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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 7, 1979)
|Vol. 72 No. 180 6 Pages Battalion Tuesday, August 7, 1979 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 Weather Partly cloudy and warm today, this afternoon and tomorrow. High today in the high 90’s, low this evening in low 70s. Southeasterly winds 5 to 10 miles per hour. ;50-7;;o.9;5f : fVind stalls slick; may be sinking jARTWRIGHr HET KOTTO&™ mOQUERwwiTB •SHUSETT ASTMAN KOO^COlO 15-9:45 United Press International OUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — ^normal easterly winds Monday stalled lead edge of the word’s largest oil slick t outside U.S. waters, leaving Coast !uard officials hoping too much oil was not eping closer below the water level and it of reach of containment booms, esidents, fearful the oil will ruin the s fishing industry for several years, ire praying for northerly winds to turn slick away. armada of men and equipment was Ised at the mouth of the Rio Grande — the first battle line to keep the oil from entering the peaceful Laguna Madre, a rich spawning ground for sealife that separates Padre Island from the mainland for 100 miles to Corpus Christi. But an ominous element was added to the growing concern of the 200-man U.S. Response Team when divers found dime, quarter and half dollar size patches of oil rolling as deep as 40 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico as the oil slick ap proached. “The major concern right now seems to be the amount of oil floating below the &M scientist leaves to study Mexican oilspill the world’s largest oil slick moves to the Texas shore, preparations for its act are being made along the coast, jnong those studying the spill is Texas jjj[M University’s Dr. Roy Hahn, director |lhe Oil Spill Technology Assistance Pro- Kn, who left for Brownsville Tuesday, ■ahn said he cannot predict if the spill Hi! hit the coast; however, he will make emendations to people who live along shore on how to deal with the spill if it s hit. lahn said plans have been made to hold [one-day oil spill training course in msville on Thursday. A place has not In found yet to hold the school. Bfahn said the course is for “news media. local officials, or anyone who wants to learn about the behavior of oil and the technicalities oil spills.’’ Hahn said he will attempt to determine the properties of the oil. He said if the oil is of a tar-like consistency, it will stay on top of the sand and not be difficult to clean up. However, if the oil is fluid, he said, it will soak into the beach and be more difficult to clean up and the effects will last longer. No matter what the consistency, though, Hahn said the spill will hurt marine life along the coast. Hahn said that since the the spill is so large, there is nothing that can be used to put in front of the beaches to keep oil off the shore. surface. This is apparently a somewhat unique situation, ’’ said Chief Petty Officer Drew Shriever, an information specialist for the Coast Guard at oil slick headquar ters opened in Corpus Christi three weeks ago. “They’re having some reservations giving out any information or speculation on how extensive this is. “It may be a day or two before we know the density and speed of movement and overall size of the underwater oil,” he said. “There also will be some tests run to de termine the chemical composition of this undersurface oil to discover potential dam age to marine life.” Shriever said the nearest oil to U.S. waters was a patch of pancake-shaped sheens eight to 10 feet long drifting 8 to 10 miles south of the Rio Grande, an area where thick patches of oil began polluting the beach south of Matamoros, Mexico, on Sunday. Giant oil booms were brought in contain the surface oil, but the new element of the underwater oil apparently caught the team of federal officials by surprise. Shriever said the Coast Guard had con tacted some private firms about installing screens to catch the oil and keep it out of the Laguna Madre, “but there could be problems using this type of device. The slick has been fed by 20,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day since June 3 from a runaway oil well in Mexico’s Bay of Cam peche and specialists said it maybe another month before the well can be capped. By Monday it had gushed 1.73 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. stes given 10 years for evasion of income taxes in United Press International b.\LLAS — Billie Sol Estes, the west ias con man who spent more than six behind bars for a conviction involving |\-existant fertilizer tanks,received a feimum 10-year prison term Monday for jbther fraudulent scheme. Estes, 53, was paroled in 1971 but fed- p officials also might revoke this parole, ending the length of his term beyond 10 irs. I have a problem,” Estes told U.S. Dis- :t Judge Robert Hill before the sentence spronounced. “I live in a dream world. ” lie again denied one of the charges linst him — that he conspired to conceal lets from the government to avoid detec- h by the Internal Revenue' Service — ting, “There was no concealment of as- CorimeCl0y : istopherWood , MfchaelG.Wlsoil -iOUSE” poking somber and dressed in a: blue, i-striped suit, Estes showed rio outward lotion as Hill gave him two 5-year prison ms to be served consecutively. § [kfaiMA The sentences were imposed despite the as of his wife, brother