The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, January 26, 1988, Image 6

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81
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Page 6/The Battalion/Tuesday, Januaiy 26, 1988
DEFENSIVE DRIVING CLASS
TICKET DISMISSAL — INSURANCE DISCOUNT
January. 29, 30 (6-10 p.m.) February 3, 4 (6:00 p.m.)
PLUS 845-1631
Radiation leak
leads inspectors
to test workers
Weather Watch E
DALLAS (AP) — Health inspec
tors tested workers in Texas and
Pennsylvania who may have been ex
posed to harmful radiation at elec
tronic chemicals plants where air
guns used to eliminate static mal
functioned, officials said Monday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commis
sion ordered an immediate halt
Monday to distribution of the air
guns until they find the cause of an
apparent leak that exposed the
workers of Ashland Chemical Co. to
low-level radiation.
“We are taking blood and urine
samples from all employees who
were in the room in which the static
elimination devices malfunctioned,”
David Lacker, director of the Texas
Bureau of Radiation Control in Aus
tin, said. ^‘Results are expected in a
day or two.”
Lacker said the tests would reveal
whether workers had ingested or in
haled any of the radioactive particles
that leaked from the cleaning de
vices.
He said it appears the radiation
leakage was confined to one room at
the Dallas plant.
The two plants, which bottle acids
used in the manufacture of semicon
ductors, will remain closed during
testing and cleanup, Loscocco said.
All 37 employees in Dallas and 90
employees in Easton, Pa., are being
tested.
Meanwhile, a two-man team
sought to determine how the ce
ramic microspheres leaked from air
guns leased from 3M Corp., 3M
spokesman Dennis Mick said from
the 3M Static Control Systems Divi
sion in Austin.
The radiation leak was discovered
Saturday night after officials
checked equipment similar to that
involved in radiation leaks found
Thursday at Ashland’s plant in
Easton, 60 miles north of Philadel
phia, Loscocco said.
The company notified the Nu
clear Regulatory Commission and
the Texas Bureau of Radiological
Health of the contamination at the
Dallas plant, Loscocco said.
The commission staff on Monday
ordered 3M to suspend distribution
of the models of guns used at the
two plants, models in the company’s
900 series, until the cause of the
leaks is found and corrective action
is approved by the commission.
Also, 3M was ordered to inform
all users of the incident, to call for
user reports of anything similar and
to test other devices to come up with
a “comprehensive test plan which
will provide a high degree of assur
ance that any other leaking devices
will be identified,” said an an
nouncement from the commission’s
staff headquarters in Bethesda, Md.,
near Washington.
A third Ashland plant, in Newark,
Calif., showed no contamination, an
NRC spokesman said Sunday.
The radioactive ceramic micros
pheres, smaller than a grain of sand,
probably would pass through the
body if they remained intact, NRC
Region 1 spokesman Karl Abraham
said.
The microscopic polonium
spheres emit alpha particles that
cannot penetrate skin, but scientists
have not determined the potential
hazard if the polonium 210 is in
gested, Abraham said.
Ashland Chemical is a division of
Ashland Oil Inc., which owned a
storage tank that spilled 3.7 million
f allons of fuel near Pittsburgh, with
50,000 gallons leaking into the Mo-
nongahela River.
Sunset Today: 5:55 p.m.
Sunrise Wednesday: 7:18 a.m.
Map Discussion: An extensive ridge of high pressure, at surface andaloli
continue to dominate the local area with fair to partly cloudy skies, cooltei
cold nights. The intense low pressure over New England will moveoffstoq
snow showers will linger from the Great Lakes southeastward tothewim
side of the Central Appalachains. Expect a slow warming trend beginning
Thursday for the local area.
Forecast
Today through Wednesday. Fair to partly cloudy with a high today of 49i)
Winds light from the South. Low temperature Wednesday morning 26de$rs
high temperature Wednesday afternoon in the low 50's. No precipitation is
expected.
Weather Fact. Bubble High - A small high, complete with anticyclonicara
of the order of 50 to 300 miles across, often induced by precipitation and*
currents associated with thunderstorms. They are relatively cold andunst
overrunning the “Bubble High" may form squall lines on the peripheriesolss
systems.
