Vol. 72 No. 139 • 12 Pages Battalion Friday, April 20, 1979 News Dept. 845-2611 College Station, Texas Business Dept. 845-2611 Batt to run tabloid The Agriculturist, a tabloid pub lished by agricultural communica tion students, will appear in Mon day’s edition of The Battalion. It will focus on events in The College of Agriculture, students and research areas. Families stranded in Houston floodin Kaleidoscope of rhythm Battalion photo by Jeanne Graham The Texas A&M University Dance Arts Society Theater. The presentation included a variety of ex- presented “Kaleidoscope” Thursday in Rudder pressive dances, from jazz numbers to “Le Freak.” Students concerned here can we stash he nuclear trash? By PATTI SHOQUIST Battalion Beporter bncerned Texas A&M University stu dents raised questions about th6 harmful fccts of radioactive wastes after watching a 1977 NBC documentary on the subject Bursday night. B’he film, “DANGER: Radioactive Wstes, was presented by Beta Beta a biology honor society. Charlene ■bel, a 1975 graduate of Texas A&M, Bke on the opposition to the nuclear Uptes controversy. She became involved | n issue when she researched it for the ! a gue of Women Voters in Amherst, uclear wastes are created when fuel : Q in a nuclear plant’s operations is re- B>ved from the reactor. Those wastes in- ■ide Strontium-90 which causes bone pricer, Iodine-129, which affects the ■'roid, and Plutonium-239, another B°ven carcinogen. ■Saying that no long-term storage or dis- T&l system for radioactive wastes has found, one scientist in the film com- ®nted, We are creating a nuclear waste poster with no cage in which to keep it. JThe current system of containing low- nuclear wastes involves placing them ■ steel containers, then burying them in Hdlow sand-filled trenches. Inigher-level wastes are found in the of nuclear reactors themselves, where "bthin the reactor must be changed ■“ U; jUy • Most of the rods are contained at B plant sites, since government and in- l: tr y cannot find a different place to dis- jP° s e of them. ■Since the potential danger to life and B e nvironment is immeasurable, the government has given industry 1985 to find a safe storage system for | r °ds. However, the film revealed that industry has set a “more realistic” deadline for 1991. In the documentary, some scientists ar gued that there is no permanent safe con tainer for fuel rods. A government spokesman agreed that perfect contain ment of nuclear wastes is neither a reality nor a goal. The film said the question facing indus try and government remains, “How can the growth of nuclear power plants be jus tified if no one knows what the consequ ences will be?” The documentary said most citizens are unconcerned over the issue because they can’t sense the presence of radiation. However, “the move for safety in the nuclear power industry may have to come from concerned citizens,” said Seibel. Asked by one student if the public can trust the goverment to handle the prob lem, she said, “For 30 years the govern ment has been telling us that low-level radiation is harmless and nuclear power is safe, and now we don’t know what to be- lieve. yy “Look what’s happening in the West,’ Seibel said. “For years it has been a dump ing ground, and now all kinds of things are going wrong. ” She urged students to take an active stand against nuclear growth until safer methods of operation of plants and dis posal of wastes are found. Currently there are 65-70 nuclear power plants in operation in the United States, and the government estimates that it would require 500 plants in order to be independent of foreign energy sources. There are five nuclear power plants under construction in Texas, and two sites in the state are being considered for nuc lear wastes depositories. . Despite this growth, Seibel said that advances are being made to monitor the development of nuclear plants. Senator George McGovern (D-S.D.) has proposed a bill that would give states the final veto power in determining whether or not to accept nuclear development. United Press International HOUSTON — A night-long downpour dropped more than 7 inches of rain in a three-hour period, virtually crippling police, fire department and ambulance service and stranding Houstonians city wide late Thursday. The southwest side of town received 5.75 inches as of 8 p.m., and more rain in creased that to 7 inches. Volunteers in boats were needed to evacuate movie goers from a theater and 10 families were stranded in their homes, waiting until re scue boats could reach them. The Fire Department requested citi zens not to call except in life-and-death situations. Almost all downtown streets Guerillas defy orders to upset Rhodesia voting United Press International SALISBURY, Rhodesia — Guerrillas ordered to smash Rhodesia’s week-long elections are defying their leaders and urg ing people to vote in the nation’s first bal loting for a black-majority government, a black Rhodesian leader says. The Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, head of one of the four parties running in the elec tion, said Wednesday that “by and large guerrillas are assisting the election pro