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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 1979)
fire damage estimated at $100,000 ]b y Battalion St^T ^ The fire swept through two rooms on $100,000 damage, including about $30,000 | . || rinmi By CAROLYN BLOSSER Battalion Staff Blie fire that destroyed two rooms and /^/^/iJlwily damaged a six-story Texas A&M ' J '*Uu|iversity building on the west campus joss Wellborn Road Thursday night ■ Intei ,r n«tiom| day The The fire swept through two rooms on the third floor of the Soil and Crop Sci ences and Entomology building. Fire inspectors determined that the fire started on a wooden book shelf, but Fire Inspector Marshal Davis said the cause of the fire is unknown. Dr. Jarvis Miller, Texas A&M presi dent, said the fire caused an estimated I sed an estimated $100,000 damage. .0 one was seriously injured, but sev- n oc . "“PM firemen were treated for smoke inha- 1 assisf ant fenon ‘ rr js Who JJ° n - ac " ip- native r merly Wl Orleans He was ‘ver had the 19; ; record s|| >r two ses ; istant at 1 to Chi, nt then -any Cost, 1 the se; games, oach >ns, Battalion photo by Clay Cockrill Workers from the Texas A&M University Physical Plant began cleaning lip the two destroyed laboratories in the Soil and Crop Sciences and Bntomolgy Building Monday after the fire Thursday night. The workers jh'e removing a heating duct from one of the rooms. $100,000 damage, including about $30,000 in research equipment used to study in sects. It took two and one-half hours for 11 fire units and 44 firemen to bring the blaze under control. A water sprinkler system, required in buildings in Bryan and College Station, would have controlled the fire and less ened the damage considerably, said Col lege Station Fire Marshal Harry Davis. Sprinkler systems are not required in buildings owned by the state. The $10.8 million, 18-month-old Soil and Crop Sciences and Entomology Cen ter does not have a system. If the building had a sprinkler system, Davis estimated the damage would have been reduced to between $5 and $10,000. One fire truck, usually manned with five to seven firemen, probably could have handled the fire, he said. Heat, usually 100 to 135 degrees, trig gers the sprinklers to spray water in a cir cle. Very few of Texas A&M’s buildings are equipped with sprinkler systems and Mil ler said the University is not reconsidering installing them. Miller said this decision is based on a “cost benefit analysis. It would cost be tween $4 and $5 million to install the cam pus with sprinkler systems. We don’t place that high of a value priority on it, ” he said. Miller said state law prohibits the Uni versity from insuring the building. He said the Legislature would appropriate funds to reimburse the University for the full College Station Fire fighters refresh themselves after fighting a blaze for over two hours in the Soil and Crop Sciences and Entomology Building Thursday evening. Fighting the fire was particu- Battalion photo by Clay < larly hazardous for the firemen because the design of large buildings does not lend itself to proper ventilation during fires. Local merchants donated food and drink for the firemen. amount of damage. The fire Thursday night was the second at the building within two weeks. A small fire that began in a storage area was con tained and put out before the fire depart ment arrived, said Kirk Brown, fire mar shal for the building and an associate pro fessor. Brown said a sprinkler system would be helpful in the storage areas. “The building is not burnable but the contents are,” he said. “It would also help if the University provided somewhere else to store things.” The fire Thursday threatened to expose radioactive materials in an adjacent room. Brown said small amounts of radioactive materials and explosive chemicals are kept throughout the building, and that it was luck that the fire didn’t come into contact with them. Officials said there were no explosive materials in the rooms that burned, al though explosions were heard. Intenution | Dave Pfe lined bach ■cnite afc) Vednesda, diurgh Piii Houston, i| loss. ' and lose, ied a thretj nit Parker! ? nine lit a 1-0 pita leld seats r owed witkil ired on I dlock m igled an d the ba mie Stennsj l, allowed e lolds in tit h of the ond on an cored on ip the iru run in tki ■ Milner, fli ss’ West On They Hava even days] ^het LenJ iad run-sa venth innij lead theCk victory Wd ; Texas III sweep of I he seventi) Alan Barni ^emonoffoj Darwin, l\ 3. Johnson right for did ut, 3-3, ond time is) der allowtij liking foM the VV h time irned run Wills’ d baseman two-base [ scored oi les in th- ke Colbeit game. y Gleaton. ut for Tei* he Battalion Vol. 72 No. 171 8 Pages Tuesday, July 17, 1979 College Station, Texas US PS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 Weather Partly cloudy and warm with the highs in the mid 90’s and a low in the mid 70’s. Winds will be South erly at 10-15 m.p.h. 30% chance of rain today. Ipeech o good: llements United Press International AUSTIN — President Carter’s energy address to the nation was an echo of his previous political speeches, and lacked the specifics necessary to begin a solution to the energy problem. Gov. Bill Clements said Monday. “We are beyond the time for sermons. Words are not enough. What the Ameri can public wants is a plan of action. We want some specifics, something we can put out teeth into,” Clements said. “What we got from the president was a replay of 1976 campaign speeches, more rhetoric. There is no real plan to be distil led from it.” Clements said the nation must mobilize its industrial base to solve the energy problem, and said, “The president has all the authority he needs. He doesn’t need another advisory board, more red tape and more bureaucracy.” But the most vulnerable part of the president’s speech was his proposal to freeze oil imports at the 1977 level, Cle ments said. “That has dire implications, an ominous ring. It would mean a cycle of no-growth, stagnation of the economy, fewer jobs and more inflation. The proposal is like an os trich sticking its head in the sand. We cannot possibly restrict imports to the 1977 level without increasing our domestic production through specific programs.” The governor said conservation will not solve the energy problem, and the nation must move forward with programs to pro duce more energy. He noted Carter failed to mention nuclear energy in his speech. “Nuclear energy obviously is a piece of the