The regional coordinator of the Environmental Protection Agency says charges made last month by a top state official that the EPA is dragging its feet in cleaning up the Avtex Fibers Superfund site in Front Royal aren't backed up by the facts.

At a fund-raiser for Republican Delegate Jay K. Katzen on Oct. 18, Natural Resources Secretary Becky Norton Dunlop said the EPA has "spent $30 million and I don't think they've made a tremendous amount of improvement down there."

She said the Superfund program should be turned over to the states, which could clean up polluted sites faster and at less cost.

But Michael W. McCabe, coordinator of EPA's Region III, said Virginia doesn't have the resources that are available to the EPA for such work.

In a letter to the editor of the Northern Virginia Daily, McCabe says the agency has made significant progress at Avtex.

"To date, EPA has spent $26.6 million with Virginia's share amounting to $700,000. The major portion of this sum alleviated the immediate risks to the public and environmental health," he says. "EPA removed 4,000 tons on liquid hazardous substances in tanks and other vessels, removed and disposed of 8,000 cubic yards of PBC-contaminated soil off site, demolished deteriorating structures and disposed of 840 tons of chemical debris."

The agency also has disposed of 3,000 drums of hazardous material and 604 pounds of mercury, drained 100 transformers containing PCBs and treated more than 13 million gallons of waste water before turning responsibility for that over to the FMC Corp., he says. FMC, a prior owner of the plant, has been found to responsible for some of the cleanup under a federal law that requires any company that previously owned a Superfund site to share in the costs.

"The Avtex Fibers site is an extremely complex environmental problem, one that required not only quick cleanup but thorough studies to identify further work that needed to he done. EPA is proceeding on both of these fronts," McCabe says.

The agency is also working with local groups to release portions of the plant for redevelopment, he says.

McCabe admitted that most of the hazardous materials remains at the site, but "most of the most hazardous material has been taken care of."

Actions that needed to be taken to protect the public have been taken, he said.

He was unable to give a breakdown on how much of the $26.6 million bas been spent on cleanup and how much on court efforts to recoup some of the costs. Avtex declared bankruptcy three months after the plant was abruptly closed down by the company in 1989.

Ms. Dunlop accused McCabe of "overreacting" to her comments and said she would envision the federal government turning over the Superfund money to the states.

"California, and I've talked to them, and Virginia are ready to take it over," she said. "We would be able to make a more expeditious effort more cost-effectively."

She said she's not satisfied with the progress that has been made in cleaning up Avtex, but said "we're not adversely engaged with the EPA. We d like to see things move along more quickly."

McCabe said Republicans want to push through reforms that would shift the cleanup costs from the polluters to the taxpayers and "they want to go with a least-cost approach."

"You could fence in a contaminated area and hand out bottled water if that's the least costly. We like a permanent solution," he said.