TKe Battalion
WEATHER
TOMORROWS FORECAST:
Partly cloudy and hot.
HIGH: 90s
LOW: 70s
Vol. 88 No. 187 USPS 045360 6 Pages
shon
College Station, Texas
Friday, August 11,1989
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iTexas has most
plants releasing
toxic chemicals
irtuallv el
■ DALLAS (AP) — A list of plants
releasing highly hazardous toxic
chemicals into the environment in
cludes almost twice as many loca
tions in Texas as in any other state,
inc luding four out of the top 10.
■ The “Toxic 500” compiled by the
National Wildlife Federation and re
leased Thursday is the latest in a re
cent series of environmental black
eyes for Texas. A less-detailed ver
sion of the figures in June ranked
Texas high in producing air pollut
ion; an earlier report said a buta
diene plant in Port Neches, topped a
list of plants emitting enough chemi-
ipls to increase the risk of cancer.
I Sixty-four Texas plants are in
cluded on the federation’s list, culled
JVom the Environmental Protection
Agency’s 1987 Toxic Release Inven
tory; Ohio was second in the list with
J}8 plants.
I The releases, which are legal, in
cluded more than 300 different
ihemicals and metals, 39 of which
pre considered carcinogenic, or can
cer-causing.
I Two Texas ALCOA plants placed
first and third on the list, with the
[plant in Point Comfort, reporting it
Released 465.35 million pounds of
loxic wastes in 1987, almost all of it
aluminum oxide buried at the fa-
|ility. The Rockdale plant reported
29.11 million pounds of buried alu-
inum oxide, by far the most widely
produced toxic waste among the big-
;est polluters.
The EPA currently is considering
n industry request to take alumi-
um oxide off its toxic substance list,
laiming it poses no chronic health
isks. But opponents argue it is
armful to the respiratory system
nd possibly linked to brain damage.
In all, the 64 Texas plants re-
leased 1.78 billion pounds of toxic
vastes, or more than 23 percent of
he total of 7.5 billion pounds of
oxic wastes during 1987.
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Return of the Tennis Ball
Paul Baker, a first-year medical student from
Belton, and his opponent Dennis Upton (not
pictured) enjoy a match at Omar Smith Tennis
Photo by Kathy Haveman
Center Tuesday afternoon. The two were
among many local people outdoors, enjoying
the unseasonably moderate weather.
Sports passes go
by wayside in fall
I.D.s will be used
By Kelly S. Brown
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Starting this fall students won’t be
waiting in line the first week of
school to pick up their all-sports or
football ticket book, nor will they
have to keep track of it throughout
the semester — identification cards
will be used to pick up tickets at the
gate.
For those who purchased either
pass, the option will be placed into
the coding on their I.D. cards, and
the cards will be read through scan
ners as with meal plans in dining
halls.
Penny King, business manager for
the Athletic Department, said the
I.D. card will be better protected un
der the new system. If a student re
ports a lost I.D. card, that informa
tion will be entered into a computer,
and if someone tries to use the I.D.
they will be caught, she said. The
name of who is drawing tickets for
themselves or anyone else will re
main in the computer.
When a student adds the option
when registering, the Athletic De
partment immediately will have that
record, King said. Records will be
updated throughout the first week
of school.
An all-sports pass is $70, while a
football pass is $55. Tickets for
home football games are distributed
on a classification basis as follows:
• Graduates and seniors — Mon
day prior to game day.
• Juniors — Tuesday
• Sophomores — Wednesday
• Freshmen — Thursday
• Non-season & all classes (if
available) — Friday
Students are allowed to pick up a
maximum of 10 tickets in a group
(I.D. cards are required for each stu
dent ticket). Half of the group must
be of that day’s classification or of a
previous day’s, and the other half
may be of lower classification or full
price non-student guests.
Student tickets for the November
24 Arkansas game will be distributed
to graduate students and seniors
Thursday Nov. 16, juniors on Fri
day, sophomores on Monday and
freshmen on Tuesday.
Questions should be directed to
the ticket office 845-2311.
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istress call may have been Leland
Searchers find hope in faint signal far off plane’s charted course
DMV official says
license plate slogans
may be abandoned
DALLAS (AP) — Texans who are Commission will reconsider the tag
in a dither over a proposal to place motto at its Aug. 29 meeting.
‘‘’Trn.o ™ think all of the slogans will be
d it will M
i by audit]
which thetf
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) —
Crews searching for the plane carry
ing U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland on
Thursday were told that a U.S. satel
lite picked up an aircraft signal, and
rescue workers were dispatched to
the rugged area.
