state
Battalion/Page 9
September 8, 1982
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Fall crops may rot in fields
United Press International
Farmers in the Midwest and
Southwest may face the worst
elevator storage crisis in years
this fall because of low prices,
bumper crops and billions of
bushels owned by the govern
ment or in reserves.
The corn and sorghum
crops are still being harvested
in many areas where the ele
vators already are near capac
ity from a record wheat crop.
Farmers fear things may be
come so bad they will have to
dump their crops outside full
elevators or let them rot in the
fields.
“There will be a bigger
problem this fall than there
has been for many years,” said
Herb Cast, associate director
of the Kansas City, Mo., field
office of the U.S. Commodity
Credit Corp.
“It’s partly because of the
accumulation of grain owned
by the government, partly be
cause of the record volume of
grain still owned by the far
mers but pledged into the re
serve program and last but
not least, the anticipated size
of the new crops,” he said.
Kansas, Nebraska and the
Texas Panhandle are feeling
the pinch especially hard be
cause they have several grain
crops to harvest and store.
Agriculture Secretary John
Block two weeks ago
approved emergency storage
of grain crops, which include
soybeans, oats, barley and rye
in surplus barges, rail cars and
other facilities not normally
qualified to store harvested
crops.
Farmers say they hope the
emergency storage will help
ease the crisis, but it will take
expanded export markets,
higher prices, new policies or
a bad crop next year to pre
vent an even worse storage
problem.
“This whole darn thing
seems to be working against
us,” said Jerry Schweitzer of
Farmer’s Co-Op Elevators in
Dighton, Kan. “The thing we
need to do is get somebody
using our grain rather than
storing it. Every bushel in re
serve is costing the govern
ment. We need to see better
prices that would encourage
the farmer to sell grain rather
than put it in reserve.”
Taxpayers are paying a
whopping $168.7 million
annually to store 491 million
bushels of wheat, corn and
sorghum in the nation’s grain
elevators, most of it because
farmers found it more profit
able to default on their gov
ernment price support loans
than sell on the open market.
About 80 million of the
bushels were bought by the
government after farmers
suffered when President Car
ter imposed the Russian grain
embargo. President Reagan
has lifted the embargo for one
year, but there is a worldwide
glut of wheat.
Meanwhile, farmers have
put 2.1 billion bushels of
wheat, corn and sorghum in
the three-year price support
reserve program and 499 mil
lion bushels of the same crops
in the nine-month Commodi
ty Credit Corp. plan all crops
stored in farm bins or eleva
tors.
“They’re just kind of sitting
on this stuff,” said Erik Ness
of the New Mexico Farm and
Livestock Bureau. “It’s get
ting to be a critical situation
because this year’s crop is
coming up. They’ve got to do
something with it or let it rot
in the Fields.”
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Loan to be asked
for jobless fund
United Press International
AUSTIN — In order to bail
out the state’s nearly bankrupt
fund for jobless workers, the
Texas Legislature may use its
special session to make an un
precedented request for a feder
al loan.
The special session was called
to avert an impending 2,000
percent jump in unemployment
compensation taxes. One prop
osed solution is to request a fed
eral loan, Texas’ first such re
quest since a system to loan fed
eral funds to state unemploy
ment coffers was established as
part of the New Deal in 1938.
Texas employers have paid
the lowest unemployment com
pensation taxes in the nation
and enjoyed one of the country’s
lowest unemployment rates.
But with recent massive
layoffs by Braniff Airways and
Lone Star Steel Co. and the bur
den of jobless workers from
northern states in the cinched
Sunbelt, Texas employers face
the prospect of a 2,000-percent
jump in payments.
The Legislature met in special
session Tuesday to try to ease
the necessary tax increase by re
working the constitutional for
mula which was forcing it.
House Speaker Bill Clayton
of Springlake has proposed bor
rowing $450 million from the
federal government to keep the
fund solvent, with $45 million in
state money provided to pay in
terest on the loan. Clayton’s bill
also would increase most em
ployers’ annual contributions to
the fund from about $6 to $22
per employee.
If the state opts to follow
Clayton’s suggestion, it would
mark the first time Texas has
used the federal loans for unem
ployment.
Rep. Lloyd Criss, D-
LaMarque.has suggested an
alternate plan to levy a one-time,
$400 million surtax on Texas
employers, avoiding the need
for a federal loan.
Seventy percent of Texas em
ployers currently pay the mini
mum fee of $6 per employee per
year and the average tax of $36
is the lowest in the nation.
A 2,000-percent increase
would require a minimum of
$120 per employee for em
ployers, unless the Legislature
changes the taxing formula.
Meanwhile, lawmakers must
also consider avenues for bailing
out the nearly bankrupt unem
ployment fund.
Bay City rally
to hit landfill
United Press International
BAY CITY — A Matagorda
County citizen group says it will
hold a rally to protest a toxic che
mical waste company’s proposed
landfill and incinerator near
Bay City.
The Matagorda Citizens For
Environmental Protection, led
by Bay City city secretary Sharon
Serafino, was formed last May
when Chemical Wastes Manage
ment Inc. of Illinois gained con
trol of an option to buy 950 acres
of prime land in the southwest
corner of Matagorda County.
The environmental group
plans to hold a rally Saturday at
11 a.m. in Bay City to protest the
possible dump site.
Although the waste firm offi
cially announced it has no inten
tion of establishing such a site
near Bay City, critics say they are
skeptical as long as the company
holds the option on the prop
erty.
The firm handles the inciner
ation of polychlorinated
biphenyls, a transformer
coolant found to cause cancer in
animals.
The company burned the
chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico
180 miles off the Texas coast last
December and again Aug. 25.
Now it has applied to the En
vironmental Protection Agency
to burn another 2.1 million gal
lons of PCB plus 260,000 gallons
of the pesticide DDT.
Results of the hearings last
week in Brownsville will be
announced within 30 days by
EPA officials.
An attorney for the Texas
Farmworkers Union, Robin Ale
xander, questioned EPA offi
cials at the hearing and said she
felt the agency was unsure what
was contained in the permit.
“The description of the che
micals to be burned was so
vague, CWM thought they were
asking for Silvex (another pesti
cide), and the EPA didn’t realize
it,” she said.
Serafino and representatives
of environmental groups, in
cluding Green Peace, also testi
fied at the hearing.
Serafino said: “With recent
environmental problems, such
as groundwater contamination
resulting from CWM hazardous
waste landfill operations in Kan
sas and Louisiana, we strongly
question their ability to safely
operate a landfill site as well as
disposal by incineration in the
Gulf of Mexico.”
One alternative to the burn
ing of PCB is the use of mobile
units which can chemically des
troy PCBs inside electrical trans
formers.
USTCLE SAMMT
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8:00 p.m.