State
THE BATTALION
TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 1981
Page 7
Justice Dep’t files plan to upgrade jails
United Press International
HOUSTON —The Justice Department Monday filed its
plan for upgrading conditions in the Texas prison system,
demanding an end to the practice of putting three inmates
to a cell, with some sleeping on floor mattresses.
The filing followed a ruling last December by U.S.
District Judge William Wayne Justice, who said conditions
in the nation s largest prison system violated inmate rights.
He ordered parties in the case to draft solutions.
The judge acted in response to a suit filed against the
Texas Department of Corrections alleging the rights of
30,000 prisoners were violated through overcrowding,
substandard inmate security and inadequate medical care.
Lawyers for the plaintiff inmates and the State of Texas
already have filed their proposals. The judge was expected
to evaluate the proposals and issue a detailed order calling
for specific reform actions.
“The Texas Department of Corrections has been, by the
admissions of its own officers, severely overcrowded for
years,” the government said in legal papers filed in the
case.
The 23-page Justice Department proposal calls for an
immediate end to the practice of placing three inmates in a
cell and a bed and sheets for every prisoner. A Justice
Department spokesman said an estimated 3,000 inmates in
the prison system currently are sleeping on floor mattres
ses rather than beds.
The proposal said two prisoners should not be confined
to a cell of less than 60 square feet, and every prison
dormitory must have 40 square feet per inmate.
It also suggested:
— The state must show the need for new facilities before
constructing them, and new facilities must house a max
imum of 500 prisoners located near a population center.
— The system must reduce its guard-prisoner ratio from
the current one guard for every 11 inmates to one guard for
every six inmates.
— The state must develop standards governing the use of
physical force.
— No prisoner or group of prisoners should have adminis
trative or supervisory authority over other prisoners or be
placed in a position to administer disciplinary action.
— The prison system’s Huntsville Hospital, the only pris
on hospital in the state, must be closed unless certain
conditions are corrected.
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United Press International
COLLEGE STATION —
March traditionally brings an in
crease in the number of tornadoes
in Texas, and this year two Texas
A&M meteorologists are warning
Texans not to judge a tornado by
only its funnel.
In fact, they say their work indi
cates tornadoes do not drop from
the clouds as most people believe,
so reacting on the basis of a funnel
alone could be deadly.
Texas suffers a dramatic in
crease in the number of tornadoes
in March and the number hits a
peak during April, May and June,
when twisters may average as
many as one a day across the state.
Tornadoes already have killed
two people and injured half a
dozen this year even though Janu
ary and February are the least
likely months for the storms to
occur, according to weather re
cords.
At Texas A&M, Dr. Phanindra-
mohan Das and Fred Proctor, a
graduate student working on his
doctorate, use information from
government computers in Colora
do to mathematically examine the
forces that combine to form a tor
nado.
They say such an approach can
provide valuable insights into the
storms which may help humans
construct safer buildings, make
better emergency decisions and
perhaps even improve twister
forecasts in the future.
Proctor’s model — worked out
on computers at the National Cen
ter for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder with support from the
National Science Foundation —
suggests the public should not
judge a tornado by the appearance
of a funnel alone because there
may be a swirling vortex at ground
level well before the funnel
touches down.
If the theory is correct, it seems
likely that most tornadoes form at
the same time in the clouds and on
the ground. They do not “drop”
from the clouds as many people
Oilspill covers 10 miles
of beaches, cleaning starts
United Press International
CORFUS CHRISTI — Coast Guard officials Mon
day said clean-up operations may begin today to
remove thousands of gallons of thick brown oil sludge
that washed up on a 10-mile stretch of south Texas
beaches.
Capt. Gerald Hinson, Port of Corpus Christi com
mander, said the oil sludge Friday began washing up
on Port Aransas and Mustang Island beaches.
“We cleaned up a swath of beach Saturday and
more oil washed up right behind us,” Hinson said.
“There were no new impact(ed areas) Sunday and if
there are no new impacts today, we’ll begin clean
up.”
Hinson said a 10-mile stretch of beach was co
vered with a 10 to 20-foot wide swath of oil about a
quarter-inch thick. He said most of the oil on beaches
was in the Port Aransas area, but some had been
spotted near San Jose Island.
“I don’t expect any long-term environmental dam
age,” Hinson said. “If it were a rocky beach, it would
be a whole lot more difficult to clean. The sandy
beaches are much easier.”
