Monday, January 19, 1981
The Battalion
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gTexas gas supplies plentiful
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United Press International
exans have no need to worry about shortages
natural gas during the coming cold months, a
veyofgas companies shows.
Increased exploration and drilling by produc-
and a drop in consumption by users — both
newhat attributable to increased costs of natu-
— have combined to help assure satisfac-
ry amounts.
“We have plenty of gas to take care of our
itomers’needs,” said Kent Moritz, spokesman
Entex in Houston. Entex serves 800,000 cus-
ners in southern Texas. “We perceive no shor-
;e of gas. Even back several years ago when
ire were shortages elsewhere in the country we
Igas.”
Pioneer Natural Gas, serving Amarillo, Mid-
id, Lubbock and West Texas, has an 11-year
ily of gas guaranteed through contracts, said
nieswoman Judith Kerr of the company’s
narillo office.
Conservation has had an impact on supplies,
in remarked.
“When gas was very, very cheap there was not
8impetus to conserve it wisely. As prices have
leased, the consumers have become aware of
nserving.” she said.
The increase in prices has also increased the
centive to drill. Pioneer Corporation includes a
drilling company and 98 percent of its rigs were
used in 1980. Kerr said the high rig utilization is
an “indication of increased activity and explora
tion.”
“We have in this country an excellent supply of
natural gas, but much of it still needs to be ex
plored and produced,” Kerr said.
And Texas seems to have a different attitude
than other parts of the county, she noted.
“In Texas we don’t mind putting that drilling
rig right out in our wheat field or cattle field. In
other areas there seems to be more hesitation, ”
she said.
Figures showing a sufficient supply of gas this
winter throughout the nation also apply to Texas,
confirmed Billy Thompson, public information
officer for the Texas Railroad Commission.
Supphes for the winter look better than they
have in many years, an American Gas Association
official told Energy News, a bi-weekly newsletter
of the gas energy industry.
Energy News gave a third reason for increased
supplies. “Since severe gas shortages of the mid-
1970s, the industry has stepped up development
of peak-shaving supplies and underground stor
age,” the newsletter said.
Lone Star Gas, a Dallas-based company which
supplies 579 towns from Longview to the Panhan
dle and south to Georgetown, and in southern
Oklahoma, has never had to cut back supplies to
homes “in the history of anyone now at the com
pany — and that’s 25 or 30 years,” spokeswoman
Jenny Barker said.
However, the company does curtail supplies to
industrial customers on high-use days caused by
cold weather, she said.
“The analogy we use is, ‘you don’t build a
church to hold the Easter Sunday congregation.’
You don’t build pipelines that way either. It
would be too expensive for the consumer,” the
spokeswoman said.
In the spring and fall when demand is down,
Lone Star continues buying gas to stockpile for
cold winter months and hot summers. About one-
third of its gas supplies electric generation plants
which have a high demand in summer.
A drop in residential use has been noticed, but
Barker said she does not know if the conservation
is caused by increased costs of gas or “the conser
vation wave of thinking. ”
San Antonio’s Valero Energy Co. was involved
with a “series of curtailments” to industries in the
mid-1970s, but is now in “excellent shape,” said
Simon Barker Benfield.
However should statewide weather cause ev
erybody to need gas at the same time they might
have to reseort to some curtailment to industries,
he said.
Illegal parking
With parking at a premium on campus, many
students find it convenient to park illegally.
This car is parked in a space reserved for
handicapped persons, placing an additionl
burden on those who need close access to
buildings. Students who feel compelled to
park illegally should also remember that
parking tickets on campus are $10 each.
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1 Aliens cross over
to life of si a very
United Press International
LUBBOCK — Border Patrol agent Billy Rowe has special feelings
about "coyotes” — men who take advantage of Mexicans lured toward
the glistening economic jewel north of the Rio Grande.
“Iliese smugglers are the lowest form of humanity,” Rowe spat out
recently. ‘To me, it’s just like slavery. ”
He may have been a slave, but that didn’t stop Antonio Martinez
DeLaHoya and three other men from seeking out a smuggler last July,
as the hot Mexican sun bore down on Ignacio Ramirez in the state of
Durango.
“1 was in the plaza with some others and we were looking for a
coyote,” the 20-year-old Mexican national recalled recently during a
bit of freedom from his Lubbock County Jail cell.
“He asked for $200. As soon as I could get a job and earn the money, I
was going to send it to him, Martinez said.
