Oregon daily emerald., February 28, 1978, Page 3, Image 3

EPA attorney now law professor
By MELISSA HILTON
Of the Emerald
“I’m just the new guy on the
block,” claims Law Prof. John
Bonine.
Bonine, who started teaching
environmental law at the Univer
sity Law School this January, was
previously the Associate General
Counselor for Air, Noise and
Radiation at the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) in
Washington, D.C.
“I consider myself to be one
comer of a triangle of environment
al law professors at the law
school,” Bonine explains. The
other two corners are Jon Jacob
sen, who conducts the Ocean Re
sources Law Program, and
Charles Wilkinson, an expert on
public lands, wilderness, forestry
and Indian law.
Besides the three full-time en
vironmental law professors, other
professors in the law school teach
envoronmental law part-time and
work on environmentally related
issues.
According to Bonine, “There’s
an overall feeling that this particu
lar law school is ideally placed to
expand its reputation in environ
mental law, and it’s a place that
already has a reputation.”
A graduate of Stanford Univer
sity and Vale Law School, Bonine
started working for the EPA in
1972 in the General Counsel’s Of
fice, the agency's law office. He
began as a staff attorney, then
was put in charge of pesticide
litigation, and finally became an
associate general counsel.
What does the general
counsel’s office do? “There are
two things that are done: the ren
dering of legal advice to the
agency and the defense of law
suits brought against the agency,”
Bonine answers. “So I wrote opin
ions, I argued cases, I supervised
attorneys.”
Two momentos from his
fellow-workers at the EPA hang
on the wall of Bonine’s office in the
law school. One commemorates
some of the battles he fought
while working for the agency.
"I never intended to stay there
in Washington,” Bonine confes
ses. He worked to help save
the environment, but “there’s just
not enough left in the East to make
it enjoyable.”
Bonine is a rock-climber and a
skier and he appreciates
Eugene’s close jaunt to the moun
tains.
“The Northwest still has a
chance to avoid the mistakes of
the more industrialized and popu
lated areas,” says Bonine. “So
that’s why I’m back.”
Bonine is teaching two courses
this term, Environmental Law: Pol
lution Control, and a section of
first-year moot (learning) court
working on field burning in the
Willamette Valley.
This summer Bonine will con
duct the Environmental Law
Clinic, an opportunity for law stu
dents to participate in the real
world of environmental issues that
the law school offers each term.
Bonine plans to make his clinic
a supervised legal research or
ganization that will handle re
quests from outside groups, re
search questions the students find
interesting and investigate the
legal aspects of alternative energy
for Oregon.
In class, Bonine approaches his
subject with relish. When he intro
Troian
(Continued from Page 1)
ment on his department’s findings
to date.
“I don’t want to pre-judge the
results of a fairly important study
— we re trying to do an objective
study in a responsible manner,”
Hull says.
The agreement made between
PGE and the Oregon Environ
mental Council, the Northwest En
vironmental Defense Center,
Friends of the Earth and the
Northwest Steelheaders Chapter
of Trout Unlimited in 1972 is im
portant, Bartels says, because it
included a promise by PGE to per
form four geological tests at the
Trojan site.
The signed agreement between
the environmental groups and the
utility limited chemical radioactive
waste discharges at the Trojan
plant and required PGE to pay the
groups’ legal expenses incurred in
opposing the plant, up to $15.000,
as well as requiring the geological
tests.
In return, the environmental co
alition agreed to dismiss their law
suit then before the United States
Court of Appeals; they with
drew their objection to licensing of
the plant; they withdrew their re
quest for a hearing regarding the
environmental impact of the plant
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and they agreed not to take any
future action which might delay or
question the construction or oper
ation of the plant.
"It was a lawsuit settled out of
court,” says an Oregon Environ
mental Council spokesperson. “It
was legal. There are a lot of peo
ple right now who wish it had
never happened, but it did.”
“The one unfortunate result of
that agreement was that everyone
assumed that those four tests
constituted a complete geologic
study,” Bartels says. “The tests
(for seismic refraction, mag
netism, resistivity and gravity)
were done and forgotten. But the
geologists I’ve talked to say they
didn't ask the right questions.
Bartels contends more exten
sive studies of the area should
have been made. He hopes the
information he has found will re
sult in the Facility Siting Council
refusing to allow PGE to start its
refueling process, scheduled for
March 17.
“We hope they’ll refuse expan
sion of the spent fuel storage
pond, because of inadequate test
ing,” Bartels says.
duces a particularly effective bit of
environmental law, a wide grin
breaks across his face. He often
asks his students what they would
do if they were recommending
laws.
What is his goal as a teacher?
Bonine says, “I’m trying to convey
to my students some sense of the
ability to make an impact.
“The Freedom of Information
Act is vastly underused today by
environmental activists. For all in
tents and purposes the federal
government's files could be con
sidered wide open now,” Bonine
declares.
Bonine stresses the importance
of accurate and well-informed
public demands on the govern
ment. “The bureaucracy is not all
evil and it’s not all good,” he ex
plains.
“But it can be responsive. It’s
either going to be responsive to
the existing pressures, which pull
it in the direction of paid lobbyists,
or it’s going to be responsive to
new pressures from individuals
who dig up facts and make de
mands. Most bureaucrats would
like to use their good judgment
and receive counter-pressures
from the public.”
Bonine adds,"My personal goal
is to keep one foot in academics
and one foot in activism.”
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Photo by Grog Gawtowski
Environmental law professor John Bonine worked for the EPA in
Washington, but “never intended to stay." He returned to the North
west where there is still a “chance to avoid the mistakes of the more
industrialized and populated areas.
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