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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 10, 1986)
Wednesday, December 10, 1986/The Battalion/Page 5 What’s up Wednesday |GGIE SPELEOLOGICAL SOCIETY: will meet at 8:30 I p.m. in 502 Rudder. IeXAS STUDENT EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: will have a student-faculty Christmas party at 3 p.m. in the lounge of Harrington Tower. MERICAN RED CROSS: will hold a blood drive from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Veterinary Medicine Complex and Harrington Tower. AMU POLO CLUB: will hold a mandatory meeting at 7 p.m. in 407 A-B Rudder. UROPE CLUB: will meet at 9 p.m. at the Flying Tomato. IG EVENT: will have a mixer with the Traditions Commit tee at 7 p.m. in the party room of Plantation Oaks apart ments. Thursday LGGIE SPACE DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY: will show the videotape “America’s Future in Space” at 7 p.m. in 604-B Evans Library. lATARI USER GROUP: will present a demonstration of word processors for the Atari ST and XL/XE computers at 7:30 p.m. in 102 Teague. pECONOMICS SOCIETY: will elect officers at 7 p.m. in 125 Blocker. ccepting si “Litmus.” Call 845-1515 for more information. BARENTS’ WEEKEND COMMITTEE: has applications for nominating 1987-88 Parents of the Year available in the Commons, Sterling C. Evans Library, the Memorial Stu dent Center and the Pavilion. Iltems for What’s Up should be submitted to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, no less than three working days prior to desired publication date. Paper: Ordinance on lead pollution wasn’t enforced DALLAS (AP) — A clean-air ordi nance passed almost 20 years ago would have prevented the lead poi soning of a generation of children during the 1970s, but city officials avoided enforcing it, the Dallas Morning News reported. In a Dec. 3 copyright story, the newspaper said records indicate that officials seldomly enforced regula tions against even the most conspicu ous sources of environmental lead pollution in the city. The News reported Sunday that RSR Corp. agreed to pay $20 million in a secret out-of-court settlement to 370 children who lived in a low-in- come neighborhood near the com pany’s smelter in west Dallas. Testimony taken from medical experts acknowledged that the chil dren had suffered brain damage that might leave them only margi nally employable for life. Despite the 1968 ordinance, “there was a considerable reluctance on the part of local officials to be lieve there was a problem,” said Ian von Lindern, an environmental en gineer who has studied the Dallas sit uation. City officials in positions of au thority in the 1970s say when they tried to enforce the regulations they were attacked by the smelter opera tors. Former City Manager George Schrader said the smelters de manded that officials prove that people had suffered ill health. Dr. E. Lowell Berry, head of the Dallas City Health Department from 1972 until his retirement in 1982, said there was no evidence that chil dren were flocking to health clinics because of poisoning. But von Lindern said he uncov ered hundreds of reports filed dur ing the late 1960s and early 1970s that document emission levels so high that they clearly showed a threat to children living near the smelters. The plaintiffs attorney in the case, James Barber, said a conspiracy among city officials, smelter opera tors and lawyers allowed the issue to fester for years. The public record indicates the city took no action for the first six years after passage of the clean air ordinance despite mounting com plaints by residents of the acrid, sooty pollution that hung over their homes, the News reported. NL. Industries closed in 1979, and RSR closed in 1984, rather than in stalling pollution control equipment. ff-campus bus service to add ew route beginning in spring By Molly Pepper Photo 6vfttr, tlif K Reporter j: jexas A&M’s off-campus shuttle Ifaekwii? i Bsetvke will include a new route ' *" ‘ semester, Bus Operations Man- T Doug Williams says, tie route will serve residents in iplrtments on Dartmouth Street, who now catch the bus on Harvey I Road. It also will pick up residents in list Mark Apartments on Central w VnIM Pfk Lane and residents in other Rplexes who have not had shuttle bus service in the past. maa f fPeople who don’t have service non are wanting service,” Williams ■ VV ^ “And we could relocate two Hops from another route and com ine it with this area. We feel it will e sufficient ridership to justify a ute.” he off-campus shuttle bus sys- helps lessen the parking prob- |on campus, he says. This semes- “I can assure you we burn much less fuel hauling the people in a bus than they would going individually in cars,” he says. The system gets most of its fund ing from user fees, but there is a small subsidy from student services fees and a varying amount made from charters, Williams says. The total budget for this year is says. “But generally they seem to be holding up really well.” Buses run on different schedules at different times during the day. In the morning, when the largest loads are being shuttled to campus, Wil liams says, some routes have four buses out. When this is the case, the buses arrive at stops seven minutes “People who don’t have service now are