

Douglas M. Costle, who helped draw up the blueprints for the federal Environmental Protection Agency and served as its administrator when it tackled toxic waste sites and fluorocarbons and monitored radioactivity from the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, died on Jan. 13 at his home in McLean, Va. He was 79.

His wife, Elizabeth, said the cause was complications of a stroke.

Appointed to head the agency by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, Mr. Costle (pronounced KOSS-tul) recruited 600 scientists and other professionals within two months of taking office at what was already the government’s largest regulatory body. He was instrumental in creating the so-called Superfund to decontaminate toxic waste sites after the Love Canal health crisis near Niagara Falls, N.Y., and oversaw a $400 million agreement with United States Steel to curtail air pollution.

At his first news conference, Mr. Costle announced the recall of 135,000 Cadillacs because they had failed to meet minimum standards under the newly minted Clean Air Act.

“Clean air is not an aesthetic luxury,” he said when he became E.P.A. administrator. “It is a public health necessity.”