Foes of Plant To Meet With Top Counsel

Opponents of Harvard's embattled Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP) will meet with Governor Edward J. King's legal counsel tomorrow to discuss President Bok's recent request that King ask the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to waive federal requirements so the plant can begin full operation.

The legal committee of the Mission Hill NOMATEP coalition arranged the meeting with Neil L. Lynch '52, King's chief legal counsel, but several opponents representing Brookline will also attend the meeting.

"Harvard is lobbying this, so we're doing the same thing," Charlotte Ploss, a member of the NOMATEP coalition, said yesterday, adding, "We're not asking the governor for any special favors."

The Clean Air Act of 1977 provides that non-profit medical and educational institutions may be exempt from the EPA investigative process on the request of the governor. Bok was unavailable for comment yesterday, but L. Edward Lashman, the University's director of external projects, said last week Bok made the request of King "entirely to save time."

The EPA investigation could delay the plant's full operation and cost Harvard more money for a project that has already exceeded its original estimate by $180 million.

Lashman said yesterday his office has not received any word from EPA on Bok's letter, and Robert A. DiBaccaro, of EPA's Regional Counselor's Office, said yesterday the governor has not yet notified his office of any decision.

A spokesman in the governor's office said yesterday the governor has not yet made a decision on Bok's request, adding that tomorrow's meeting may effect the decision.

The governor met with opponents of the $230 million project last spring and promised them that he would not interfere with "due process of the law," Ploss said yesterday. She added that she hopes he will maintain this position of non-interference with respect to Bok's request.

Linda Murphy, a spokesman at EPA's Air and Hazardous Materials Division said yesterday that regardless of Bok's request for a waiver, her division is "close to making a decision" on Harvard's request for a permit to operate MATEP, based on technical environmental information the University has submitted.

Murphy added that the decision to grant or deny Harvard an exemption from EPA regulations will rest solely on whether or not Harvard's role in MATEP meets the Clean Air Act's definition of non-profit and medical educations