The weather satellite pinpointed
the source of the signal at 84 miles
southeast of the capital, Addis
Ababa, far off the flight plan of the
missing plane.
Robert Houdek, the charge d’af-
fairs at the U.S. Embassy in Addis
Leland staff clings to hope'Page 6
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Ababa, said the location indicated it
came from a source other than Le-
land’s plane, but he told reporters,
“We are taking this information very
seriously ... as we would take se
riously any lead in the search for
congressman Leland and his party.”
The Democrat from Houston,
who is chairman of the House Select
Committee on Hunger, took off
Monday morning with 13 other peo
ple, including eight Americans, for
the Fugnido refugee camp 480 miles
southwest of Addis Ababa.
The twin-engine Twin Otter air
craft was reported missing Monday
evening.
A satellite from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis
tration picked up the faint distress
signal at 3:42 a.m. Thursday (8:42
plane,
Rep. Mickey Leland
p.m. EDT Wednesday).
“It could have been another plane
flying over the area and the pilot fin
gered his microphone and the satel
lite picked up the blip,” Houdek
said.
James T. Baily, manager of the
administration’s search and rescue
satellite program, said subsequent
satellite passes had not been able to
confirm the signal because of radio
interference.
Satellites passing over the area
broadcast their signals to a ground
station in Bangalore, India. Ethiopia
is on the fringe of the coverage area
for the Bangalore station, making it
hard to get an accurate location on
signals received from Ethiopia, Bai
ley said.
Houdek said bad weather pre
vented planes from flying into the
region where the signal originated.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Internal
Affairs contacted security officials at
Goba, ,28 miles from the source of
the signal, and instructed them to
send out foot patrols to investigate in
the darkness.
In Washington, Alma Newsom,
Leland’s press secretary, told report
ers she was somewhat skeptical the
signal came from Leland’s
considering his destination.
“The location just seems so
strange that we’re not drawing any
conclusions,” she said.
Leland’s plane was equipped with
an emergency locator transmitter, a
device usually mounted in the tail of
an aircraft and activated either auto
matically by impact or manually.
Depending on its type, an emer
gency locator transmits either an in
termittent or steady signal on a fixed
frequency, allowing searchers to pin
point the location of a downed air
craft.
Two U.S. Air Force C-130 Her
cules cargo planes arrived Thursday
and spent three hours flying over
the path that Leland’s plane was sup
posed to have taken.
A U-2 aircraft also joined the
search. U-2s are capable of taking
high-resolution photographs over a
broad area and were once commonly
used for espionage missions.
Four U.S. Army Blackhawk heli
copters were expected to arrive Fri
day.
Four Ethiopian Air Force heli
copters were also added, joining the
U.S. fleet and more than a dozen
light planes under the direction of
the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Author
ity.
For three days, the search has cen
tered on a high, mountainous pla
teau near the Sudanese border, not
far from the Fugnido refugee camp.
Monday there were reports that
peasants heard a light plane circling
one or two dirt landing strips in an
area 50 miles from Leland’s destina
tion.
the motto “The Friendship State” on
auto license plates can settle down
now.
Dian Neill, director of the Divi
sion of Motor Vehicles, said the slo
gan is unlikely to ever appear on the
plates.
“I’m going to recommend that we
have no slogan so we can kill the con
troversy,” Neill told the Dallas
Morning News Wednesday.
State highway commissioners in
dicated they would go along with her
recommendation to drop the motto
and a powder blue outline proposed
for new plates.
The newspaper reported the
highway department received more
than 1,000 telephone calls and seve
ral thousand letters opposing the
slogan after commissioners gave ap
proval to the proposal last month.
Although “friendship” is the offi
cial state motto, adopted by the
Texas Legislature in 1930, Texas
has been more commonly known as
the Lone Star State, and some peo
ple have criticized the “friendship”
label as “wimpy.”
The State Department of High
ways and Public Transportation
removed,” Commissioner Ray
Stoker of Odessa said.
However, Stoker also said it may
be possible to make a slogan optional
for drivers who want one on their
new plates. Stoker suggested motor
ists could pay an extra $30 for their
choice of “The Friendship State” or
“The Lone Star State.”
Most of the money generated
through the additional fee would be
used to renovate the state Capitol in
Austin, Stoker said.
Although more residents favor
the “Lone Star State” as a license
plate motto, objections have sur
faced .
Some observers said the motto
would give companies that use Lone
Star in their names an unfair advan
tage.
However, Clyde Hopkins, Texas
spokesman for Anheuser-Busch Co.,
said the “Lone Star” slogan would
not affect the competition in the
beer industry.
Last year, Busch reportedly sold
78.5 million barrels of beer, com
pared to 900,000 barrels sold by the
Lone Star Brewing Co.
