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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1975)
r Weather Overcast mornings and mostly cloudy afternoons Friday and Saturday with 30 per cent chance rain both afternoons. High Mid-80s. Low tonight 71. SE winds 10-16 mph. Cbe Battalion Inside Book Mart p. 3 Fish pond p. 3 Track meet p. 6 Vol. 68 No. 115 College Station, Texas Friday, May 2, 1975 W-1 Girls Hit Obstacle Course Being equal to the men is not always a bed of roses, and the women in the W-1 outfit of the Corps are finding it out. Waggie Win nie Jackson seems to be taking it all in stride, however, as she swings down some bars on the Corps obstacle course. TAMU spending criticized HEW audit reviewed By KARLA MOURITSEN Staff Writer The Academic Council meeting was highlighted by a report by Ex ecutive Vice President Administra tion Clyde Freeman on a federal audit of the university. The meeting was opened by Pres ident Jack Williams who displayed a subtle sense of humor with several one-liners about the new Board of Directors headquarters. He told all of the faculty members that aspired to be on the board that their new home “is a nice place.’ “In fact,” quipped Williams, “since we built the new board house, students have been quite active in trying to get on the board.” Williams was referring to the efforts of the Student Gov ernment to get an ex-officio student member on the Board of Directors. Student senate elections ended today with 18 candidates chosen in five races. In the 12-place off-campus un dergraduate race Mike Garrett, Karen Gilmer and Kay Zenner were elected. Others elected in the race were Jimmy Arnold, David Hill, Joy Drummond, Jess Pettit and Steve Ingram. Also, Debbie Boyd, Joanne Arnold, Dick White and Brad Brown were chosen. One candidate, Jim James was Freeman reported on the results of an audit by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from December of 1972 to March of 1974. The purpose of the audit was to review the management of the university and he waited to present his report “until my blood pressure went down.” The nine-member HEW team reported to the National Institute of Health Audits Resolution Branch in Bethesda, Md. The recommenda tions were then forwarded to the university. The team’s report stated that there was an absence of knowledge able monthly reviews of labor dis tribution by responsible adminis trators. They claimed that A&M should repay $5.9 million that had been received in federal funds. disqualified for illegal campaigning. In other races Raymond DuBois was elected senator from Milner, Legett, Hotard and Walton. Kin Bush and Tom Kollaja were elected from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. In the senate race for seats from the College of Agriculture, Bryan Crittendon and Gregg Parks were chosen. In the fifth race for a senate seat in the College of Education Mike Forehand was elected over three opponents. Negotiations then began between the university and the government, with the university hoping to have the claim withdrawn should it meet certain guidelines. These included having the department head sign the payroll at the end of the month and having him certify that he knows of the work done by each in dividual. Also, the university has to start a system of internal auditing of the payrolls. The second complaint that the HEW team registered against A&M was that the property management system needed to be improved. A&M agreed to check each department’s inventory and to get the campus security to investigate any missing materials. Another system that the HEW criticized was the university’s prac tice of making an estimate of how much federal money that it would need for the month and applying for a letter of credit. This sometimes led to deficits or excesses in the ac count, so the government will now supply the money on a daily basis. The report said that $14,400 were spent without the federal agency’s written approval in advance. It was therefore requested that the $14,400 be returned, but the back ground information was submitted on the expenditures, and the agency resubmitted a claim of $4,400. This is still being appealed. Finally, the agency found that over the last six years the computer facility had incurred a deficit of over $41,000. It was suggested that the program be readjusted, but the HEW team couldn’t supply a cost analysis for the computers either. That issue is at a standoff. Freeman said, “Federal in volvement is increasing at an alarm ing rate.” He predicted “more pre cise requirements for federally sponsored programs, a campus wide energy conservation program dictated by the federal government, more precise manpower require ments and an attempt to limit the see Academic, page 3 Jaworski to speak Tuesday Houston Attorney Leon Jaworski will speak here Tuesday in obser vance of Law Day. The Memorial Student Center, the Political Forum Committee, and the Brazos County Bar Associa tion are cooperating in the presenta tion. Planned for 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Rudder Auditorium, the Jaworski address will be a public-free event. Jaworski is a nationally-known at torney and was special Watergate prosecutor, appointed