Prepared Py Chans si
Staff Meie.nl
A&M Department of >
Retarded man’s sketches
keep Silsbee’s past alive
Too few applicants
prompt MHMR board
to extend job search
SILSBEE (AP) —
knew all along there
Iks in Silsbee from for-
AUSTIN (AP) —The Search for a
new state commissioner of mental
health and mental retardation is tak
ing longer than scheduled because
so few people have applied for the
job.
Nineteen people, including four
physicians, have applied to head the
largest public agency in Texas,
according to a list compiled by the
Department of Mental Health and
Mental Retardation.
One of the applicants is a woman,
Jan Ducker, 59, of Sunapee, N.H.,
executive director of Northeast Al
cohol and Drug Services, a private
company that operates two hospitals
and three outpatient clinics in New
England.
The MHMR board decided last
week to extend the application pe
the
riod until the end of February rati
than closing it on Jan. 31, as
planned, said Board Chairman
Roger Bateman.
The job will become available
March 31, when Commissioner
Garry Miller is scheduled to resign
from the post he has held for six
years.
Bateman said the board decided
to extend the application period,
“because we want to make sure
there’s a broad group” of applicants.
Wade Paul
was a way he
could keep foil
getting about their past, but it took a
whole bunch of pencils and some en
couragement from his mother be
fore he figured it out.
The 37-year-old, mentally re
tarded client of the Hardin County
Sheltered Workshop had, over the
past two years, turned a hobby of
sketching into a refined skill without
really meaning to.
From there, it took only the
watchful eye of the workshop’s di
rector to recognize his talent and
channel it in the right direction.
This past month Paul put the fin
ishing touches on 12 sketches of va
rious historical landmarks in Silsbee
from the early 1900s. They will ap
pear in a 1988 calendar. Workshop
officials who helped organize the
calendar figured it was a great way
to not only raise money for the
agency, but to boost Paul’s self-confi
dence as well.
“The people here know all the
things people could forget about if
someone doesn’t draw them, so I
asked them to help with ideas of
what to draw," Paul said,
few days to draw each one
little longer to track down
photos.”
Workshop director Winnie
who spotted Paul’s abilitiesajt
up with the idea of putlingtie
calendar, said she hunted up;
graphs of a youngSilsbee fiild
Model A Fords and a schooli
that housed 10 grades in one
V
lrl g-
And in the hands
workshop’s now-resident arts
tographs of the city’s first oii
and a young Kirby Forest lull
plant became delicate
ings of an age gone by.
“I drew'here at the workstii
at home practically non-stop P thin
said of the four months it feptacy
to complete the 12 drawings. W theft
“At borne, my mother wouBauth
‘No TV, go do some art,' ”P^piglef
“She’s one reason I finished a |soutl
endar.”
Jones said many local peo|
already begun to ask abou
and when they can buy ikl
endars, which should be aj
before the end of the month,
NEWS ENGINEERING & OFFICE SUPPLY^
Attention Students: The Drafting Board of Northgate has moved their entire inventory to EOS.
Shop EOS for all your Back-To-School supplies.
mm
Wallace
Secretarial Chair
#SC45
• Pneumatic lift for
height adj.
• Black, Brown, Grey,
Navy, Burgundy, or
Beige
req SALE
$123“ $69 95
Wallace
Drafting Stool
• Pneumatic lift for
height adjustment
• Black, Brown, Navy,
Grey, Burgundy, or
Beige
#SC75
Reg $165°°
SALE $119 95
Staedtler
Disposable Plotter Pens
Reg SALE
.30, .50, .70 6.15 ea 4.95 ea
.25 5.15ea 4.15 ea
For Houston Instuments or
Hewlett Packard Plotters
$32 49
Soft Kit
EDG KIT
Foremost
Student
i
Desk
K'f! ||lj
#4541
ferfl 1
41x20
SALE
Reg. $120°°
$97 80 1
•Error Free
•Performance
•Lifetime Guar
•Uniform Density (
•5!4 only
SS/DD 7.99 bx
SS/DD 8.45 bx
Highland Diskettes
1418 Texas Ave S.
Redmond Terrace
693-9553
(CORNER OF JERSEY & TEXAS NEXT DOOR TO ACADAMY)