Weather
Partly cloudy and mild with a high in the mid 90’s
and a low in the low 80’s. Winds will be southerly
at 5-10 m.p.h. 50 percent of thundershowers to
day, 20 percent this afternoon & tomorrow.
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Wednesday, August 8, 1979
College Station, Texas
oil lands
beaches
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
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United Press International
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas —
lousands of sticky tar balls from an oil well
fat blew out two months ago and 500 miles
^ay Tuesday washed onto Texas’ most
morous beaches, threatening the state’s
liulti-million dollar fishing and tourist in-
istries.
As tar made landfall on the South Texas
ast, the Coast Guard stretched oil con-
Inment booms across inlets in hopes of
sping it out of environmentally delicate
There were reports, however, that
[me oil was suspended 40 feet below the
ace and could flow under the booms.
The closest slick of major size, estimated
12-square miles, was drifting 55 miles off
coast east of Corpus Christi, about 160
lies north of the mouth of the Rio Grande.
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Slicks can be tracked all the way back to
Mexico’s Ixtoc I well, 500 miles to the
south, that blew out June 3 and continues
to bubble up thousands of gallons of oil per
day. Officials for government-owned Pet-
roleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) say it will be
autumn before efforts to halt the oil flow by
drilling a relief well can be completed.
Dick Whittington of the Texas Depart
ment of Water Resources said he expected
oil would continue to roll up on Texas
beaches at least until next spring.
“It’s taken two months to get here,” he
said. “If they shut it off now it would take
two months for the tail end of it to reach this
far.”
Some state officials toured the beaches
Tuesday to survey the damage.
“There’s no question we have a very se-
Texas considers
uit aganist Mexico
United Press International
AUSTIN — Texas attorneys Tuesday
lere researching prospects for a multi-
pillion-dollar damage suit against Mexico
per the massive oil slick threatening pub-
beaches along the Gulf of Mexico.
“We don’t feel its fair for the citizens of
lexas to pick up this cost,” said John
ainter, first assistant attorney general.
iVe re going to do everything that we can
see that they don’t.”
Fainter said the attorney general’s office
las researching statutes and court prece-
Jents to determine if the state can sue
exico since the oil is coming from a
lexiean-owned oil well in the Bay of Com-
he.
“We re essentially in the process of re
searching what courses of action we have
open to us as the state of Texas, Fainter
said. “We want to know whether it is cov
ered by a treaty or United Nations com-'
pact.”
Fainter said no estimates are available of
the cost of the clean-up operations that will
be necessary or the damage the oil slick will
do to Texas beaches and coastal waterways.
“It looks like we re going to have sub
stantial damage,” Fainter said.
Texas has a $1 million oilspill clean-up
fund, but officials of the Department of
Water Resources have indicated the cost
could go far higher than that amount.
'O-/
ii
Riding high
w
Two construction workers get a five-story high ride atop the wrecking
ball of a massive crane being used in construction of the Academic &
Agency Building. The workers, linking steel girders into the fourth floor
framework of the new building, use the crane as a quick shortcut to the
ground. Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr.
rious situation and are going to continue to
have one until sometime next spring,” Lt.
Gov. Bill Hobby said after an aerial tour of
the coast.
He said the financial impact of the pollu
tion on the state’s fishing and tourist indus
tries could run into losses of hundreds of
millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the Coast Guard was trying
to protect as much of the coast as it could.
“We have begun cleanup operations on
the beaches impacted by tar balls,” said
Coast Guard spokesman Roger Meacham.
“We will continue that until it is cleaned
up.”
Meacham described the tar balls as the
ultimate product of petroleum subjected to
water, currents and the weather during a
journey of more than 500 miles.
He said protecting the entrances to the
ecologically sensitive Laguna Madre — the
bay between Padre Island and the main
land — was the Coast Guard’s “primary
environmental concern.”
The Coast Guard deployed containment
booms across the entrances to the Laguna
Madre Monday. No oil was reported on the
booms Tuesday and no tarballs were known
to have reached the bay where shrimp and
other sea life could be destroyed.
“It will kill us for next year if it gets in the
bays,” said Carl Bidos, a Brownsville,
Texas, shrimper. “If it gets on the beaches
it won’t bother the fishing industry.”
