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.
A suit filed by Texas Attorney
General Jim Mattox asks that fur
ther study be required to determine
whether work should proceed.
—
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161 Bizzel West
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