cess” because the insurgents are “sick and tired of the war.” One villager told a reporter guerrillas even offered to remove their land mines from a road so that nobody would be hurt on the way to the polls. By mid-afternoon Wednesday on the second day of voting, which ends Satur day, election officials said 38 percent of the 2.8 million eligible voters had cast ballots. The officials said there were still areas where people were refusing to vote, either out of opposition to the process or because they had been intimidated. But hold-out areas were diminishing in number each day, the officials said. They said two villages sent runners asking the army to send troops with a mobile polling booth so they could vote. Black and white Rhodesians are being asked to pick 72 black members for a 100- seat Parliament. The other 28 seats were reserved for the whites. Guerrillas of the Patriotic Front alliance making isolated attacks have been quickly dealt with by 100,000 army troops and re servists mobilized under the martial law ordered by Prime Minister Ian Smith. were so severely flooded that emergency vehicles were virtually useless and people were being evacuated by boat. Freeways were turned into parking lots by motorists unable to exit through high water. Water was reported coming into homes in an inner-city neighborhood and power was knocked out on the northside. “We’re just having a helluva time of it here,” said Civil Defense spokesman John Caswell. “We’ve got about eight boats working in the city and are using three underwater vehicles that are equipped with waterproof engines. “There’s reports of water in the lower level of an apartment project and we’ve got water over the tops of cars. “This is the worst flood situation we’ve had in some time.” About 50 Houston Independent School District employees were stranded in the administration building by the heavy rains and the basement was flooded, as was the basement of St. Luke’s Hospital. HISD Superintendant Billy Reagan said many schools suffered major damage. In addition to the flooding, there also were reports of tornadoes damaging homes and a shopping center. Conroe, four miles north of Houston, also was threatened. Civil Defense au thorities in Montgomery County hoped their rain-saturated area would receive no significant rainfall late Thursday. Flood- waters accumulated during two stormy days pushed down the San Jacinto River, filling Lake Houston to a record level and setting up reaction flooding for the weekend. City and rural residents alike also had to worry about the presence of hundreds of snakes displaced from the surrounding piney woods and river bottoms. “You’re mighty right, there is a bushel load of snakes out there,” said Civil De fense Director Bert Bratcher who coordi nated the evacuation of an estimated 1,000 Montgomery County residents. “We had one snake bite reported in Conroe. Most of those sought shelter at homes of friends and relatives but about 350 of the homeless spent the night at schools, churches and VFW halls designated as shelters by the Red Cross. About 150 school children were forced to sleep at schools inaccessible to buses. Only minor injuries were directly re lated to the flooding although about seven flood victims suffered heart attacks. Students take part in A&M decisions “Boy, the parking situation is really lousy. I wouldn’t drive, but you can’t de pend on the shuttle buses. I could make some suggestions to improve things, but the administration doesn’t listen to the students.” Those are common comments on the Texas A&M University campus, except students do have a chance to make sugges tions, and the administration will listen. There are 67 committees at Texas A&M that decide how services to the students should be run. From the shuttle bus ser vice to food services, these committees make the decisions that affect all students, and on at least half of them students can be voting members, said Dr. Carolyn Adair, director of student affairs. The committees are made up of faculty, staff and students, and all receive an equal vote, Adair said. A student can go by the Student Ac tivities Office, Room 221 of the Memorial Student Center, and apply for a commit tee position beginning Monday until May 2, Adair said. Requirements include a 2.0 grade point ratio and good standing in the University. Adair said there can be from one to five students on a committee, depending on its size. The applications will be sent to the stu dent body president, who will appoint a committee to decide who will fill the posi tions, Adair said. If a large number of ap plications are received, the committee may conduct interviews with the applic ants, she said. Interested students can find out which committees have open positions and get information on the committees by going by the Student Affairs Office. New committee members will take of fice Sept. 1. ack Williams to speak t Moody convocation ■ , ^dy College in Galveston, a marine P Maritime branch of Texas A&M Uni- > will conduct its annual convoca- L n ‘ 0r graduating students on May 4 in P college’s new $2.4 million classroom JIIl a Moratory building. The event will be