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The Battalion
Vol.82 No. 105 (JSPS 045360 10 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, February 25,1987
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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.
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fficials, local groups protest
licensing of East Coast reactors
JNRC attempts to reassert control over atomic energy use
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■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.