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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 9, 1989)
Texas A&M The Battalion WEATHER FORECAST for SATURDAY: Cloudy to partly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of thunder storms. HIGH:90s LOW:70s Vol. 88 No. 153 USPS 045360 6 pages College Station, Texas Friday, June 9,1989 Lawmaker: Port Neches plant poses l-in-10 chance of cancer WASHINGTON (AP) — Texa co's Port Neches plant releases toxic emissions that pose a one-in-10 risk of cancer, according to Rep. Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee who lists the facility at the top of the most dangerous chem ical air polluters nationwide. Environmentalists said the plant poses a “clear and present danger” See list of plants/Page 3 but government, Texaco and indus try officials said the data released Thursday by Waxman, a California congressman, was outdated, based on assumptions, and not an indica tor of cancer risk. Waxman used 1984 Environmen tal Protection Agency data to iden tify 205 industrial facilities that have at least a one-in-1,000 cancer risk, while the EPA deems a risk of more than one-in-a-million as unaccepta ble. More than 30 plants in Texas made the list, most of them chemical or petroleum plants along the Texas Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi to Orange County. Only one plant na tionwide, Texaco’s butadiene plant in Port Neches, .was listed as posing a cancer risk of one-in-10. EPA spokesman Roger Meacham in Dallas said the data was never in tended to estimate the risk of cancer and was gathered to identify sources and categories of pollution. “You can’t use these Figures, this data, as an accurate measure of the cancer risk,” Meacham said. “This data is so old to be essentially useless except for locating pollutants.” He said a person would have to be within 200 meters of a plant for 70 years, 24 hours a day, to be exposed to the level of contaminates that would cause cancer. Waxman said his Figures were po tentially inaccurate but must be re leased because they indicate the enormity of the problem and rep resent a “stunning demonstration of the urgency of the public health threat.” Texaco released a five-page statement challenging Waxman’s al legations as “totally unsupported by any technical and scientiFic facts or by employee health records.” The company said Waxman’s con clusions were based on plant conFig- urations which no longer exist, have been refuted by tests on actual emis sions, and are in “total disregard of the millions of dollars in environ mental expenditures which were made at this Gulf Coast chemical plant over recent years in order to enhance air quality.” Texaco Chemical Co. Chairman Willis B. Reals said, “The claims about activities at our Port Neches plant are totally unsubstantiated by any technical and scientific data and they raise serious questions as to the objectivity and balance of this legis lative effort.” Philip Blackburn, Texaco spokes man in Houston, said the Port Neches plant has about 300 workers and makes about 600 million pounds of butadiene a year — a chemical used primarily in the manufacture of rubber products such as tires, as well as 690 million pounds a year of a gasoline additive. Daniel Weiss, Washington direc tor of the Sierra Club’s pollution program, said he believes the EPA figures are reliable indicators of toxic-emissions hot spots around the country. “The people in these communities are human subjects in a perverse ex periment on the effects of air toxics on human beings,” Weiss said. “Any risk greater than one-in-a-million is PARIS (AP) — A Soviet MiG-29 fighter crashed during an aerobatic performance Thursday on the open ing day of the Paris Ah Show, and the pilot was injured after bailing out of the jet. The aircraft was making its final pass over Le Bourget airfield north of Paris after a dramatic demonstra tion flight when a part of the aircraft appeared to break away. Pieces of the needle-nosed jet burst into flames while the fuselage, in one piece, dropped like a stone in the center of the airfield without in juring any of the thousands of ex hibitors, visitors and journalists on a very high risk for cancer.” He said pesticides are prohibited on foods in amounts greater than one-in-a-million, yet manufacturers are allowed to have toxic emissions as high as one-in-10. “It is a moral outrage that indus try is allowed to emit chemicals that pose this extreme level of risk for cancer,” Weiss said. Dale Brooks, a spokesman for the Clean Air Working Group, an indus try coalition, called release of the data irresponsible, despite cautions about potential inaccuracies. hand for opening day. A water tanker and fire engines rushed to the scene to douse the flames of the burning fuselage. The pilot, 37-year-old Anatoly Kvochur, was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital near the airstrip, then transferred to Begin Military Hospi tal in a suburb east of the city. The Soviet Embassy in Paris said he was in “fairly good health.” Claude Martin, flight director of the show, said Kvochur’s parachute “barely opened, but even so it broke the fall of the pilot.” Soviet fighter crashes during Paris Air Show Roving ROV Bess Wilson, an oceanography doctoral student, looks over a Remotely Operated Vehicle Thursday afternoon in the David El ler Building. Wilson and the ROV recently returned from study ing ocean floor shell formations in the waters off Corpus Christi. Bush says