by the Acting Attorney General Robert Bork in November, 1973, after Archibald Cox was dismissed. Law Day was established by act ol Congress and stresses citizen rec ognition of equality and justice under law. The Brazos Bar Associa tion also will recognize Tuesday as Law Day. 18 senators chosen as five races end Millican dam: history vs. current status Benefits and drawbacks Congress hears both sides of issue By ROD SPEER Staff Writer The proposed Millican Dam and Reservoir offers a myriad of possible benefits and drawbacks to East Texas residents and Congress is cur rently hearing both sides of the story. The dam represents a work pro ject and means of flood control to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; another water supply for sale by the Brazos River Authority; the flooding of a valuable lignite field to strip mining interests; and an ill- conceived ecological disaster to local environmentalists. These entities and others were in Washington, D.C. Tuesday and Wednesday to present their argu ments before .the House appropria tions subcommittee on Public Works, the first step in getting an nual appropriations for the Millican Dam project. The Corps of Engineers has asked Congress for $700,000 this year for pre-construction plans and design for the dam. President Gerald Ford has included $450,000 in his fiscal 1976 budget for Millican, consistent with his efforts to reduce federal spending to ease inflation. Environmentalists, led by the Environmental Action Council (EAC) of Brazos County, hope the project gets no funding this year so that the plan is eventually scrapped or modified to meet their demands. Millican Dam and Reservoir, if built, will be about 12 miles south east of College Station on the Navasota River. This dam and the Navasota No. 2 dam, to be built after Millican and further upriver in Robertson County, were authorized to be built in the Rivers and Harbor Act of 1968. The authorization, however, does not guarantee that the dams will be built since annual appropriations for the projects must be approved. Over $1.5 million of the $2.5 million costs estimated by the Corps of En gineers for the pre-construction plans and design of Millican Dam have been appropriated to date. The Corps is hoping to get approp riations for actual construction in 1977 or 1978. The Corps has estimated the en tire project to cost $149 million. EAC gripes Cornelius Van Bavel, immediate past president of the EAC, told the House subcommittee this week that the economic benefits of Millican have been exaggerated, the current Millican AADISOMVILLE. A series by Jim Peters Rod Speer Greg Moses plans violate federal law and ignore the effect of the reservoir on future energy resources. The 220-member Environmental Action Council has been studying the economic and environmental ef fects of building Millican for four years. Earlier this year, after publishing two previous reports on the dam, the council formally voiced its op position to the Corps of Engineers’ plans. The EAC contends the water from the proposed reservoir is not needed for tbe Bryan-College Sta tion area, but would be used for in dustrial and municipal uses on the Gulf Coast. The main economic benefit to the area from the dam, according to Van Bavel’s statement, would be in in creased land values around the re servoir. “Real estate and construction in terests, well represented on the Brazos River Authority Board of Di rectors, have their own gain in mind in promotion of this project,” the EAC statement said. The EAC has criticized the plans for the Millican project for not pre paring for the recreational de velopment of the reservoir. The Corps, up until a couple years ago, had this responsibility but now it lies with local governments, which can get federal backing on a match ing funds basis. The Brazos River Authority has committed itself to providing the minimum recrea tional facilities required by Con gress when the final plan for con struction is complete. Millican Lake, the EAC state ment says, will permanently flood more land than it protects. In addi tion, it contends engineering struc tures in flood plains generally add to annual flood damages. No urban development or areas extensively used for agriculture would benefit from the flood control, according to Van Bavel’s testimony. Water for Wells Walter Wells, general manager of the Brazos River Authority, told the subcommittee that until the dam is built the Navasota River will remain uncontrolled and the lower Brazos Valley will be subject to costly and damaging floods. The Brazos River Authority is a state agency headed by 21-man Board of Directors appointed by the governor for six-year terms. It is re sponsible for conservation and de velopment of water resources in the Brazos River Basin. The river authority estimates that if the largest recorded flood to date (the flood of 1913) were to happen today, the damage would exceed $74 million. Well’s statement to Congress also cited the growing demands for water supplies, especially for indus trial and municipal uses south of Houston. (Houston, itself, has con tracted to get water from Lake Livingston.) Wells said the quality and quantity of groundwater has de creased in recent years