WASHINGTON -- Rita Lavelle, fired by President Reagan from her top post at the Environmental Protection Agency, may have perjured herself in testimony to a Senate committee this week, EPA officials said Friday.
The officials disputed Ms. Lavelle's sworn testimony to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that she first learned on June 17, 1982, that her former employer, Aerojet-General Corp., was involved in a cleanup case she was overseeing.
Ms. Lavelle, chief of the agency's toxic waste cleanup program until President Reagan fired her Feb. 7, testified Wednesday she wrote a letter the next day formally withdrawing from all involvement in negotiations for a cleanup of the Stringfellow Acid Pits near Riverside, Calif.
'That's perjury,' one EPA official intimately familiar with the case told United Press International.
Perjury, the willful telling of a lie while under oath, is punishable by up to five years in prison.
EPA officials said Ms. Lavelle was informed at a meeting on May 28, 1982, that Aerojet, or one of its subsidiaries, was a possible party to the case.
'On the 28th of May, we had a briefing on Stringfellow and pointed out to her ... that Aerojet was listed amongst potentially responsible parties,' said one official who was present. 'She was directed to turn to the page that Aerojet was on.'
The source said Ms. Lavelle was urged to withdraw from all involvement in the case, at least to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
'She said, 'Oh, damn, I'm not going to make any decisions. I just need to know more facts,'' said the official, who added that as many as nine agency employees were in attendance.
In a telephone interview Friday night, Ms. Lavelle said, 'I testified to the best of my recollection exactly what went on. I told the truth as I remember it. Once I was notified, I stepped out (of the case). I remember being shown the list on a late Thursday night.
'I think this slander by unidentified sources should stop. I plan to get on with my life, and I think the agency needs to get on with cleaning up the environment.'
Another agency official who attended the meeting said he could not recall the matter, but that staff notes showed Ms. Lavelle had been made aware during the May 28 discussion of her possible conflict.
EPA sources said no staff members who would have been involved in a meeting on the site could find a June 17 session on their calendars.
Between those dates, on June 14, Ms. Lavelle received a three-page memo on the Stringfellow site from an agency enforcement official, Lamar Miller.
Ms. Lavelle said the other officials may not have been able to find any record of the meeting on their calendars because, 'It was a late evening meeting, which means it wasn't a scheduled meeting.'
EPA officials and congressional sources also said there is evidence Ms. Lavelle participated in matters affecting the Southern California site, considered one of the nation's worst toxic waste problems, even after June 18.
The site is among those drawing the most attention in the recent controversy about the administration's handling of hazardous waste dumps and other environmental problems nationwide.
There have been numerous allegations Ms. Lavelle and EPA Administrator Anne Burford held up $6.1 million in funding for the Stringfellow site last fall for fear a speedy cleanup would aid the Democratic senatorial campaign of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.
An unofficial transcript of Ms. Lavelle's testimony to the committee chaired by Sen. Robert Stafford, R-Vt., was made available to UPI. Ms. Lavelle testified, 'I recused myself June 18, on a Friday, because of a briefing Thursday evening, a late briefing where I was for the first time presented with the list of responsible parties, because I was going to sign all of the notice letters to the generators and disposers.'
At the hearing, Stafford noted that Ms. Lavelle had vowed on March 22, 1982, to recuse herself from any matter affecting the Stringfellow site.
Ms. Lavelle's lawyer, former Watergate defense attorney James Bierbower Jr., did not return a telephone call Friday.
Agency and congressional sources also said there was evidence of numerous discrepancies in Ms. Lavelle's testimony to a House Public Works subcommittee chaired by Rep. Elliott Levitas, D-Ga., on Thursday.
The disclosure of the possible perjury only added to Ms. Lavelle's mounting legal problems. Mrs. Burford already has referred several allegations to the Justice Department for investigation.
Among them are allegations Ms. Lavelle had a conflict of interest in the Stringfellow matter, that she perjured herself to a House subcommittee about her alleged harassment of an agency employee, and that she had an improper 'ex parte' contact with a company negotiating over a cleanup for a site at Waukegan, Ill.
