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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1975)
View of proposed Millican Dam site looking north from State Highway 244, two miles from Navasota. Senate to hold meeting tonight A bill allowing two-thirds of the Student Government Executive Committee to conduct business during the summer will be intro duced tonight on emergency status during the last Senate meeting of the school year. Beginning at 7:30, the meeting will be held in Room 204 of the Har rington Center. Student Body President Jeff Dunn will also nominate the Execu tive Director, the Director of Public Relations, and the Recording Sec retary of Student Government, all subject to the approval of 2-2/3 of the Senate members. The new members and the chairman of the Judicial Board will also be appointed. One other position will be filled when the Senate elects its speaker for the upcoming year. The Senate will also consider three resolutions on emergency status. Besides the proposal allow ing executive action during the summer, there will be a resolution asking for funds to send an observer to the National Student Association convention scheduled for early Au gust. The final resolution to be consi dered will allow a referendum in the fall semester to place the Director of Public Relations on the executive committee. All of the university committee appointments will be presented to the Senate, and if approved, will then be forwarded to the administ ration for final apprroval. Today. Cbe Battalion A Vol. 68 No. 117 College Station, Texas Wednesday, May 7, 1975 Inside More Millican . . .pp. 4,5 Jaworski p- 7 Okie signed ....... .p. 13 Weather Mostly cloudy, warm and humid. 30 per cent chance late afternoon and evening showers. Low tonight 72; high Wednesday and Thursday 86. SG radio station appears defunct; manager resigns Photo by Steve McGown Watergate prosecutor talks Leon Jaworski, the Houston attorney appointed special Water gate prosecutor by Ex-President Richard Nixon, spoke before a Rudder Center auditorium crowd last night in a Political Forum presentation. See related story on page 7. The proposed Student Govern ment (SG) “open-air” radio station appears all but dead as of Tuesday night. The plan, although never ap proved by the Senate, collapsed on Monday when Scott Sherman, SG Radio business manager, received word from Carol Vance, owner of KORA-FM, that she could not ap prove any plan for student use of the station. The proposal’s death was com pounded when station manager Jim James announced his resignation Tuesday morning. The “open-air” proposal called for SG Radio to buy time from KORA- FM and broadcast its own prog rams. SG Radio would then sell ads or “spots” to pay the staff and the cost of station juse. Bob Bell, former general man ager of KORA-FM and KTAM, said there hadn’t been recent negotia tions with SG. T feel SG was trying to settle in ternal problems and this was a factor in the lack of recent discussions,” said Bell. “I wanted the university ad ministration to express a want for a radio station before we completed the deal,” said Bell, who resigned his position on May 1. University officials have never officially discus sed the “open-air” proposal. “I resigned so that they (SG) could select a new manager before the summer session,” said James. Additional reasons for the resigna tion were illness and the lack of pay. The new manager will be selected by the SG Radio Board. The hoard is composed ofTroie Ann Pruitt, Mary Ellen Martin, Bill Flores and Kyle Klemcke. The Senate was to discuss the issue of funding the project tonight at their first official meeting. Talks with Bell had formally been con ducted with SG executive commit tee and SG radio. One of the reasons for the col lapse of the plan is the lack of facilities at KORA-FM. The station became automated last fall and cur rently is without equipment for disc jockeys. Millican to offer flood protection Lignite obstacle to dam project Coal sought in Millican before flooding begins Flood control benefits of the proposed Millican Dam are “wide spread, not local in nature,” says Gene Washburn, chief of the Army Corps of Engineers Little Rock District’s Report and Economics Section. By damming the Navasota River 12 miles above the Brazos River, the Corps figures it can increase farm yields in the lower Navasota as well as the lower Brazos Valley. The land now affected by flooding is predominantly agricultural, says Washburn. “The effect of the flood control varies as you move down stream. As you pick up more drain age area you have less and less con trol with what the good Lord does with his rainfall.” About 614,000 acres below Milli can will get protection from the 100-year flood, says the Corps in its justification for funding. (The 100-year flood level is an estimate by the Corps which shows land that has a chance of flooding once every 100 years.) Corps estimates show a possible $74.8 million in damages (at ’74 price levels) if a maximum flood should occur. The Corps also estimates annual flood control benefits totaling $6.2 million. This is money which the Corps figures could be made if land is developed which now lays unused because of flood hazard. Washburn says the Corps surveys farmers and county agents for this information. James W. Yeager, Navasota city manager, says the flood plains of the lower Navasota are used for farm ing, mostly corn. The big problems with flooding lie near the coast where Brazoria County, for exam ple, is 40 to 60 per cent in the 100-year flood plain. A levee system under construction near Sugar Land will protect the coastal areas, says the Environmental Action Council (FAC). The Corps is restudying Millican Dam, and part of their study will consider five alternatives to the dam plans: 1) a reduced release rate through the dam, 2) no dam at all, 3) action by non-federal groups (In the early ’60s, a coalition of industries and cities contracted a Houston en gineering firm for plans of a dam and lake. The plans were dropped when negotiations in Washington bogged from local opposition), 4) a dam without channelization below, or 5) buying all the flood plain to protect it from private damage. Another proposed dam ten miles north of Millican Reservoir, called Navasota No. 2, will more likely provide flood control for the Bryan-College Station area. But again, the Corps is still gathering data, and information on its effect in flood control is not yet available. Navasota No. 2 is expected to be built in the year 2010. A study by the FAC says down stream flooding could be a larger problem after Millican is built. Landowners below the completed 'Sginerville Dam told the FAC that although flooding was not as drastic after the dam was built, the water stayed longer. It seems the dam levels