Battalion
TATE & LOCAL
onday, September 18,1989
Squeeze, army!
Junior yell leaders Kevin Fitzgerald(left) and Brant Ince(right)
)[[ h watch moments before TCU scores its only touchdown of Satur-
Photo by Fredrick D.Joe
day’s game. The touchdown only made a small dent for the
Horned Frogs who were beaten by the Aggies, 44-7.
alt levels increase in Colorado River reservoirs
iky Hi
AUSTIN (AP) — Colorado River
reservoirs are slowly being infil-
rated with a heavy concentration of
salt that is being washed out of an
andent natural West Texas lake af
ter two years of heavy rains.
Although most of the saltwater is
trapped in E.V. Spence Reservoir,
315 river-miles from Lake Bu-
towii
Sett
[enr
1$“ chanan, it has started to increase the
salinity of reservoirs farther up-
itream in the Highland Lakes chain,
the Austin Amevican-Statesman re
ported.
High salinity can produce bad-
tasting drinking water and interfere
with reproduction of fish. But
Lower Colorado River Authority oi-
ficials monitoring the problem don’t
think it will get that serious.
“I think it’s a non-recurring phe
nomenon that’s going to wash itself
out over a few years,” S. David Free
man, LCRA general manager said.
Still, water samples taken from
Lake Buchanan since the salt began
trickling downstream have shown
the presence of chlorides, a measure
of salt content, consistently between
250 and 300 parts per million, the
newspaper reported.
State health officials recommend
that drinking water contain no more
than 300 parts per million of chlo
rides. However, no action is taken
against water systems delivering
drinking water with higher chloride
content.
Only one sample from Lake Bu
chanan has exceeded the recom
mended limit. Water from Inks
Lake, the next in the Highland
Lakes chain, also has consistently
tested near the suggested limit.
But Lake Buchanan and Inks
Lake provide drinking water only
for marinas, lodges, Inks Lake State
Park and lakeside homeowners.
The next two lakes in the chain —
Lakes LBJ and Marble Falls — pro
vide water for municipal supply sys-
ommunities feel economy crunch;
compete with each other for prisons
opk
AUSTIN (AP) — When oil and dollars swirled
Japlenty nine years ago, state officials looking for a new
■Texas prison site were jeered out of town and city alike.
Now, particularly in small towns, they’re being
Igreeted with a reverence ordinarily reserved for the lo-
Ical high school football team.
Many of the 46 communities yearning for the boon
lofastate prison in their back yards have seen industries
Imove on, jobs vanish and plywood replace downtown
Jstore fronts.
And many rural residents say they no longer can af
ford to be snobbish about having a prison in town.
“Right now, it’s the most important thing happenine
In this community and five others around us,” James
Driver, chairman of the Childress prison committee
said. “It could be life or death.”
The winners of the “prison derby” will be announced
by the Texas Board of Criminal Justice in November.
At stake are six facilities — three maximum security to
house 2,500 inmates each, and three minimum security
for 1,000 inmates each. Four of those prisons are in
cluded in a $500 million bond proposal that goes before
voters Nov. 7.
The larger facilities translate into 800 new jobs with a
$16.8 million annual payroll, and the smaller prisons
mean 260 new jobs and $6 million new consumer dol
lars.
terns. LCRA statistics show the chlo
ride levels on both lakes have
increased substantially.
“We’ve been tracking it and plan
ning for it,” Ron Bond, acting direc
tor of the city’s water and waste wa
ter department said. “If and when it
gets here and affects our water, we
want to be able to deliver water that’s
still acceptable.”
Natural Dam Lake at Big Spring,
whose earthen dam was possibly
formed by glacial deposits, is the cul
prit in the salt story.
The salt concentration in the lake
increased over the years through
evaporation. Also, high-saline water
occurring during periods of low flow
in the Colorado was pumped into
Natural Dam Lake to keep it out of
Spence Reservoir.
The lake received as much as 90
inches of rain in 1986 and 1987,
according to J.R. Lewis, assistant
manager of the Colorado River Mu
nicipal Water District.
Chloride readings in Spence Res
ervoir shot up from 700 parts per
million before the spill to as high as
2,400 afterward. The water now be
ing released from Spence contains
1,100 parts per million of chlorides,
according to the LCRA.
The higher saline content of
Spence Reservoir, however, has had
no impact on fish, according to Billy
Follis, a fisheries biologist with the
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
in San Angelo.
\agcie\\\s
INEMA/
Giant Movie Poster Sale!
Today througli Friday from 9:00 AM
to 5:00 PM in the MSC Main Hallway
A
W
Thousands of movie posters, prints, and rock
posters to choose from! Decorate your walls
with something unique and affordable!
For more information call MSC Aggie Cinema at 845-1515.