wanting serv ice .... We feel it will have sufficient ridership to jus tify a route. ” — Doug Williams, bus operations manager ■, but I realize I You miel have,klithe system has 17,698 passengers traveling to and from the i problem wiW ass will be' ' ‘ ? ssor ar.dap:.' who will metlis 1 :et and Mr. W There’s no way you can get ev- Ine to campus in a car and park lem, too,” he says. He adds that the shuttle bus sys- m saves fuel. cond prol ne like Wife* he does to mil 1 a self-made ^ He is owners Hand rand) everal busii 1 ,il and banliif $1.12 million, and the system is not in need of more funds, Williams says. The system consists of nine routes served by 35 buses. All the buses are not used every day, Williams says; several are kept in the garage on Agronomy Road for back-up service and maintenance. But he says the buses haven’t needed much mainte nance. “Occasionally you’re going to change engines or transmissions,” he apart, he says. Later in the day, buses usually run 10 to 15 minutes apart, Williams says, and after 6:30 p.m. the nine routes are combined into five and buses run 30 minutes apart. The buses are the busiest before 8 a.m. and before 9 a.m., Williams says, because passengers don’t arrive at the stops until it’s too late to get them all to class on time. “The biggest problem I’d say is for people to adapt to the schedu ling,” he says. “Because everyone wants to go to school 15 minutes late and everyone can’t get on the bus 15 minutes late, you’ve got to space out your schedule.” An off-campus shuttle bus service has existed at A&M since 1972, he says, but it was contracted out to a private company, Transportation Enterprises Inc. The University didn’t renew the contract and took over the shuttle bus service in 1982 because of complaints about poor maintenance and service. The University ordered 33 new buses built to its specifications for $47,000 each. The buses have rear- mounted diesel engines and no air conditioning. The drivers of these buses are chosen through an interview process and put through a three-step train ing program. First, drivers practice on obstacle courses set up at the Re search Annex on Highway 21. Next, they’re allowed to drive on the roads of the annex. And finally, they can drive on College Station streets and learn the routes. Estimates for fish kill in Texas hit 300,000 ;st venture,® ations, g(j thro# lip class. i takes time#; ?ach spring 10 !cM every oP 1 MISTAD RESERVOIR (AP) Deadly algae and dead fish reached the Amistad Reservoir Tuesday, 11 days after the toxic substance first surfaced in the Pe cos River. Hpsstimates of suffocated fish have reached 300,000, Texas Wa ter Commission spokesman Max Woodfin said. L, .Water Commission officials hope the purer Amistad Reser- voir water will dilute the deadly [chemicals, but “we don’t know whether the fish kill will continue in the lake or not,” he said. Rrwc biologists discovered dead fish and algae Monday all the way down to the headwaters of the Amistad, about five miles dow nstream from the spot where the Pecos River empties into the Rio Grande, Woodfin said. Texas Parks and Wildlife De partment Game Warden Don Jackson said Monday that animals are feasting on fish that died in the algae-clogged Pecos the ani mals are surviving. Jackson said game wardens tra cked 250 raccoons that ate the dead fish, and they all seemed “alive and healthy.” Water Commission officials last week estimated that more than 200,000 carp, gar, bass, minnows ‘ ~ - die ‘ “ “ and catfish died since Nov. 29. Parks and Wildlife tests showed that the algae, identified as Pyrmnesium parvum, gives off between two and 12 chemicals when it dies in salty water, Jack- son said. Forestry prof says clearing trees won’t affect wildlife HOUSTON (AP) — A controver sial plan to clear areas of the Sam Houston National Forest damaged by pine beetles will not have any ef fect on the wildlife living in the area, a forestry professor said Tuesday. “It will not affect the number of species at all,” Robert Whiting, asso ciate forestry professor at Stephen F. Austin University, said. “We will not lose species. There will certainly be some mortality but I suspect the mortality will be mostly rodents.” The state attorney general’s office is trying to convince U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes to bar the U.S. Forest Service from clearing the area. A 52-ton tree crusher is being used to mow down trees in 2,500 acres of the forest’s Four Notch Area near Huntsville. When the clearing is completed, officials plan to burn 1,100 acres in the area this year. But state officials argue the plan is too broad and that specific environ mental impacts at the site have not been studied. A state biologist said the endangered red-cockaded wood pecker that lives and feeds in the area is already being killed because of the clearing. Forest Service officials, however, said knocking down the pines and hardwoods will allow room for new trees to grow. Whiting agreed, say ing the clearing project would help the woodpecker. Environmentalists also have said the tree crusher is disturbing soil in the area, preventing the woodpeck ers from feeding on earthworms. But Whiting said he found worms in the tracks of the tree crusher last week. 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