury were dumped into the surface and groundwater--threatening the
health of residents along the Clinch River.
          Current standards used at Oak Ridge for toxic waste dumping include
"unlined surface impoundments" (Department of Energy jargon for holes
in the ground) which, says Gary Davis, "don't even meet the standards
of the 60s."
          The DOE, which operates Oak Ridge, says that the toxic waste laws
don't apply. It claims that the Atomic Energy Act exempts facilities
involved in nuclear production from other regulation, a contention
which Davis disputes. LEAF represented SOCM (Save Our Cumberland
Mountains) on the Oak Ridge issue in state administrative proceedings
and, in September of 1983, LEAF and the Natural Resources Defense
Council filed suit in federal district court in Knoxville against the
dumping. If LEAF wins, the case will provide a precedent for other DOE
operations, including the Savannah River Plant.
          In Memphis, LEAF-CAO is assisting the League of Women Voters'
review of the Superfund cleanup of the Hollywood Dump--where Velsicol
Chemical Company dumped toxics.
          "The state people know we're here," says Gary Davis, pointing to
notes of a meeting in which Tennessee regulators said they would have
to comply with "the letter of the law since LEAF will be out there
watching."
          The lack of enforcement of strip mining laws by the Tennessee
Division of Surface Mining led, in the summer of 1983, to LEAF's
serving as legal representative for a coalition which included SOCM,
Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, the Tennessee League of
Women Voters and the Tennessee Environmental Council. On behalf of the
Sierra Club, LEAF has filed notice with the Division of an intention
to sue unless substantial progress is made in the enforcement of strip
mining law. Barbara Kelly of Chattanooga, active with the Sierra Club
and SOCM, believes that state efforts to control strip mining "have
fallen apart."
          On behalf of SOCM and TCWP, LEAF filed motions to intervene in a
class action suit in Campbell County chancery court. Forty-nine coal
companies were arguing that they should be given more time to comply
with the state strip mining law. The case was removed to US district
court in Knoxville whereupon the companies withdrew.
          As it challenges the state's overall laxity, LEAF is aiding various
citizen groups in efforts to protect particularly fragile locations
from the erosion, flooding and water pollution which accompany surface
mining. It is representing citizens seeking protection for land
adjacent to the Frozen Head Park in Morgan County and for the Douglas
Branch Watershed in Campbell County.
          In an effort at harassment, the M.C. Coal Company of Chattanooga
sued the Sierra Club and Tennessee Friends of the Earth in March 1983,
alleging libel in the groups' request for a hearing concerning M.C.'s
water quality permit and for articles in the Tennes-Sierran (the Club
newsletter) which dealt with violations in the strip mining
law. Following presentation of a brief and an oral argument by Carol
Nickle of LEAF, the case was dimissed.
          
            LEAF-Georgia
          
          LEAF-Georgia opened its offices in Atlanta in July of 1983. Six
months later it had become one of the busiest and most effective
environmental organizations in the state.
          In August of 1983, LEAF-Georgia challenged the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) use of paraquat on marijuana plants
in the North Georgia mountains. Local residents and campers were
outraged as helicopters sprayed the deadly substance (a half-ounce on
the skin can be lethal) onto small patches of marijuana as DEA movie
cameras whirled. The DEA intended to convince the government of
Colombia to adopt spraying, in spite of Colombia's questioning its
safety. Area residents organized Citizens Opposed to Paraquat Spraying
and asked for LEAF's help.
          LEAF worked with private attorneys David Walbert, John Bell and
Paul Hermann who obtained a restraining order in August from federal
court in Georgia's Northern District. Meanwhile, LEAF joined with the
Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and three other national organizations
in a successful suit in US District Court for the District of Columbia
preventing the spraying of paraquat on all federal 

land unless and
unfit DEA prepares an environmental impact statement.
          Following the DC court's ruling, in a January 1984 hearing in
Atlanta (which DEA called a "scoping session"), DEA officials
suggested that critics of the spraying were smokers and growers who
were hiding behind environmental issues. (The DEA photographed all
oponents at the hearing.) White County Presbyterian preacher Jerry
Brinegar said that the citizens of area would be happy to go in with
the DEA and pull the marijuana plants up by hand. Pointing out that
the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River (which supplies drinking
water for Atlanta, Columbia and towns below) rise on National Forest
land, LEAF attorney Vicki Breman concluded that "Georgia's water
supply and wildlife are seriously threatened by the use of paraquat
and other herbicides."
          The Forest Service's use of the herbicides tordon and velpar are
being challenged by LEAF Georgia on behalf of residents of Rabun
County. These herbicides, explicitly labelled not for use in areas
where water contamination is possible are being applied in the
nation's second-rainiest county. Both of these herbicides have been
linked to health problems. Tordon, called "Agent White" when used in
Vietnam (and chemically close to Agent Orange) is presently being
investigated by the government of Brazil as the suspected cause of
forty-two deaths along the route of a power line where it was
sprayed. LEAF is raising money to test the Rabun County water and to
publish an organizing handbook for residents.
          Acting as legal counsel for the Campaign for a Prosperous Georgia
(see "Money on the Mainline," Southern_Changes, March/April; 1983),
LEAF has also prepared a petition for intervention against the Vogtle
Nuclear Power Plant now under construction by the Georgia Power
Company. Plant Vogtle, the most expensive construction project in
state history, is being challenged on environmental, safety and
economic grounds. It is a prime example of economic and environmental
concerns paralleling, not contradicting each other. If completed and
placed in the rate base, Plant Vogtle would cause the largest electric
rate hike in Georgia history. LEAF will provide ongoing assistance to
citizens groups working to stop the plant.
          LEAF-Georgia is working on many other issues: trying to force the
state Department of Transportation to install promised noise barriers
along the interstate highways near Atlanta residences; attempting to
stop construction by Oglethorpe Power of a high-voltage line through a
historic district of White County; presenting comments on the proposed
restart of the L-Reactor at the Savannah River Plant where tritium and
plutonium for nuclear weapons are produced; and providing technical
advice on legal environmental issues to private attorneys around the
state.
          LEAF has financed itself through a variety of means. Most of the
support for the Alabama and Tennessee offices has come from the Mary
Reynolds Babcock Foundation. LEAF-Georgia has gathered money from
individual donations and fundraising events A benefit concert by the
new-wave band REM brought in more than six thousand dollars; an
auction raised another thousand According to Sissy Kegley,
administrative coordinator, LEAF-Georgia already has some 150 members
who pay annual dues or monthly pledges.
          LEAF's rapid emergence and its frequent successes come with the
dedication of its staff, the sophistication of their work and
familiarity with the issues and the region, and--in view of the
traditional tentativeness of established conservation groups in the
region and the single-minded development policies often followed by
Southern governments--from the fact that there is so much to do in the
South.
          
            Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation (LEAF)
          
          Alabama  2330 Highland Avenue, South  Birmingham, Alabama
35205  205-324-0932
          Florida  203 North Gadsden Street  Tallahassee, Florida
32301  904-681 -2591
          Georgia  1102 Healey Building  57 Forsyth Street, NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30303  404-688-3299
          Central Appalachian Office  602 Gay Street, Suite 507
Knoxville, Tennessee 37902  615-637-5172
          
            Tim Johnson is executive director of the Educational
Campaign for a Prosperous Georgia.
          
        