U.S. supermarket
awed Soviet official
as much as NASA
HOUSTON (AP) — Soviet poli
tician Boris Yeltsin wrapped up a
meeting with NASA officials about
possible U.S.-Soviet space links with
an eye-opening event: a visit to a lo
cal grocery store.
“Even the Politburo doesn’t have
this choice,” Yeltsin said, as he
looked over fish and meat at Ran
dall’s Supermarket in Clear Lake,
near the Johnson Space Center.
“Not even Mr. Gorbachev.”
Yeltsin, 58, who arrived in the
United States on Sept. 9 for an eight-
day stay, visited Houston on Satur
day to tour the space center and get
a first-hand look at Mission Control
and a mock up of the planned space
station, Freedom.
Houston was included among the
Yeltsin’s tour of several U.S. cities as
a favor to Soviet cosmonauts.
“In the USSR, I’ve been in favor
of cutting back on the space pro
gram because we can’t afford it,”
Yeltsin said through an interpreter.
He said cosmonauts are “nervous
about the situation” so they re
quested he visit the space center.
Yeltsin, former chief of the Mos
cow Communist Party and newly
elected to the revamped Soviet par
liament and the Supreme Soviet,
said he favors a more cooperative ar
rangement between the two super
powers when it comes to space ex
ploration.
“I am opposed to us competing
with each other in this way,” Yeltsin
said.
“We’re spending more money on
space exploration because we are
competing, he said.
“The more joint flights there are
to Mars or to the moon, or to a space
station, the better it will be,” Yeltsin
said. “The Soviet Union has some
advantages in flight, and the U.S.
has some advantages.”
Yeltsin has said the Soviet Union
should cut space spending to use the
money to improve its economy.
“Sometimes I wish one of you
would come over and whisper in my
ear which of the space programs we
could easily get rid of,” Yeltsin told
Aaron Cohen, director of the Na
tional Aeronautics and Space Ad
ministration’s Johnson Space Cen
ter.
Yeltsin, who has an engineering
background, asked many detailed
questions about the programs, in
cluding the Freedom space station
that is scheduled to be constructed
beginning in 1995.
He called the Houston center a
“national resource” and praised offi
cials for their openness with him.
“We still have a spy mania in our
country,” he said.
A&M sailing team glides
to victory at Rice opener
By Bob Krenek
Of The Battalion Staff
With the wind at their backs, the
A&M Sailing Team opened the sea
son with a victory at the Rice Invita
tional Sept. 9.
The Sailing Team is a group of
students that competes in sailing re
gattas against teams from schools
around the region and country.
After finishing third place in their
district last year and narrowly miss
ing an opportunity to advance to the
national championships, the team is
looking forward to the upcoming
season, Tom Welch, president of the
team, said.
“We are confident we will end up
at the nationals,” he said.
The team will continue its quest
for a spot in the nationals next week
end when it competes in the McCar
thy Cup Regatta at the University of
Texas.
Various members of the group
compete in about 15 regattas per se
mester, Welch said. The team com
petes in the Southeastern Intercolle
giate Sailing Association along with
other schools from around the re
gion. Team standings are calculated
at the end of the season on the basis
of race finishes and the top two
teams in the district advance to the
nationals in May.
“We finished third by two points
last year,” Welch said, “and the last
few regattas were cancelled because
of bad weather, so we were really
disappointed that we didn’t have a
chance to come back.”
The boats used by the team are
two-man dinghy sailboats, Welch
said, that do not differ from tradi
tional sailboats at all. The races are
conducted on short, triangle-shaped
courses and are usually completed in
15 minutes.
“The races are highly competitive
and very tactical,” Welch said. About
six boats compete in each heat and
they begin in a starting zone 15 to 25
yards long.
“The boats are given a three-min
ute starting sequence,” Welch said.
“As they approach the start line
there is a lot of jockeying for the best
position. The idea is to hit the start
line when the clock is at zero.”
Once the race is underway, Welch
said, the keys are keeping boat speed
up-, watching the other boats and
looking for wind shifts.
“You have to consider all these
things to know where to put the
boat,” he said. “With all the tactics
involved, it’s a lot like chess.”
The team practices at the Bryan
Utilities Lake five days a week for
four to five hours.
“We have a wide range of skill lev
els, from very skilled to very begin
ning level people,” Welch said. “It’s a
lot of work but almost everyone who
participates gets to sail in a regatta.
We will let everyone compete.”
The club is a self-supporting orga
nization that depends on donations
and fund-raisers to finance its activ
ities. Although the club has become
a part of the Recreation and Sports
program at Texas A&M, the club
will not receive any financial help for
another year.
“We are trying to raise money by
working with alumni,” Welch said.
“We have had a tremendous amount
of support from them. We are trying
to raise enough money so we can
travel around the country a couple
of times each semester to compete in
top regattas.
“We want to build a program that
will be ranked nationally in the next
ten years.”
The club meets every Wednesday
night at 8 p.m. in 104 Zachry.
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