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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 1987)
m npi v Texas a&m mm V# The Battalion Vol.82 No. 105 (JSPS 045360 10 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, February 25,1987 isonetsd (I Bf iends ged fin m in nee v® Ki ^ A&M student Jonathan Stone talks to officer Jim Boyd of the Col lege Station Police Department Tuesday after Stone’s car hit another car as he was trying to turn left into a student parking lot located Photo by Bill Hughes just south of the intersection of Wellborn Road and Joe Routt Boule vard. Stone was cited by the officer for failure to control speed. There were no serious injuries in the accident. (cities«( western siij 'e incM accunw ind ami for a in fficials, local groups protest licensing of East Coast reactors JNRC attempts to reassert control over atomic energy use ‘rnmeni ere toM*! ■WASHINGTON (AP) —The Nuclear Regula- Vashinflfc-y Commission, attempting to reassert federal ie capm Sovereignty over the commercial use of atomic ■ergy, was hit with a storm of protest Tuesday tracks <1 |rom state officials and local groups fearful of di- /ashiif 1 pasters at two East Coast reactors awaiting li- k that »Ccenses. h the±T n Jacob# 1 *At issue was a proposed change in commission ■les that would allow the NRC to give new reac- edasiW tors a green light even if governors and local au- ailerin# polities refused to sign off on evacuation plans iterslait'll the event 0 f a major accident. ■ Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts told null®! |the commission, “The rule you are discussing to il lent ^ May would make a governor’s right to protect the vfalls mBblic health and safety of the people of his or hei state virtually meaningless once a nuclear ac cent had occurred.” The hearing was disrupted several times by iti-nuclear protesters who chanted and sang in the audience. Several people were led away by se curity guards. I Nearly a score of citizen groups and other fould-be witnesses, denied the chance to testify orally, registered their complaints in writing. Dukakis, three other governors, five senators and more than a dozen House members were heard on the issue. At immediate stake was the fate of the Sea- brook plant, in New Hampshire near the Massa chusetts border, and the Shoreham plant, on Long Island about 55 miles east of New York City. Both of the multibillion-dollar plants have been completed, but Dukakis and Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York have effectively vetoed li censing by taking advantage of the NRC’s own rule requiring state participation in emergency planning. The two governors have flatly refused, saying there is no way they can guarantee the safe evac uation of residents in an accident. Dukakis said the Seabrook area “is highly pop ulated and growing. We have about 50,000 Mas sachusetts residents in the Seabrook emergency planning zone,” a 10-mile radius around the fa cility. “That permanent population balloons up wards of 200,000 during the peak summer beach months,” the Massachusetts governor said. Referring to last year’s disaster at a Soviet nu clear power plant, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D- Mass., testified that “the ultimate lesson of Cher nobyl is that human and technological error can cause a disaster anywhere, any time.” “At the very least, nuclear power plants should not be permitted to operate in the vicinity of crowded communities where evacuation is im possible and where casualties from an accident would be immense,” he said. Commission Chairman Lando Zech said “the NRC has had a long and successful history of co operating with state and local governments” in is sues involving nuclear safety. He stressed that the rules change “only deals with the unusual situation where the state and lo cal governments have chosen not to participate in emergency planning.” The NRC’s staff, headed by executive director Victor Stello, proposed earlier this month that the rules be changed to allow the utilities them selves draw up emergency plans if state and local authorities fail to cooperate. sit Report: South Africa in dangerous position from nuclear weapons WASHINGTON (AP) —South Africa’s white-minority govern ment may have built as many as a dozen nuclear weapons which could fall into the hands of a “radical ruling faction” or be used by terrorists, according to a study released Tuesday. The frightening prospect was raised in a report on the global spread of nuclear weapons issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The report was prepared by Leonard S. Spector, an associate at the private organization, who told the Senate Governmental Af fairs Committee that “recent (proliferation) developments are profoundly troubling.” Specter’s report reviewed de velopments around the globe which could lead to the prolifera tion of nuclear weapons. One threatening situation is South