relations with China hindered until violence ends WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi dent Bush said Thursday night the United States cannot return to “to tally normal relations” with China unless that government ends vio lence against its own people and rec ognizes the validity of pro-democ racy forces. “Armed people don’t shoot down unarmed students,” Bush said of a weekend sweep by Chinese troops that killed hundreds if not thou sands of demonstrators in Bei- j> n g- At his first prime-time televised news conference since taking office, Bush also urged Iran’s new leaders to help free American hostages in Lebanon, and said he thinks Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is taking the latest U.S. arms reduction pro posals seriously. Bush also readily agreed that newly elected Democratic House Speaker Thomas S. Foley had been dealt “a terrible ill service” by the publication of a Republican Party circular. Not all the matters were as weighty. One reporter asked the president to convey happy birthday wishes to first lady Barbara Bush, and Bush took the opportunity to thank those who had written his wife after she underwent treatment for a thyroid condition. “She’s doing just fine,” he said. “She’s got the . . . disease under con trol.” Many of the questions dealt with China, and Bush defended the lim ited nature of the sanctions he an nounced on Monday — principally banning the sale of weapons. “We’re not going to remake the world, but we ought to stand for something,” in China, South Africa and elsewhere in the world where democracy is under siege, he said. Bush said he hopes to “preserve the relationship” that the United States has built with China. But he added that the United States de nounces the violence of last week end. Bush placed his own distinct stamp on his first evening news con ference. He opted for a less regal curtain-raiser than Ronald Reagan favored, entering the East Room from an adjacent room rather than striding down a long red carpet to ward waiting reporters. On other matters, Bush: • Said he intends to tell Polish leaders later this summer “we want to work with you,” provided eco nomic and pro-democracy reforms continue. “When a country moves as Poland did, down democracy’s path, the United States should respond as best it could,” said Bush, who will visit Warsaw and Gdansk next month. • Renewed his call for the ouster of Panama’s leader, Manuel No riega, and a fair election to select a successor. “They would have instant improved relations with the U.S.,” he said. “I’m not going to give up on this.” • Said if the proposal he made late last month to reduce both NATO and Warsaw Pact convent ional forces in Europe is acted on quickly, the alliance could avoid an other dispute over short-range nu clear missiles, a thorny political issue in West Germany. The president also said there can be no normalization of relations with the post-Khomeini government in Iran unless its leaders renounce ter ror and “facilitate the release of the American hostages.” Nine Ameri cans remain captive in Leba non. On U.S.-Soviet relations, the pres ident said he was “keeping my eyes wide open” on Soviet actions but said he believed Gorbachev had shown a willingness to entertain “new think ing.” He said some recent debate in the Soviet’s ruling body sounded a bit like the U.S. Congress. “Who would have thought?” he said. Bush conceded that U.S. under standing of the situation in China was unclear — “very, very murky,” he said. Asked why he hadn’t just picked up the telephone and called senior officials in Beijing — where he lived in the 1970s — he replied, “The line was busy. I couldn’t get through.” But Bush was firm in his support for the students who are agitating for democracy. “They’re not trying to flee China. They’re trying to change China,” he said. A&M China Club presents Mobley with 5 requests By Kelly S. Brown SENIOR STAFF WRITER The Texas A&M China Club on Thursday presented President William Mobley with five requests for his as sistance, including a call for help in getting visas for A&M Chinese student’s spouses and children who are in China. Ke Zhou, a graduate student in civil engineering, See related story/Page 6 said he and three other delegates from the China Club were greeted with strong support from Mobley when they asked him for the following aid: • To help attain visas for Chinese students who stud ied at Texas A&M and went back to China for the sum mer. • To help find some means of raising money for the 130 Chinese students at A&M, because the Chinese government finances many of the scholars studying abroad and the Chinese students in America no longer recognize their government. • To continue to admit Chinese students to A&M, regardless of the political situation in China. • For Mobley to attend a candlight ceremony at 9 p.m. outside the Academic Building to honor the Chinese students who were killed in the Beijing mas sacre Sunday. Zhou said Mobley won’t be able to attend the cere mony due to a prior engagement, but a representative from the President’s office will attend. Xun Ge, a graduate student in physics, said the cand lelight vigil is not meant to be as somber as the memo rial service the group held Wednesday night at All Faiths Chapel. The mood is intended to be lighter and more of a prayer offering, he said. Zhou said the group was pleased with the outcome of the meeting with Mobley, and that the President of fered to help as best he can. “President