and the pumping of groundwater has caused serious subsidence problems in several localities. Millican Lake needs to be in op eration at the earliest possible date. Well’s statement contends. Lignite mining Coulter Hoppess, a local lawyer and president of the Navasota River Improvement Association, also tes tified at the hearings in Washing ton. Representing the interest of Millican landowners for the past 20 years, Hoppess is now concerned with delaying or preventing con struction of the dam in order that a lignite field, which would be flooded by Millican Lake, could be strip-mined. The City of Bryan, jointly with the Texas Municipal Power Pool, is purchasing mineral leases in the area, and plans to eventually strip-mine and set up a coal-burning electric steam generating plant. Bryan Mayor Lloyd Joyce went to Washington to explain Bryan’s in terest in the lignite to be flooded. Monday in Joyce’s first meeting as mayor, the Bryan City Council re scinded its support of Congress ap propriating more funds for Millican Dam, citing .the lignite question. (The College Station City Council decided to neither support nor op pose this year’s appropriations and did not send a representative to the hearings.) The president of the Friends of the Navasota River, Richard Bal- dauf, was also scheduled to testify. His group is concerned with ecolog ical damage to the area resulting from the dam and lake. A staff spokesman for the public works subcommittee said it will be May or June before the subcommit tee comes up with an appropriations bill concerning river and harbor projects. COL.L1 VTATVIOW Sites of proposed Millican and Navasota Reservoirs. Old-timers recall history of project This article is based on a history compiled by Coulter Hoppess for the Environmental Action Council. The history is published in the EAC’s second report on Millican. The old-timers around Millican remember rumors of a nearby prop osed dam project since the days they carried books for their best girls on the way to the whitewashed schoolhouse. In 1936, the Brazos River Author ity (BRA) published an overall prog ram for the Brazos River Watershed which proposed one dam on the Navasota River in northeast Brazos County. When a group from Bryan at tempted to activate construction of the dam in 1948, it was told by the BRA Board of Directors that the dam on the Navasota would have last priority in development of the Brazos River Watershed. One year later, the Corps of En gineers began studies which even tually deleted the Navasota dam in favor of Ferguson Dam which was proposed three miles south of the intersection of Highway 30 and the river. “They wanted a dam for flood control, which means they build a dam and leave it empty,” Rep. Olin E. Teague, D-Texas, said. A timely drought in 1950 helped raise public support for a water conservation dam. The Navasota River Authority was organized in 1952 by Brazos, Leon, Madison and Robertson Counties to oppose the Ferguson Dam in favor of the original Navasota Dam and Reservoir. Congress authorized the 13-dam plan of the BRA, including the Fer guson Dam in 1954. (An authoriza tion bill allows Congress to approp riate money.) In 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower asked for fund ing of all authorized public works projects and the next push for Fer guson ensued. A new opposition group, Navasota Landowners As sociation, joined the battle. Congress delayed appropriations for Ferguson Dam because the pro ject lacked definitive plans. In 1959 , area industries and gov ernments met in southern Brazos county and decided to privately contract a design for a reservoir which could control the runoff from the Navasota River. According to the Environment Action Council’s second report on Millican, firms that were rep resented included the Texas Board of Water Engineers, Dow Chemical Co., Briscoe Irrigation Co., Brazoria County Water Co., Ameri can Canal Co., and the cities of Bryan, College Station and Navasota. These groups planned to build the dam jointly, each paying on a ratio of anticipated benefits. Freese, Nichols and Endress, a Houston engineering consultants firm, presented the first “Millican Dam” plan for these groups. On April 16, 1961 the Texas Board of Water Engineers, which must ap prove all reservoirs, passed a resolu tion saying it would issue only one permit for a reservoir on the Navasota. The one permit, said the resolu tion, would allow a dam at the Milli can Dam site for a reservoir of 1.3 million acres. The site and acreage corresponded with the suggestions of the Freese, Nichols and Endress plan. The permit was later approved by the Texas Board of Water Engineers and the plan went to Washington for authorization. Prospects looked grim in Con gress so Dow and the three canal- irrigation companies withdrew their support. The BRA has since bought the American Canal Co. and Briscoe Irrigation Co. In 1966 the Corps of Engineers developed the double dam project which was authorized in 1968. This plan, if fully appropriated and con structed, will build Millican Dam and Reservoir 15 miles North of Navasota. About the year 2010, the Navasota No. 2 Dam and Reservoir will be built. Both projects are now getting money for planning.