out a high flood which would normally last a few days to a low flood which may last several weeks. The increased length of the flood ing kills plant life where the short massive flood was less destructive to plants and trees. The FAC also notes that the land will permanently flood more land than it protects and flood insurance will protect losses in the areas now endangered. The biggest obstacle lying in the path of the proposed Millican Dam project is the deposits of lignite coal located in the reservoir area. About 20 percent of a 20,000-acre lignite field would lie under water, cutting through one of the broadest portions of the reservoir, says Jack Ard, Bryan Utilities Director. The city of Bryan, in conjunction with the Texas Municipal Power Pool (TMPP), is obtaining options for lignite leases in the area. If use- Last week the U.S. Senate and House appropriations sub committees on public works held hearings in Washington, D.C. concerning this year’s funding for the Millican Dam project. The project is still in the preconstruction planning and design stage. Millican Dam A series by Jim Peters Rod Speer Greg Moses J.P1KTLC 575 able deposits are found they will be strip-mined, with the coal fueling a proposed $300 million power plant. Last month the Bryan City Coun cil voted to oppose continued ap propriations for the Millican plans, citing the lignite field explorations. Traditionally, both the Bryan and the College Station City Councils have supported the Corps of En gineers plans for Millican. (The Col lege Station council last month voted to neither support nor oppose the Corps plans.) The discovery of lignite is nothing new. Area residents remember coal companies drilling core samples in the 1920’s. One rancher recalled that water drawn from wells first had to be strained through flour sacks, because of the pieces of coal in the water. “If you drank that water today you’d die. But we didn’t known any better. And nobody died,” he said. However, it has never been economically feasible to mine the cheap, light-weight coal until the recent energy crisis. Whether the mining is now feasi ble is the subject of a study by the TMPP. That should be completed within a year, said Lou Odle, Bryan city manager. Meanwhile, about half of the per sons The Battalion talked with in the lignite field area said they had signed leases with the power cooperative. The leases range from a two-year exploratory to a 30-year development lease. Ard said that 5,000 acres have al ready been leased, and that options have been secured on another 4,000. Ard estimates that strip-mining could begin in 1981, with the coal- fueled electric generating plant in operation by the following year. After the Bryan City Council voted to oppose the Millican pro ject, the Brazos River Authority (BRA) submitted a supplemental statement to the Congressional hearings in Washington, D.C. con cerning additional funds for the plan. In order to meet the country’s pressing needs for energy and water, it is vitally important that we properly exploit available fuel sources and at the same time achieve effective development of our available water resources,” the statement read. The BRA specifically suggested that the lignite mining and the dam construction be coordinated in such a way “to permit recovery of mine able lignite in the lake area before water is impounded. Frank Thurmond, a member of the BRA (Board of Directors) and chairman of the Bryan-College Sta tion Chamber of Commerce’s Milli can committee, spoke of a possible solution to the problem of mining and reservoir construction in the river bottom. The plan would call for construc tion of the 4.8-mile concrete and earth fill dam before strip-mining begins. Then, rather than filling the reservoir immediately, Thurmond suggested it could remain empty until all the strip-mining was com pleted. “If everything goes according to schedule,” Thurmond said, the re servoir could be completed “as early as 1985 or as late as 1990.” Water OK for drinking Water in the proposed Millican Lake should be good enough for drinking, if anyone needs it. The biggest threat to the lake’s water quality will come from Bryan and College Station sewage through the Carter Creek arm. The treat ment will have to be improved or the plants will have to be moved if Carter Creek is to be bearable in color and smell. But the Carters Creek question seems to be moot, because the fed eral government is requiring zero pollutants from sewage treatment by 1983. Millican, if everything is on schedule, will not be completed until 1985. The cities will have to clean their sewage treatment whether Millican is built or not. With a few precautions suggested by an A&M study, the rest of the lake’s water supply should hold up to drinking standards. These pre cautions include clearing 90 per cent of the forrested Navasota bot tomland which will be flooded, con trolling sewage in waterfront de velopments and further studying the effects of lignite operations. Outstanding among Millican Lake’s features is its shallowness. It will be an average 18 feet deep and 21 percent of the area will be six feet deep. This will increase the likeli hood of dense plant life because the Millican facts Proposed Millican Dam site is 18 miles southeast of Bryan on the Navasota River. The improvement pro vides for a concrete and earthfill dam, 83 feet high and 25,000 feet long including a 472-foot gate-controlled con crete spillway. The lake would cover from 42,000 acres in surface area to 66,000 acres depending on the water level. Total controlled storage would be 1.5 million acre-foot for flood control, water supply and sediment reserve. The lake would cover parts of Brazos, Grimes and Madison Counties. (ATE* 5UPPLV (All L RAJ RECREATION! ♦ X 6 MIC.WWM FLOOD control., HIGHWAY*£ AAltsC. 7 miuuioh d! FeAer*J Total estimated cost of Millican Dam project — $149 million sun will reach much of the lake’s depth. But the studies say good water management will limit this problem to the upper, more shallow parts of the lake. One study noted that Lake Houston, with dimen sions smaller and shallower than Millican, has supplied Houston with reliable water. But the big question remains: Who needs surface water? Accord ing to the Brazos Valley Develop ment Council, which coordinates regional planning, the Brazos watershed has an abundance of water. According to the Environ mental Action Council, there is enough ground water to supply this area for 10,000 years. “Even though there is an ex tremely good source of ground water in this area,” says Frank Thurmond, a local member of the Brazos River Authority, there are many industries that want to see their water supply.” He explained that the surface water isn t necessar ily cheaper, but it’s more reliable than estimates of water you can’t