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State and Local
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professor prepares
beach pollution documentary
By Alan Sembera
Reporter
■ Garbage on Texas beaches is the
topic of a documentary being pre
pared for the Texas A&M Sea Grant
College Program by Dr. Don Tom-
lipson, an A&M assistant journalism
professor. The program will be com
pleted by the end of this month and
will be offered to PBS, Tomlinson
said.
■ The 90-minute program reveals
the causes of the beach pollution
E Toblem and deals with possible so-
ktions, such as the international ma
rine pollution treaty, which involves
slips use of oceans, and the local
Adopt-A-Beach program, he said.
■ Adopt-A-Beach is a beach clean
up program run by the Texas Gen-
ieral Land Office. It uses the same
idea as the Texas Highway Depart
ment’s Adopt-A-Highway program.
■Tomlinson said garbage has be
come a greater problem in recent
years because of the increased use of
plastic. Plastic isn’t biodegradable,
he said, and lasts well beyond any
one’s lifetime.
■Tomlinson traveled to beaches
ft»m Florida to Brownsville. He said
Texas beaches had the most gar
bage.
■ “The reason plastic finds its way
to Texas shores, as opposed to other
shores on the Gulf of Mexico — and
ours are far dirtier than any other
coastal area in the Gulf — is the wind
and surface currents,” he said.
■ “The wind and surface currents
are such that this stuff basically ends
up on Padre and Mustang islands —
and even as far up as Galveston, as
opposed to Louisiana, Alabama and
Florida.
“It makes our situation a lot worse
than the situation in those other
states. That’s why we’re addressing
the problem with greater fervor, I
suppose, than the other states are.”
Most people concerned with this
problem believe the marine pollut
ion treaty, or MARPOL, will help
sioner Garry Mauro, a 1970 A&M
graduate, has been working with a
congressional delegation from
Texas in Washington D.C. to get the
annex ratified. Osio expects ratifica
tion this year. It would take two
years after ratification for the annex
to take effect, he said.
He added that the office is trying
to have the treaty changed to desig
nate the Gulf a “special area.”
“The reason plastic finds its way to Texas shores, as
opposed to other shores on the Gulf of Mexico — and
ours are far dirtier than any other coastal area in the
Gulf — is the wind and surface currents. ”
— A&M assistant professor Don Tomlinson
solve this problem, Tomlinson said.
Although MARPOL has been in
existence for some time, it does not
prohibit dumping plastic. If Annex
V of the treaty is passed, dumping
plastic into water anywhere in the
world will be prohibited.
Ralph Osio, who works in the
public information office of the
General Land Office, said Annex V
ratifications in other countries, in
cluding the Soviet Union, bring the
total votes to 47 percent.
He said the United States’ ratifica
tion would put the number of votes
over the required 50 percent nec
essary for the annex to go into ef
fect.
Osio said Texas Land Commis-
A special-area designation means
the Gulf would be considered an en
closed basin and no dumping would
be allowed, he said.
Bodies of water that are consid
ered special areas now include the
Baltic Sea, the Persian Gulf and the
Mediterranean Sea.
Tomlinson said that although the
Gulf isn’t a completely enclosed ba
sin it should be given a special-area
designation for the purposes of the
treaty.
“Things that are dumped into the
Gulf of Mexico can only leave the
Gulf through the Straits of Florida,
and that’s such a narrow passage in
comparison to the Gulf itself,” he
said.
“Because of winds, surface cur
rents and eddies, garbage gets down
there but bottles up and comes back
the other way. It basically ends up on
our shores.”
Tomlinson said he knew very little
about the beach garbage program
when he started shooting in May. .
“I very quickly learned, however,
that the problem was a huge prob
lem and a very, very complicated
problem,” Tomlinson said.
“Our initial thoughts were to do
something related to Adopt-A-
Beach, but very quickly we saw that it
would be way too limited a perspec
tive of this problem.
“So we undertook to discover the
various persons and institutions who
have been researching the problem,
and once we talked to those people,
we got them to tell us who, in their
opinion, were the perpetrators.”
Tomlinson said he found the gar
bage was being produced by several
groups. The major groups, he said,
are the shipping industry, the off
shore oil and gas industry, the com
mercial shrimping industry, recre
ational fishermen, recreational
boaters and beachgoers.