Hinson said the oil spill was difficult to spot from
aerial searches because the oil was submerged below
the Gulfs surface.
Nueces County Commissioner J.P, Luby, whose
district includes the effected beaches, said Sunday
that he believes the oil spill to be part of the Ixtoc I
spill, which stained Texas beaches in 1979.
“We were having 30,000 barrels a day gushing up
(in 1979) and a lot of that oil went to tbe bottom in
sand bar areas,” Luby said. He added that rough
waters may have loosened the oil from the Gulf
bottom.
Luby expressed concern over losing tourist trade
expected when colleges recess classes for spring
vacations.
But Hinson said he does not believe the oil was
from Ixtoc.
“The oil we’ve been finding is not nearly as weath
ered as the Ixtoc oil,” Hinson said. “I can’t believe it
would be floating around the Gulf this long and
appear to be fresh oil.”
Hinson, who said clean-up operations could be
completed in a matter of days, said Coast Guard
investigators have not determined the source of the
spill.
“It could’ve come from the continental shelf,”
Hinson said. “It could have been tankers or other
such sources. The investigation is ongoing.”
Bill would block multiple sales
Falls, sponsor of the bill, said it
also would cut down on prescrip
tion forgery. He said that because
prescription blanks are not con
trolled now, forgery is easy and
widespread.
The bill would require pre
scriptions for the dangerous drugs
to be written on triplicate, serially
numbered forms printed by the
state on special, hard-to-duplicate
paper.
I
COUNTRY & WESTERN /}
DANCE LESSONS ^
United Press International
AUSTIN — The old trick of
going to six different doctors and
six different drugstores to get an
extra supply of powerful drugs will
no longer work if a citizen commit
tee has its way.
The Senate Affairs Committee
today will consider a bill blocking
such schemes. The bill is part of
the Texans’ War on Drugs
package.
It would set up a state compu
ter to keep track of who is pre
scribing, who is filling prescrip
tions and who is buying how much
of the Schedule II and Schedule
III drugs considered dangerous.
The drugs listed in the compu
ter would include dialudid, pre-
ludin, amphetamines and metha-
qualone. The information in the y*—’J,
computer would be unavailable to N ^ 1 ^
the public.
The information would be
coded and the computer would
flag doctors, pharmacists or con
sumers with aberrant patterns of
prescribing or consuming.
Sen. Ray Farabee, D-Wichita
AT
VALERIE MARTIN’S GALLERY
OF DANCE ARTS
REGISTER NOW! M0N.-THURS. 5-7 P.M.
CLASS STARTS TUBS. MARCH 24TH
693-0352
l
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Call 845-2611
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL
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believe, according to the scien
tists.
“As the vortex intensifies at
ground level, the pressure inside
lowers and the funnel cloud ex
pands while developing in a down
ward direction,” said Das.
“Observations of dust and de
bris at the surface just below a fun
nel cloud seem to support this
view,” he explained.
Proctor said the computer
model of twister structure has
already shown that in theory, tor
nadoes can begin to form within a
field of vortex motion if special
temperature and precipitation cir
cumstances exist.
Proctor said that theory has
been substantiated by field stu
dies on waterspouts in which the
surface of the sea is seen to swirl
before the funnel descends a signi
ficant distance from the clouds.
Das and Proctor believe there
are three simultaneous processes
that combine to form the funnel.
First is an intense updraft of air
rising from the ground to the
clouds and the second is the “in
draft” of air occurring close but
parallel to the ground. The third
force is the vortex motion that en
circles both the updraft and in
draft motions.
They said the current research
could also answer questions about
why the tornadoes are often asso
ciated with violent rainstorms.
e/mto&dtM/ie
SKIN CARE FOR MEN AND WOMEN
1st Anniversary
on
Tuesday, March 3
V2 off March 2-6
All Moisturizers
Eye Shadows
Eye Pencils
Lipsticks
Blushes
Drawing Friday, March 6
You may win 5 treatments
valued at $100
Be sure to sign up March 2-6
707 Shoppin
693-590
AGGIE
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TOURNEY
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ANNUAL FUN RUN
ONE QUARTER AND
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DATE: SATURDAY _ MARCH 7, 1981
TIME: REGISTRATION — 7:00 a.m., START —
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Prices effective through Sat., March 14, 1981
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