An appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives on July 31 and now before the Senate will halt cleanup efforts at the Avtex Fibers Superfund site in Front Royal, Environmental Protection Agency officials said Wednesday.

The Avtex plant is on an EPA list of 21 Superfund sites where cleanup measures have been designed, but where work would be halted by the bill.

And it would specifically stop the planned demolition of 30 acres of former factory buildings at the plant, according to EPA spokeswoman Amy Barnett.

But the bill, which cuts EPA funding from 9.2 billion to $4.9 billion and includes 17 directives blocking the agency, from enforcing certain anti-pollution laws and regulations, appears unlikely to make it to final passage in its current form.

President Clinton has called the measure a "polluters protection act" and has pledged to veto it.

And 10th District Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Vienna and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, predicted that the restrictive riders added on the House floor by Republicans will be deleted when the bill goes to conference committee.

The House initially voted 212-206 for an amendment to strike the 17 directives from the bill, but the amendment was killed July 31 on a 210-210 vote. That vote was hailed as a victory for Republican efforts to hamstring the EPA.

Wolf said he joined 49 other Republicans in voting to strip the 17 directives because he felt they went far. Republicans who pushed for the directives wanted to stop what they felt was a bureaucratic agency that had overstepped its bounds, he said.

"Those amendments were meant to send a message to the EPA," Wolf said. "The EPA has done some things they shouldn't, but in the process of correcting that, we don't want to roll back everything."

While Wolf voted against the directives, he also said those who say the bill would halt cleanup efforts are exaggerating.

"I don t believe that is accurate," he said.

In a Superfund update sent to environmental groups, including the Fiends of the Shenandoah River, the EPA says the bill will threaten EPA's efforts to protect public health and the environment at over 200 hazardous waste sites around the country."

The bill cuts funding for hazardous waste cleanups by $560 million, or by about 36 percent. And, EPA spokesmen said, the 17 directives included in the bill would prevent the agency from proceeding with any projects not currently underway, even those that have been planned and are ready for action. That includes the Avtex demolition project, they said.

"It would affect any project that needs funding in the future," Ms. Barnett said.

Wolf said he was concerned about the directives not because he felt they would blunt Superfund cleanup efforts, but that they would drastically weaken the Clean Water Act, Safe Water Drinking Act and other laws.

"I think most of these amendments will be taken out in conference," he said.

Members of the Friends of the Shenandoah River are alarmed that the bill will hamper local efforts, member Ed Ward said.

"If they're going to cut the budget in a way that activity stops at Avtex, that's a blow," he said. "If the cleanup is not continued, this means in the future we could have contamination in the river again, particularly if it floods."

Ward said members of the Friends plan to contact Sens. John W. Warner and Charles S. Robb, as well as Wolf and local members of the General Assembly over the legislation.

Avtex was forced to close in 1989 because of pollution it caused in the Shenandoah River.

Local economic development leaders now want to make available unpolluted parts of the plant for use by industry.