and even the jury eman for leniency. One of Estes’ ighters wept aloud in the packed federal irtroom. Estes’ wife, Patsy, stood silently in the lienee with a number of her daughters ise to her. In pleading for leniency, she arthquake its part of alifornia United Press International PAN FRANCISCO — A strong earth- Monday swayed high-rise build- sin downtown San Francisco and jolted rthem California from the Pacific to the rra. There were no reports of injuries and [jor damage, but windows were broken dfurniture tossed around rooms in cities |ng the coast of central California. The National Earthquake Center of the |S. Geological Service in Golden, Colo., Sid the quake had a magnitude of about 5.7 ®the Richter scale. It was centered in the pllister, Calif., area, about 100 miles Jth of San Francisco, le quake occurred at 10:05 a.m. Reports of the earth trembling and win- [ws rattling came from the heavily popu- |ed San Francisco Peninsula, the San Jose Sacramento and as far east as Yose- |te in the Sierra. [A sheriff s deputy at Hollister, said it was strongest quake there in the past five irs. Hollister is located on California’s Jeacherous San Andreas fault which ised the 1906 San Francisco quake. There were some broken windows, ?er lines down and interruption of )ne service,” a deputy at Hollister said, [ut no big damage or injuries that we iw of. ” Jin Carmel, on the Monterey Peninsula, Ndents reported windows rattling, furni- re tumbling. Some residents ran into the Feet in alarm. talked in a virtual whisper and appeared shaken. Estes was sentenced on his July 11 con victions — one for swindling a farmer out of $30,000 and the other for conspiring with his co-defendant, Raymond K. Horton, to hide assets of various financial schemes in which they were partners. Horton was sentenced to three years in prison and was fined $10,000. Hill ordered that Estes’ sentences be served consecu tively and gave both men 10 days in which to appeal. Meanwhile, he allowed them to remain free on personal recognizance bonds. Estes was convicted in 1963 of swindling farmers and banks out of millions of dollars. The massive fraud scheme was uncovered when banks started efforts to collect on var ious outstanding loans to Estes which were secured with nonexistant fertilizer tanks as colateral. In addition, many farmers invested their life savings in the alleged fertilizer tanks. The new sentences were imposed de spite an affidavit by a juror which said he was pressured into returning a guilty ver dict. Hill said he would consider an amended motion on a retrial for both Estes and Horton on Thursday. The juror, Ray Loggins, 68, claimed “I do not feel and still do not feel that I voted my convictions.” He said poor health, claustrophobia, pressure from other jurors and exposure to news coverage of the trial influenced his verdict. Among those asking Hill for leniency was jury foreman Ernest Cotton, who said Estes and his family had suffered enough. Cotton, of DeSoto, Texas, a Dallas sub urb, said he voted for a conviction “because the evidence is there.” At least five other jurors were in the audience. Estes’ brother, Dr. John Estes, also pleaded for a light sentence, saying he had paid for many ofhis brother’s expenses over the years and Estes had no large sums of money and no other assets. “I paid too many little bills for there to be large sums of money anywhere,” Dr. Estes said. Estes’ brother said, “When Billie Sol was released from prison I felt he paid his debt to society. So far as I know our family has obeyed every law of the land and will con tinue to do so.” Estes entered the world of finance by buying 400 pigs at the age of 14 and later selling them at a profit. His techniques of high finance, however, eventually evolved into fraud and he became known as one of the nation’s biggest swindlers in the 1960s. NO MR umi< Battalion photo by Doann Hamilton B Sane protesters Dwight Tompkins, a member of B Sane (Brazos Society for Alternatives to Nuclear Energy), discusses the problems of nuclear energy with two passersby. The organization set up a table on University Drive across from the Northgate shopping area Sunday and Monday for petition signing that would ban the disposal of radioactive wastes in Texas and implement action to seek alternatives to nuclear power. Pumps 80 gallons a day Controls seen for campus monies United Press International AUSTIN — Legislators investigating al legations of financial improprieties at North Texas State University indicated Monday new measures will be proposed to regulate private foundations set up to provide money to augment campus budgets. An assistant attorney general, mean while, indicated the state may go to court to seek reimbursement for some travel ex pense money collected by NTSU officials. “More money was gotten than should have been obtained, ” Lonny Zwiener, as sistant attorney general, told the House Investigating Committee. Rep. Richard Slack, D-Pecos, commit tee chairman, asked Zwiener to decide if the amounts involved are large enough to warrant civil lawsuits to recover the funds. Slack said the investigating committee can provide personnel if necessary for state officials to prepare cases to prosecute any criminal wrongdoing. “We don’t want to hang someone for stealing apples,” Slack said. “(But) these people are all educated and should know better.” Prosecutors said they need more infor mation to