Air Force spokesman confirms
shuttle deployment of satellite
Bush appoints Powell, first black,
as chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush named
Army Gen. Colin L. Powell, a veteran of both the battle
fields of Vietnam and the corridors of power in the
White House, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
on Thursday.
Powell, 52, will become the youngest officer and the
first black ever to hold the nation’s highest military
post.
“I am ready to go to it and I look forward to the chal
lenges ahead,” Powell said, standing alongside Bush
and Vice President Dan Quayle at an afternoon an
nouncement ceremony in the Rose Garden.
The nomination drew immediate praise on Capitol
Hill and is expected to win confirmation easily in the
Senate.
Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., chairman of the Senate
Armed Service Committee, called Powell “an excellent
nominee.” Nunn said his panel would hold confirma
tion proceedings soon after Congress returns from re
cess in September.
Sen. John Warner of Virginia, ranking Republican
on the committee, said, “He’s eminently qualified. . . .
I’ve been present in the Oval Office and Cabinet room
when military issues were discussed with the president.
When he spoke, everybody listened.”
“He has had vast military experience and his partici
pation as security adviser to the president will add a
unique dimension,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., an
other member of the committee.
Powell, national security adviser to President Reagan
in the final year of his administration, was picked by
Bush over more than 30 more senior officers.
He will succeed Adm. William Crowe Jr., who is re
tiring Sept. 30. The chairman is the chief adviser on
military affairs to Bush and Defense Secretary Richard
Cheney.
Bush praised Powell, a decorated veteran of two
combat tours in Vietnam, as a complete soldier and a
distinguished scholar. Powell is considered a military in
tellectual who is willing to express his views when asked
but who does not have an ideological agenda.
“As we face the challenges of the ’90s, it is most im
portant that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff be
a person of breadth, judgment, experience and total in
tegrity,” Bush said.
SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP)
— Columbia’s astronauts continued
their secret work Thursday high
above the Earth, but the Air Force
secretary briefly broke the official si
lence to confirm the crew’s deploy
ment of a satellite.
The device was widely believed to
be a powerful spy satellite designed
to snap highly detailed photographs
of military targets over a large area
of the globe, including most of the
Sovet Union.
No official word came from either
NASA or the Defense Department
about the 10-ton satellite until secre
tary Donald Rice said a satellite had
been released.
“The United States now has a sa
tellite in orbit as the result of a very
successful launch,” Rice told report
ers after a ceremony at McDili Air
Force Base in Tampa, Fla. His com
ments were made Wednesday, but
were not generally reported until
Thursday.
“I can say that was a very impor
tant day for the Air Force and the
nation’s space program,” Rice said
when questioned about the reported
deployment of the satellite about
seven hours after liftoff Tuesday.
“We were extraordinarily pleased as
were our colleagues in NASA that
everything went so well.”
But w'hen asked about the satel
lite’s purpose, Rice replied, “I’m not
at liberty to say.”
The Defense Department im
posed the news blackout on the clas
sified mission. Unless a major prob
lem occurs, the silence is not
expected to be broken again until
Saturday when an exact landing
time is announced.
NASA officials said Columbia will
land Sunday at Edwards Air Force
Base, Calif., sometime between 8
a.m. and 11 a.m. CDT.
During the rest of their flight, the
all-military crew apparently planned
to conduct tests to determine man’s
role as a military observer in space.
Those tests were to be coordinated
with undisclosed ground exercises
that could include troop maneuvers,
naval movements and missile
launches.
In addition, a package of scientific
instruments for military research,
possibly for the “Star Wars” missile
defense program reportedly are in
Columbia’s cargo bay.
Columbia, NASA’s oldest shuttle,
is making its first flight in more than
3 years.
Commencement ceremonies
feature presidential assistant,
Mexican University president
The guest speakers for com
mencement ceremonies Friday and
Saturday include the president of a
Mexican university and an assistant
to the president of the United States.
Enrique Cardenas, president of
the Universidad de las Americas in
Puebla, Mexico, will address under
graduate and graduate degree can
didates from the Colleges of Busi
ness Administration, Architecture,
Medicine, Geosciences, Science and
Veterinary Medicine in G. Rollie
White Coliseum at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Addressing undergraduate de
gree candidates from the Colleges of
Agriculture and Life Sciences, Edu
cation, Engineering, Liberal Arts
and Texas A&M University at Gal
veston will be George Bush’s assis
tant for legislative affairs, Frederick
D. McClure. The ceremony Satur
day begins at 9 a.m. in G. Rollie
White. McClure is a former Texas
A&M student body president.
Officers entering the military
service will be commissioned Satur
day.