As new recruits, the four men were introduced to a guide and shown
where to cross the Rio Grande near Del Rio. They were told where to
id a house to hide themselves, once inside the U.S.
After depositing the men on the U.S. side of the river, the guide
sappeared. The four illegals took refuge in a vacant house.
“We crossed about three in the afternoon, a little above a dam,”
Martinez said. “We stayed all night in that house. No one else was
ere,”
Later, the men completed a rendezvous with the coyote. Squeezed
to a red Ford, the five men set out for Levelland — a West Texas
agribusiness and petroleum center of 13,000.
Hie coyote drove to San Antonio before heading north for the last leg
of the 450-mile trip to Levelland.
“We stopped one time for gasoline, and (the coyote) bought us all
some sodas,” Martinez s4id through an interpreter. “We didn’t have
any money for food.”
Itwas 9 a m. Within 16 hours, Martinez would be headed for jail.
A Department of Public Safety trooper stopped the red Ford in
Lubbock and a chain of events that ultimately will lead to deportation
for Martinez had begun.
Martinezholds no enmity for the smuggler who brought him to West
Texas, “because I didn’t pay the coyote anything (up front),” he said.
Had the trip gone according to plans, the coyote might have sold his
four workers for $100 each to an employer seeking cheap labor, Rowe
said.
Martinez and the others aliens caught in the ill-fated July trip have
remained in the United States to testify against the smuggler, a 22-
year-old resident alien, Victor Manuel Gloria.
Gloria, who gave a Del Rio address, pleaded guilty to four counts of
transporting illegal aliens and was handed a five-year probated sent
ence Sept. 11.
Rowe said the defendant cannot be deported, however, because of
the length of time he has lived in the United States.
In many instances, the agent said, the smuggler treats his quarry
just like animals. They haul them like cattle, just as tight as they can
handle them.”
Aliens may ride in relative comfort, with only one to four per car, or
in claustrophobic misery among 100 packed in the trailer of a rented
tack. They usually find employment at farms, cotton gins, feed lots,
construction sites and restaurants, and many times the person hiring
them knows they are illegal aliens.
But prosecuting an employer means proving he knew the men he
red were illegals — a difficult task.
-tling,
St
Desegregation plan
may reduce busing
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Broad school desegregation programs that cov
er entire metropolitan areas are proving much more effective than
programs confined to city limits, a 14-city study says.
The two-year study found that broad school desegregation prog
rams, which often force busing on surrounding suburbs, give white
families “no place to run” and also add incentives to live in integrated
areas where children can attend neighborhood schools.
The result is such a sharp increase in housing integration that some
cities may be able to eliminate school busing sometime in the future,
the study said.
Study author Diana Pearce, director of research at Catholic
University’s Center for National Policy Review, said white families
are realizing they can avoid busing because integrated areas are
exempt from desegregation programs.
Besides reduced busing, there are more fair housing opportunities
for blacks.
The study, financed by the National Institute of Education, involved
pairing seven cities that have had metropolitan-wide school desegrega
tion programs for at least five years with seven other cities of similar
size, geographic location and racial makeup.
The cities with metropolitan-wide desegregation “are experiencing
fesidential integration at a faster rate” than the others, Pearce said in
to interview.
Forexample, she said Charlotte, N.C., which began busing in 1970,
is estimated today to be 32.7 percent more integrated, while Rich
mond, Va., is only 19.6 percent more integrated than 10 years ago.
Pearce said busing is necessary, “But not indefinitely. If we have
metropolitan school desegregation, we will have housing integration
- and we Will see the end of busing. ”
Results of her research were disclosed days after the Senate passed
mti-busing legislation and a conservative research group urged Presi
dent-elect Ronald Reagan to end federal support of cross-district
^ool busing.
FALL INVENTORY
CLEARANCE SALE
SALE STARTS THURSDAY, JANUARY 8
Velour V-Neck & Pullover
SWEATERS
Entire Stock
1 /3
OFF
SUITS
25%
OFF
Entire Stock
60%off
SPORTS
COATS to
Entire Stock
CASUAL 1/
JACKETS /3 OFF
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25%
SLACKS
Entire Stock
x ULTRA SUEDE -| Q<^
OFF
SPORTS COATS
OOFF
NEW SHIPMENT 111
LEATHER COATS
OFF
SAVE UP TO $ 120 WHILE THEY LAST
The Gentleman’s Quarter
846-1706 3705 E. 29th Bryan
Open Till 8 P.M. On Thursday