Bidos said the shrimp boats working the
Gulf for 14 to 20 day periods also would be
unable to sell their catches if the shrimp
came in contact with a slick.
Frisbee ballet
John Smith, a junior in Ocean Engineering, free-
styles a frisbee on the Main Drill Field. The Disc
Association of A&M practices there Sunday and
Wednesday afternoons at 6 p.m., and they welcome
all interested people to join them.
Battalion photo by Michael Clough
Texas could use hydropower
Energy source studied at A&M
Although water is a precious commodity
in Texas, some experts say it could be used
to generate power cleaner and cheaper
than other natural resources.
It may seem ironic that a state dotted
with oil wells should be looking under
ground for another means of generating
power, but experts point out petroleum
and its by-products are becoming less
abundant and more expensive.
Texas A&M researcher Dr. David Basco
and others say the state should start looking
at hydropower — or hydro-electric power
as energy produced by the force of moving
water was called in earlier days — as a
potential source of power.
“Water flows across Texas, and if we can
put turbines in the flow we can get power,
Basco told a recent conference.
“I think everyone recognizes it will not
Strategy to offset
inflation to begin
United Press International
CHICAGO — The AFL-CIO Executive
Council called on the administration Tues
day to begin job-creating programs to offset
a recession and renewed its call for manda
tory wageprice controls.
The action came one day after the federa
tion released its initial report on price
monitoring by about 10,000 volunteers.
The report showed prices for most items —
including fuel, utilities and shelter — have
increases since April.
In a policy statement on the national
economy, the 35-member council
criticized the current, voluntary, wage-
price guidelines, which the administration
is in the process of revising.
“The loophole-ridden, flexible, price
and profit guidelines are in stark contrast to
the wage controls imposed on workers and
enforced by employers subject to extralegal
governmental pressures,” the council said.
It said a “comprehensive, mandatory,
legislatively based anti-inflation controls
program would be more effective and fair. ”
The council said the government should
begin work immediately on job-creating
Poll shows
Sen. Kennedy
leads Carter
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The latest ABC
News-Harris poll of possible Democratic
presidential contenders in 1980 gives Sen.
Edward Kennedy his largest lead over
President Carter in the past two years —
63-32 percent.
Carter, who trailed Kennedy 59-34 per
cent in the last poll, made a slight surge
after his nationally televised energy speech
but promptly fell back even farther, the
poll of 967 voters between July 27-29
showed Monday.
The 63-32 margin was the largest spread
in seven such polls over the past two years.
The Massachusetts senator holds an even
bigger lead over California Gov. Edmund
G. Brown, 69-25 percent, the polls
showed.
In a three-way battle, Kennedy was fa
vored over Carter 52-25 percent, with
Brown getting 18 percent.
programs, quick-start public works, energy
conservation and development.
“Nothing will be gained by inaction and
delay,” the council said. “Recession will
not cure the problems of inflation and
energy.”
The measure, a compromise fashioned
by Lane Kirkland, the federation’s
secretary-treasurer and heir apparent to
ailing President George Meany, called for
work to begin immediately on a SALT III
treaty for reduction in the number of
warheads by the United States and Soviet
Union, but at the same time accepted de
velopment and deployment capability of
the MX intercontinental ballastic missile.
Last February, Kirkland had called the
SALT II treaty “a colossal failure on arms
control” and said it could result in the
biggest arms build-up in history, but ap
parently has changed his mind since then.
On Monday, Kirkland, who holds the
No. 2 post of secretary-treasurer, presided
in Meany’s absence. He told reporters later
he would run for president if Meany re
tires.
“If nominated, I will run,” Kirkland said.
“If elected, I will'serve.”
Meany is recuperating from a three-
month illness that has caused deterioration
of an arthritic right hip.
There has been increasing speculation
Meany will not seek re-election in
November to another two-year term as
head of the 13.6 million-member federa
tion.
Kirkland said Meany is “well on the way
to recovery” and expects to be back in his
office by the end of the week.
“What his plans are, he will declare in his
own good time,” Kirkland said. “His body
and his legs are not what he leads with it is
his mind.”
On other matters, Kirkland said the
AFL-CIO will wait until after next year’s
Democratic and Republican conventions
before deciding what candidate, if any, to
support in the 1980 presidential election.
