Page 4B/The Battalion/Wednesday, October 19,1983
4'
Businesses feeling^ pinch
Town’s sinkhole still there
United Preis International
BOLING — It has been more
than two months since a sink
hole cut through the main road
of this unincorporated town of
1,200, and some townspeople
say their livelihood is threatened
because the road has not been
repaired.
On Aug. 11, the bottom
dropped out of a 250-foot sec
tion of Texas 442 east of Boling.
Officials say it may have been
caused by a geological fault or 60
years of sulfur drilling in the
area, but they don’t know for
sure.
The road was a popular
shortcut between Bay City, 20
miles to the south, and Houston,
60 miles to the northeast. Now
people must travel five miles of
The Center For Education and Research
In Free Enterprise
and the
Economics Department
announce: DESTINATION WEST AND EAST BERLIN
From December 26 to January 2, a special tour of West and
East Berlinis offered to Aggies, their parents and friends. Dr.
Steve Pejovich and Dr. Richard Anderson will direct the tour
and conduct daily lectures on "Capitalism and Socialism in
Theory and in Practice.” Three hours academic credit for Econ
324, Comparative Economic Systems, may be earned by
Texas A&M students. No pre-requisites. The total cost of the
tour of $1,490 includes airfare from Dallas to Berlin and back to
Dallas, hotel accomodations, meals, ground transportation,
and all scheduled social events including New Year’s Eve and
East Berlin. For information contact:
Dr. Richard K. Anderson
Economics Department
Harrington 434
Dr. Steve Pejovich
Center for Education and Research
in Free Enterprise
A&A Bldg 459
unreliable dirt road to get
around the sinkhole.
For out-of-town motorists,
signs now direct traffic — which
the Texas Department of High
ways and Public Transportation
put at 2,000 cars a day before the
sinkhole showed up — on to
paved roads that bypass Boling
altogether.
Although business at the Bol
ing Cafe on the edge of town is
about the same, the Bulldog
Country Store and other local
establishments which depended
on traffic between Houston, Bay
City and the Gulf Coast have
been hurt.
Supervisor Donna Meek at
the Bulldog, which is a gas sta
tion and grocery, said the early
novelty of the 22-foot-deep, wa
ter-filled hole boosted business
from sightseers, but now she
estimates her drop-off at 20 to
30 percent.
Chamber of Commerce Presi
dent Raymond Brown — also
president of Community State
Bank, which is the only bank in
town — talks in dire terms.
“I think that road is such a
major artery that if that thing is
not spanned, our little town may
not survive,” Brown said.
Bank Chairman J.M. “Sonny”
Ashmore said the town already
was hurting because of lay offs at
Texas Gulf Sulfur’s big plant on
the edge of town.
“With that matter on top of
the normal slow-down of the
economy, I can see how it could
put them in some distress,” said
Wharton County Judge Ed
Wuthrich.
Though sympathetic,
Wuthrich, who has received a
petition from Boling residents
urging some action, said the
sinkhole is a state problem. He
said eventually the county will
do something if the state does
not.
Clyde Schulz, area engineer
for the state highway depart
ment, said it could be two years
before the state solves the prob
lem, although he is hoping for
help in a few months.
“It was pretty important to
Boling,” Schulz said. “I know
they’re anxious.”
Schulz said it takes time —
and money — to fix any sort of
road problem and something as
mysterious as a sinkhole is not a
usual problem. And the state is
hurting for road funds already,
he said.
“If it was a hurricane, we’d
know what to do, or if a bridge
washed out, we’d know what to
do, but a sinkhole, we just don’t
have any experience with it,”
Schulz said. “We don’t want to
do the wrong thing.”
Pending geological study, it is
/no, if anyf
not clear who, if anybody, is at
fault. One theory is that an ex
ploration well drilled in 1927 in
the middle of what now is the
sinkhole is the cause since it was
not capped properly.
But geologist Ralph Cantrell
of Houston, who has worked the
area since the 1940s, said the
cause could be natural collapse
of caprock over a saltdome.
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United Press Inlenutionil
NEWTON, Iowa — Ap |
duct that was a unique par,
the American 20th centuni | ;
perience is going out of prai
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The Maytag Company pi
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The company makesaulo:
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