Mobley donated $100 to the Friends of Chinese Students,” Zhous said. “He was very sympa thetic, and supportive.” An account has been created for the Friends of the Chinese Students at the Student Financial Center in the MSC. Anyone wishing to contribute may send dona tions to: Friends of Chinese Students, Student Financial Center, MSC, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843. Premier Li Peng congradulates soldiers for actions in Beijing BEIJING (AP) — Premier Li Peng on Thursday con gratulated soldiers who crushed a popular movement for democracy, and the government urged citizens to turn in those who resisted the bloody military raid on Tiananmen Square. Beijing was relatively quiet Thursday after days of random shooting, but gunfire broke out again after dark. Unrest was reported in other cities. Soldiers fired weapons at about 11 p.m. in the direc tion of foreign journalists outside the Jianguo Hotel on Changan Avenue, Beijing’s main boulevard, but it was not clear if they were aiming at the reporters. Hundreds of trucks in convoys moved tons of sup plies into Tiananmen overnight and hundreds more continued the resupply operation Thursday. For about an hour during one delivery, commuters on bicycles ventured across Changan Avenue for the first time since Sunday, then police closed it again. Li’s televised speech to soldiers in the Great Hall of the People, on Tiananmen Square, was his first public appearance since the military assault. The government says nearly 300 people were killed, but Chinese and for eign diplomats say 3,000 may have died. “You’ve done well, comrades,” he told the cheering troopers, and admonished them to “continue working hard to protect the capital’s safety and order.” The hard-line premier ordered martial law May 20 after a series of protests in which up to 1 million people rallied in the streets to demand an end to official profi teering and corruption and more democratic freedoms. Polish election creates crisis for Communists WARSAW, Poland (AP) — In a humiliating slap at the ruling elite, voters rejected Prime Min ister Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski and 32 other Communist-backed can didates who ran unopposed for parliament, official results showed Thursday. After an eight-hour meeting with Solidarity leader Lech Wa lesa, officials announced Thurs day night that elections will be ordered to fill the 33 seats. The Communist-led governing coalition was guaranteed a major ity under an accord with the op- position. Returns confirmed Solidarity’s astonishing dominance of Sun day’s balloting and the crisis cre ated for the Communists, who agreed to let the opposition take part in the most open balloting since World War II. In his first comments since the balloting, Polish leader Gen. Woj- ciech Jaruzelski was quoted as say ing the party would be willing to give up power completely if it loses the next elections in 1993, which he said should be com pletely free. This year’s election limited the number of seats Solidarity could seek. Soviet rioters attack police station, offices in attempt to get firearms; death toll hits 71 MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of rioters in Uzbekistan attacked government offices and a police station in a bid to seize Firearms, and the death toll in the five-day rampage rose to at least 71, official media said Thursday. “Corpses are being found in gutted houses and the wounded are dying in hospitals,” Uzbek Premier Gairat Kadyrov told the government newspaper Izvestia. At least 71 people had been killed and the fig ure was likely to continue climbing, he said. The violence began June 3 with fighting be tween ethnic Uzbeks and the Meskhi Turk mi nority, forcibly resettled in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan by Stalin in 1944. Officials have not been able to contain it de spite evacuating more than 10,000 of the Meskhi minority and sending in 9,000 Interior Ministry soldiers. The bloodshed in eastern Uzbekistan was the latest in a series of violent clashes that have em broiled the southern rim of the Soviet Union for more than a year. Scores of people have been killed in the Cauca sus republics of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbai jan, but the violence has spread recently to Turk menia and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. The Tass news agency said the latest spark was Wednesday in Kokand when “thousands of peo ple excited by alcohol, drugs and calls for vio lence . . . stormed the city police department to seize firearms.” At the same time a crowd of 500 to 600 at tacked a local Interior Ministry transportation of fice, it said. The attacks failed, but a preliminary count in dicated six people were killed. More than 90, in cluding soldiers, were injured. Sixty-five houses and six offices were burned down, k said. “More houses are burning,” Tass added. l ass said the soldiers were given orders to shoot to protect themselves, but so far had avoided opening fire. “The crowds of attackers have been dispersed and most active rioters have been detained,” it said. Official Radio Moscow said more than 600 people have been hurt and more than 400 sus pects in the ethnic violence have been arrested. The official radio said that shooting and arson attempts continued Wednesday night in the re gional center of Fergana, with a population of more than 200,000. More than 400 houses, most of them belonging to Meskhi Turks, had been burned down.