The council adopted a policy statement
generally supporting Carter’s energy pro
gram developed in the Camp David talks,
but opposed decontrol of crude oil prices.
It said a windfall profits tax should be
passed regardless of decontrol.
Although Kirkland said the AFL-CIO is
awaiting revisions in the administration’s
wageprice guideline plan before comment
ing, he left open the possibility of support
of the measures.
“I would never say never,” he said.
solve all of our problems, but whatever is
there should be developed to contribute to
a future energy mix, ” he said, noting North
America has developed only 45 percent of
its hydroelectric potential compared with
Europe’s 80 percent.
Dr. Jack Runkles, director of the Texas
Water Resources Institute at Texas A&M,
contends hydropower is a non-polluting,
non-consumptive energy source that can
be developed with already available
technology.
And once a generating plant is installed,
he said, maintenance and operation costs
are minimal compared with other types of
energy generation.
A recent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
report indicated there are at least 460 sites
in Texas with some hydropower potential,
with more than 230 of them located on
existing dams.
Runkles said nearly all the potential sites
come under the “low-head” classification
because the state does not have an abudant
supply of water or natural sites for tall
dams.
Low-head means power would have to
be generated by dropping water from rela
tively low dams and passing it through hy
draulic turbines especialy designed for
smaller flows and a lower drop, with water
falling only 10-50 feet.
“Low-head sites will not solve the energy
problems of Texas,” Runkles admitted,
“but they may, however, produce a consid
erable amount of environmentally accept
able, economically competitive energy.”
Runkles said he envisions low-head sites
as including “backyard” systems capturing
the energy of a small creek, a small system
on a sizable dam, or a low-head, run-of-
river system to benefit a small community
or industry.
Irrigation canals, he said, are another
important source that could be developed
for pumping water to sprinkler systems.
Runkles said it would take about two
years to design and license a low-head
project, with about another two to three
years for construction. That compares, he
said, with nine years of lead time for a
coalfired plant or 12 to 14 years for a nuclear
facility.
Technology agent to assist
Bryan and three other
cities in southern states
By LOUIE ARTHUR
Battalion Staff
Help is on the way to the city of Bryan.
Gary Holland is a technology agent who visits local governments in south
central United States to provide technical assistance to small cities and will visit
Bryan Aug. 17.
Holland is one of seven agents participating in the new Community Technology
Initiatives Program (CTIP) managed by Public Technology, Inc. of Washington,
DC.
In Bryan, Holland will meet with City Mananger Ernest Clark to look over
various problems of the city and help find the solutions. They will look over
written problem statements and set priorities, Holland said in a telephone inter
view from Stillwater, Okla.
“Then I will begin to search for technology that has been developed in that area
and make it available to the city manager,” he said. “How much of an advisory
capacity I serve depends on the expertise of the city officials. ”
Holland defines the job of a technology agent: “I try to provide innovative
technological information to various departments within city governments by de
veloping a network of information exchange between the Cooperative Extension
Service, the federal laboratory consortium and private enterprise.”
Some of the general issues Holland and Clark will discuss concern the city
police, fire department, community development and land use. Holland men
tioned a few specific problems such as control of underground fires at sanitary
landfills and standardization of fire equipment.
Holland said they will “have to be realistic” with national problems like energy
that affect Bryan.
“We can’t try on our own to find the solution to the energy problem — not on
that broad of a scope,” he said. “We try to find more realistic answers, such as
vehicle fleet maintenance.”
Holland said he tries to help the city run more effectively by learning where
technology exists that can help them. Also, he can find out what the major prob
lems are in small cities (with populations of 50,000 and under) and encourage
federal labs to focus on those problems that are widespread.
These services provided by Holland and CTIP are free for the 32 participating
cities. Public Tecnology, Inc., who manages the program, is a non-profit organiza
tion funded by grants from the National Science Foundation.
Holland will be serving Clayton,Mo. and Ottawa, Kan., in addition to his duties
in Bryan. His home base will be Stillwater, Okla.
“This is my first visit to Bryan,” Holland said. “It’s sort of a ‘get acquainted’ trip.
After this we’ll be working by phone and mail a lot but we hope to meet on a
regular basis.”