Africa, Spector said, which has a large natural store of ura nium along with the ability to en rich the material to bomb-grade status. He said the country proba bly has been able to build atomic weapons for six or seven years. “In view of past South African activities indicating an intent to develop nuclear arms, there is reason for concern that between mid-1985 and mid-1986, Pretoria used this capability either to add to its stocks of nuclear-weapons material, or, if it has indeed de cided to build nuclear arms, to add several weapons to an unde clared nuclear arsenal of perhaps a dozen bombs,” Spector said. But he noted that “it is difficult to imagine” the white-ruled gov ernment “using its nuclear capa bility against any external threat that it is likely to confront in the forseeable future, and nuclear arms would be even less useful in dealing with internal civil strife.” But as the black majority in South Africa struggles for con trol, the report said, there is the possibility that atomic weapons “might fall into the hands of a radical ruling faction — black or white — which might use or threaten to use them to advance extremist objectives.” “Should domestic order crum ble,” the report warned, the weapons or the components of weapons could be a prime target. Wreck could be oldest in Americas Legislators offer bills on drinking while driving AUSTIN (AP) — Legislation that would make drinking while driving a traffic-ticket offense was introduced in the Senate and House Tuesday. “It will be patterned on the seat belt law,” said Rep. Bill Blackwood, R-Mesquite. “The law would be diffi cult to enforce, if passed by the Leg islature, but we think there would be widespread compliance like there is for seat belts.” The identical bills say it would be a violation if a person “consumes an alcoholic beverage while operating a motor vehicle in a public place and is observed doing so by a police offi cer.” Violators would be given a traffic ticket, similar to those issued for speeding, and would be subject to a $200 fine if found guilty. Convic tions could affect the price of a mo torist’s automobile insurance like any “moving violation,” Blackwood said. A statement from Sen. Bill Sarpa- lius, D-Amarillo, who is hospitalized with a back injury, said, “This is going to be our third straight session now to carry an open container bill. “We’ve been getting a little closer each time — and this time, we’ll get it passed.” Blackwood said House Speaker Gib Lewis had told him it was “time to get this bill out.” Sarpalius pushed an open-con tainer bill through the Senate in 1985, but it died in the House. Blackwood said the bills would ap ply only to the driver of a vehicle, not to other persons in the front seat as provided in other open-container bills. Blackwood said an officer could write out a ticket if he saw a driver taking a drink. But, he said, if a driver is stopped on a traffic viola tion and is found to have a cold, half-consumed drink on the floor board of the car that would be con sidered “probable cause.” It would be up to the officer’s judgment whether to write out a ticket, Blackwood said.. Sarpalius said statistics show about 15 percent of Texas traffic deaths involve open containers of alcoholic beverages. Blackwood said Texas is one of only five states that do not have open-container laws. Study: Tuition rates rising twice as fast as inflation in '80s WASHINGTON (AP) — A col lege lobby group released a study Tuesday saying tuition has risen twice as fast as inflation in the 1980s, increasing at nearly a 10 percent-a- year clip on both public and private campuses. Over the past 16 years, the study said, tuition has gone up at a slower pace than medical care, energy costs and the price of new homes, but fas ter than the price of food and new cars. Analysts Arthur Hauptman and Terry Hartle said that since 1970, tuitions have grown by an average of 7.8 percent a year, compared to the 6.7 percent annual increase in con sumer prices and 8.2 percent growth in disposable personal income. In the 1970s, tuitions lagged be hind the inflation rate, but in the 1980s, tuitions surged ahead, in creasing 9.8 percent a year. That is double the 4.9 percent rate of infla tion and much faster than the 6.5 percent annual growth in personal incomes over the past six years. The report was commissioned by the American Council on Education, a lobbying and research group for more than 1,500 colleges and uni versities. ACE President Robert H. Atwell predicted the tuition spiral will slow down, saying, “I think ev erybody understands that they can not continue to increase at twice the rate of inflation.” Hauptman and Hartle said in in terviews they believe colleges are not trying hard enough to control costs, and suggested that campuses take a harder look at the productivity of the faculty. Hauptman, a consultant said, “I think colleges can do a lot more, whether it be research universities