Tomlinson said he talked to rep
resentatives of all the industries.
“They all believe they are part of
the problem,” he said. “None of
them believe they are as much a part
of the problem as the scientists
would have us believe.
“The bottom line is, the trash is
coming from somewhere. The ques
tion is: What do we do to keep it
from happening?”
Police recapture four inmates after escape
■TENNESSEE COLONY (AP) — Four inmates
attacked a guard and fled the Coffield Unit in his
cat early Sunday, but the prisoners were recap
tured about an hour later, a spokesman said.
■The four managed to escape by leaving their
work area inside the prison.
■The four men climbed a fence and entered a
staff living area where they assaulted a guard,
Texas Department of Corrections spokesman
Charles Brown said.
The inmates took the guard’s wallet and car
keys and fled in his vehicle at about 6 a.m.,
Brown said. The attacked officer suffered mostly
bruises in the attack, he said.
All four inmates were recaptured at about
7:15 a.m. near Buffalo about 30 miles from the
prison unit by authorities from Anderson and
Leon counties, he said.
Brown said he believed the car had been
wrecked, but no injuries were reported in the in
cident.
The inmates recaptured were Roderick Davis,
23; John Henry Jackson, 31; Curtis Bernard
Johnson, 23; and Richard Louis Morris Jr., 22.
Death row inmate
hopes for third trial
to clear charges
CONROE (AP) — Clarence
Brandley returns Monday to the
courthouse where six years ago
he was sentenced to death for the
rape-slaying of a high school stu
dent.
Brandley, who turns 36 this
week, is hoping for a third trial to
get him off death row and prove
he did not kill 16-year-old Cheryl
Fergeson.
The case has triggered allega
tions of racial discrimination and
demonstrations by Brandley sup
porters that the only reason he
was convicted and sentenced to
death was because he is black and
the victim was white.
Defense attorneys, who already
have succeeded in getting a visit
ing judge assigned to the case,
also want this week’s evidentiary
hearing moved from Montgom
ery County, contending Brandley
can’t get a fair hearing in the
county direcdy north of Houston.
County prosecutors have said
they would oppose such a request.
Brandley was one of several
janitors working at Conroe High
School Aug. 23, 1980 when Fer
geson was raped and strangled.
He was the only black man
among them, however, and his at
torneys contend he was singled
out because of his race.
The Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals in July granted this
week’s hearing, saying issues
raised by defense attorneys three
months earlier should be re
viewed in court. A key issue is a
claim that statements from two
former janitors — fellow workers
— should clear Brandley.
Last week, Texas Attorney
General Jim Mattox said a
months-long inquiry of the case
by his office determined that any
new evidence uncovered was in
conclusive as to Brandley’s guilt
or innocence.
Mattox refused to release the
actual report except to prosecu
tors and defense attorneys.
“Some new evidence was
found, but it would not be consid
ered clear and convincing evi
dence of Mr. Brandley’s guilt or
innocence,” Mattox said.
The attorney general did say
he favored moving the case out of
Montgomery County.
Brandley was convicted by an
all-white jury on circumstantial
evidence, Brandley’s attorneys
said. Defense attorneys insist
prosecutors never pursued leads
that would have cleared him.
Brandley, who in recent weeks
has declined requests for inter
views on death row, has said in
the past he was skeptical of the
Mattox probe, calling it a smoke
screen.
“They all work together,” he
said. “This whole ordeal is that no
one wants to admit that what hap
pened was wrong.”
Brandley has had two execu
tion dates, both of them stayed.
“I don’t have anything to
hide,” he said. “I’d much rather
be retried. I think there’s still a lot
of doubt in many people’s
minds.”
Fergeson was manager of the
Belleville High School volleyball
team, which traveled 60 miles to
Conroe for a Saturday morning
scrimmage. She was noticed miss
ing shortly after the team arrived.
Two hours later, she was found
dead.
He was arrested within a week
and charged with her slaying. His
first trial ended in a hung jury,
11-1 for conviction, with the lone
dissenter opposed to the death
penalty. A second jury deliber
ated 85 minutes before convicting
him and took 65 minutes to de
cide he should be put to death.
SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS WE’RE SURE YOU
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