picture,” Clements said. “The presi dent skipped it entirely because it’s politi cally sensitive. That is not the kind of leadership the nation needs.” Gas in B-CS may be scarcer Passing on the tradition Battalion photo by Clay Cockril By LOUIE ABTHUR Battalion Staff If you are confused about the gasoline situation and wondering what will happen in the fall, you’re not alone — local gas station owners don’t know either. With less than 11,000 students attend ing summer school this year and a projected enrollment of 31,090 for the fall semester, there will be more than 20,000 students descending on the Bryan-College Station area at the end of August. This fig ure does not include returning faculty and staff. Local gas stations have been cut back on the volume of gas they receive since Feb ruary. They receive an allocation every month based on a percentage of the amount of gas they purchased the same month in 1978. Clarence Lorenz, manager of the Mobil Aggieland Service Station, said he expects to have about the same amount of gas this fall he had this summer. “I get 82 percent (his monthly alloca tion) now, and I’m pretty sure I’ll get 82 percent in the fall,” Lorenz said. “There was a big summer enrollment last year and I didn’t have to order any extra gas last fall. So this year I should have about the same amount as last year.” All station owners and managers inter viewed said the shortage is not their fault — they say they don’t know what to expect month to month. “I guess someone higher up in the company knows what the per centages will be,” Larry Piper of Piper’s Gulf said. “I only know from one month to the next. I’ve been getting 75 percent for the last two months. Next month the base will be higher (because he bought more in August 1978) but I don’t know what the percentage will be.” Piper added that he didn’t think there was much chance of get ting less gas. “The company just tells us once a month what our percentage is for that month,” Edwin Pilger, a local Exxon gas station owner, said. “They say they’re making as much gas as in 1977. ” “We’re getting 85 percent now, and I’d estimate we ll be getting about 82 to 85 percent next month,” Pilger continued. “One problem right now could be that local contractors and commercial accounts aren’t getting the gas they need. We have a cheaper price than other majors so they come and fill up 55 gallon drums with gas.” George Shryock, manager of the Pon- derosa Texaco is skeptical about the gas situation here in the fall. “The rumor is that it’s supposed to be better, but they said that last month and it stayed the same,” Shryock said. His alloca tion has been 70 percent for the past two months. “I don’t believe it’ll he too much better, that’s for sure,” he said. Lorenz said that his station was “run ning on a shoestring” on the hours they were open now. Most of the stations are open now five days a week for about five to seven hours a day. Lorenz and other sta tion owners said they would stay open longer, but that they are trying to make their allocation last so they don’t have to close down between deliveries. Edwin Pilger summed up the future gas situation: “It’s not gonna be any better.” Head Yell Leader Pete Greaves along with a few friends leads an audi ence full of in-coming freshmen and their parents in some of the Aggie yells at the Traditions Program Sunday night in Rudder Theatre. The program is the culmination of a three-day orientation session for new students beginning Texas A&M in the fall. The sessions continue throughout the summer taking new groups of students each time. Carter pleads for help to carry out energy plan United Press International KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Carrying his battle for energy independence to the na tion’s heartland. President Carter Monday said that fight will cost $140 billion and pleaded: “Will you help me succeed?” In the new, upbeat manner he unveiled in Sunday night’s extraordinary effort to seize the initiative on energy, Carter re ceived loud, sustained applause in a na tionally broadcast speech to the National Association of Counties. “There are no easy answers,” he said. “On the battlefield of energy, this democ racy which we love will make its stand. “And on that battlefield — you and I — fighting side by side — will win the energy war.” The $140 billion war for energy inde pendence compares with about $24 billion spent in the speeded-up Apollo program that launched Americans to the moon exactly 10 years ago Monday. Drawing the battle lines in his apparent effort to save his political future. Carter leveled a sharp warning at the oil com panies. Shouting — to applause — that “the oil companies must cooperate!” the president said he is prepared to use the full power of his office to ensure they meet the energy needs of the nation. He said he is dispatching auditors to check company profits and supplies, and pledged to use “the full power of the law against those who profiteer from our na tional shortage, or who try to cheat the American public.” Carter reiterated he will not permit one more drop of foreign oil into America be yond what was imported in 1977, and he declared: “I am drawing our line of defense here and now!” Again, he urged Congress to give him — in addition to standby gasoline ration ing and passage of the windfall profits tax — the power to set “mandatory state-by state conservation goals and to impose mandatory conservation if the state fails to meet its target.” Some of his specific points on energy: —His proposed Energy Mobilization board “will slash through the red tape” to ensure the necessary plants, pipelines, ports and other oil facilities are built or improved. “We’ll remove the roadblocks. It is time that we take this bold action — and we will.” —Low cost loans will be made to homeowners who improve their energy situations by converting from oil to gas or, for assistance for other energy-saving mea sures for those whose homes cannot easily be altered. —New funds totaling $60.5 billion over the next 10 years will be devoted to up grading public transport such as buses, subways and in the production of more ef ficient cars. —There are 200 auditors into the field “to ensure (oil company) compliance” with his new initiatives and another 400 au ditors to monitor jobbers and dealers. “The Department of Justice and the De partment of Energy are investigating the oil companies to see if the current shortage involves any improper or illegal ac tivities.”