letting their faculty teach a little bit more” or make better use of technol ogy- Hauptman said consumers may start pressuring colleges to let bright students “graduate in three years as a way of cutting costs.” “There’s nothing magical about the four years,” he said. “Institutions place restrictions on the degree to which students can do it, in part be cause it means loss of tuition.” Hartle, a fellow at the American Council on Education, said that be cause colleges have much of their budgets locked up in long-term con tracts for tenured faculty, “they have a flexibility problem in trying to con trol costs.” “Are colleges well-run places?” Hartle asked. “My opinion is colleges are conservative organizations. They don’t change very rapidly. They are beginning to look at ways to get their costs under control.” Researchers find few clues in ship By Kelley Bullock Reporter “Every day we hope that we’ll find a coin that will have the date right on it, but we’ve found no coins, no trea sure whatsoeyer,” Texas A&M Re search Assistant Mark Myers says. In 1982, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, a private, non-profit educational organization, began ex cavating a ship which may be the oldest ship ever discovered in the Americas. The ship, which is called the Mo lasses Reef Wreck, is in the territo rial waters of the Turk and Caicos Islands, a British colony, about 100 miles north of Hispaniola. The site is in water about 20 feet deep and was excavated by teams of divers work ing from small boats. The government of the Turks and Caicos permitted INA to carry the materials recovered from the site back to INA headquarters at Texas A&M. “The Turk and Caicos Islands is a very poor country, and it has no way of giving the artifacts the treatment that they need,” says Myers, who also manages the laboratory. The Molasses Reef Wreck is the first ship from the Age of Discovery and Exploration (the first voyage of Columbus in 1492 to two decades later) ever to be scientifically exca vated. “We haven’t yet found any arti facts that positively date the wreck from the first quarter to the first half of the 16th century,” Myers says. “The ships that belong in the Age of Discovery and Exploration are not very well known to us. There were The Molasses Reef Wreck has not been identified, but workers are try ing to find clues that will lead to its name. “We have less than 2 percent of the hull,” he says. “There was very little wood; almost all that was pre served was iron. If we were to find a “We have less than 2 percent of the hull. ... If we were to find a plank that had the name of the ship on it, it would be against all odds. ” — Mark Myers, Texas A&M research assistant no ship plans; the ship plans would just get passed on through oral tra dition.” The idea of the project is to find what the name of the ship was, where it was going, and what its mis sion was, Myers says. “There are two kinds of ship wrecks,” Myers says. “There’s the kind where you read about it, and you go look for it. The other kind is where you find the wreck, and then you have to discover what it is. And the only way you do this, is you make a big list of all the artifacts that were on the ship, and then try to find a ship with the same list of things.” plank that had the name of the ship on it, it would be against all odds.” What the researchers are hoping to find is any artifact that’s in any way unusual, Myers says. They have hopes of finding the name of the ship and what kind of ship it was. Divers for INA found two bom- bardetas, 15 smaller guns, three or four shoulder arms, two haquebuts and parts of ceramic vessels, Myers says. “The haquebuts are very un usual,” Myers says. “There are prob ably less than 20 in the world. Ours may be the only two where they know exactly where they come from. “Virtually all the ceramic vessels are from the first half of the 16th century. There are even a few of them that belong to a period of the first two decades of the 16th centu ry.” Tools, rigging, 300 cannonballs, hooks and fishing weights also were found at the site. One of these special artifacts was a pair of scissors which had a bronze thimble, a sharpening stone and a strip of lead attached. “About a week ago, (a talk was given) to a dive club in Houston for NASA astronaut trainees that also dive,” Myers says. “We were con fused about the strip of lead, so we showed it to them. And one of them raised his hand and said, ‘I’ve got a feeling I know what that’s used for. You know when your tailor is taking up your pants, he takes a piece of chalk to mark it. That’s probably what it’s for.’ ” Myers says the researchers proba bly wouldn’t have thought about something like that which is why they show their discoveries to other people. When the project is completed, the artifact collection will be re turned to the islands and be dis played in a special museum ded icated to the history of the Turks and Caicos.