decide if indictments are war ranted. Slack said legisators already have seen enough to know tighter controls are needed on foundations operated by colleges. “I think it’s going to be pretty obvious that there’s going to be some proposed changes (in laws) regarding foundations,” Slack told reporters. “There’s been enough now to indicate the need for improvement in that area. ” Slack said one possibility would be to require government audits of such foun dations. The committee voted Monday to au thorize Slack to direct the state auditor to assist the attorney general’s office in a re view of spending by the NTSU Educational Foundation Inc. District Attorney Jerry Cobb of Denton agreed to make available foundation rec ords he subpoenaed for an investigation of allegations of fiscal mismanagement by NTSU officials. Cobb told legislators he asked the Texas Prosecutors Coordinating Council to handle the investigation of alleged bid rig ging and other financial improprieties at NTSU and to prosecute any criminal charges because his cousin is a possible defendant. • Texas debut of gasohol a hit United Press International SUNRAY, Texas — Although sales are down, manager Don Graham says gasohol sold at the Sunray Co-Op — the state’s first outlet — has accomplished all that he ex pected. “I didn’t have any particular plans or any thing for gasohol other than stretching supplies, and it has done that,” says Graham, who suggested to the co-op board the idea of providing the ethanol-gasoline mixture. “The main thing is I wanted people to try it and see what it did for them,” Graham says. Sales of gasohol — a 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent unleaded gasoline blend — were brisk at the outset, averaging about 400 gallons a day in mid-June, Graham says. But the co-op now pumps only about 80 gallons a day, he adds. “We realized that there were going to be quite a few more sales when we initially put it in than there would be on a continual basis. We do have people buying it on a continual basis, and we’ll have it here another two months to determine whether we ll keep it,” the manager says. The cooperative bought 6,350 gallons of 200 proof anhydrous ethanol from one of the nation’s major suppliers, Archer- Daniel-Midland of Decatur, Ill. The alter native fuel mixture was an instant novelty in this Panhandle farming community north of Amarillo. Sunray is not the only outlet in the state to pump the mixture. As of Aug. 1, gasohol is available in Per- ryton, about 65 miles across the Panhandle from Sunray. The hybrid fuel sells for 94.9 cents a gallon at both outlets and some purchasers claim they have increased mileage by five percent with gasohol, something they say offsets the slightly higher price. The Sunray Co-Op bought its ethanol for $1.59 per gallon from A-D-M. But Graham says ethanol has climbed to $1.73 per gallon since then, and fallen back to $1.58 a gallon with a plentiful grain supply. The price of unleaded gasoline also has risen during that period, he says. “The unleaded gasoline mixed in with it has continued to escalate and I figure it will continue to do so,” he said. “We have the alcohol here that we blend in with those supplies as we need it.” A glimpse of the oV days. . . Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. Billy Ray Montegomery prepares to anchor the first rafter of his log cabin. Montgomery was part of a team of men from Nacogdoches which built a log cabin by hand during the 8th Annual Texas Folklife Festival. The annual celebration of folklore and lifestyles ran through Sunday in San Antonio. Consol looks over preliminary budget By ROY BRAGG Battalion Staff The A&M Consolidated School Board looked over the first draft of the 1979-80 budget and established a preliminary tax rate Monday night. The tax assessor-collector has established the maximum tax rate for the coming year at approximately $1.29 per $100 valuation, said Donald Ney, Assistant Superintendent-Finance. By law, the district must announce a maximum tax rate early in the budget making process. This is the highest rate the district may levy without the benefit of a public hearing. An increase above the announced rate would force a special public hearing over the new rate. The announced rate is not final, Ney added, and is subject to board approval and normal public hearing. The proposed budget, totaling $5,942,510, is nearly 25 percent ($1,124,508) 1 higher than last year’s budget of $4,818,002. The largest single increase in the tentative budget is $744,554 for salaries. The salary increase represents a 66 percent of the total increase in the budget this year. Among other items in the budget are increases in in capital outlay ($122,730), supplies ($106,761), utilities ($175,000). Budget Committee chairman Bill Wasson recognized the efforts of Superinten dent Bruce Anderson and Ney and his staff for their work preparing the budget. In other business, the board heard Anderson present his goal statements for himself, his staff and the district for the next five years. The goals are an attempt to put the entire district on a measureable scale, Anderson said, and will allow him and the board to evaluate the progress of the personnel and policies. The plan covers goals in the areas of classroom instruction, personnel, business administration, special services, school and community relations and the im plementation of new policies.