State
Thursday, September 3,1992 The Battalion Page 7
Attorney General battles critics
Barr denounces doubters of drug war,
says there have been accomplishments
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN ANTONIO — Attorney
General William P. Barr Wednes
day denounced critics of Ameri
ca s drug war, saying the drug
problem — glamorized by Holly
wood — has existed 25 years and
requires more than a quick fix.
"We didn't reach this sad state
of affairs overnight. It took us at
least 25 years, since the mid-60s,
to dig ourselves into this hole,"
Barr told the Organized Crime
Drug Enforcement Task Force.
The 10-year-old task force con
sists of representatives of nine
federal agencies. Its national con
ference is this week in San Anto
nio.
"You are the leaders and the
warriors in our nation's greatest
struggle — the war on drugs,"
Barr said in a sort of pep talk to
the group.
Barr said there have been ac
complishments in the drug war,
including a 50 percent decline in
overall drug use since 1985 and
the breakdown of the Medellin co
caine cartel of Colombia.
But, he said, work remains to be
done.
More than 375,000 babies are
born each year with drug-related
problems, and over the next 10
years the nation will spend about
$100 billion on medical care and
education to treat children ex
posed to cocaine, Barr said.
As drug use increased over the
years, Barr said, "many influential
sectors of our society took an ex
tremely permissive attitude to
ward drug use."
"And well into the '80s the
movie industry and the popular
culture glamorized drug use,"
Barr said. "Its permissiveness had
a devastating impact, and by the
early 1980s there were over 25
million users of illegal drugs in
this country."
Today, Barr said, some people
who once were permissive toward
drugs now "stand on the sidelines
holding a stopwatch, asking why
the war on drugs isn't over yet."
"The critics of the drug war
want instant gratification now just
as they wanted instant gratifica
tion in the 1960s and '70s," he
said.
Barr said the Bush administra
tion is continuing to battle drugs
by attacking supply and demand
and through improving foreign
cooperation. He said the two
greatest drug threats — cocaine
and heroin — are produced by
foreign drug rings.
After his speech, Barr presented
an award to U.S. Attorney Ronald
Ederer of the western federal dis
trict of Texas for leading the na
tion in prosecutions under "Pro
ject Triggerlock." The program
imposes federal firearms charges
and standardized jail for state
crimes in which guns and violent
weapons were used.
From May 1991 to April 1992,
Ederer's district brought 271 crim
inal prosecutions under the pro
gram.
Barr also had presented U.S. At
torney Ronald Woods of Houston
with a plaque Tuesday commend
ing the southern district for bring
ing 194 such cases against crimi
nals since April 1991. The Hous
ton-based district had the fifth-
highest number of cases in the na
tion. The Dallas-based district was
third in the program nationally
with 210 prosecutions.
Company
fined for
pollution
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON - A smell
likened to the stench of a thou
sand dirty socks has cost a
Pasadena company $100,000 in
the first Harris County prose
cution for air pollution under
new, tougher state laws.
Eurecat U.S. Inc., a small oil
refinery catalyst recycling
company, pleaded no contest
Tuesday to charges of pollut
ing the air in its Pasadena
neighborhood, prosecutor
Roger Haseman said.
County Court-at-Law Judge
Hannah Chow fined the com-
; pany $100,000 — the maxi
mum allowed under the law.
The plea and fine were part
of a settlement reached be
tween Eurecat and Harris
County in which the county
dropped several other charges.
The settlement also required
Eurecat to agree to a tempo-
rary injunction in civil court in
which the company promises
to take steps to end the odor
problem.
At least 15 people have com
plained over the past two
years about a foul smell in the
area, Haseman said.
"It was an odor that would
be bad enough to keep people
inside their homes and post
pone barbecues," he said.
The smell has been com
pared to a stench from 1,000
dirty socks in a gymnasium,
the prosecutor sai d.
Company president Jerome
Wilson said Eurecat has in
vested $500,000 in the past two
years to try to eliminate the
non-toxic odor sometimes
emitted during the catalyst re
cycling process.
UTA delays action on admissions
standards proposal to study effects
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARLINGTON — The University of Texas-Arling-
ton will delay action on a proposal to tighten admis
sions standards to study how it will affect women
and minority students, UTA president Ryan Amach-
er said.
* The proposal, which originated in the office of the
vice president for academic affairs before Amacher
became president in July, calls for higher Scholastic
Aptitude Test scores from students not in the top 10
percent of their classes.
"WeTl put the proposal on hold," Amacher said.
"It's putting the cart before the horse. We have to
look at what our mission is as far as any recruiting
goes, and this study is a bit premature in terms of
looking carefully at planning for five years."
W.A. Baker, the university's vice president for
academic affairs, said complaints from faculty that
students were not adequately prepared prompted
him eight months ago to ask a three-member com
mittee to investigate strengthening university stan
dards.
"It's not our role to be an elitist institution," Baker
said. "However we should not admit people who
can't make it here. I'm concerned that we do a good
job for the students we do admit."
If applied to UT-Arlington's current enrollment,
the proposed admission standards would have pre
vented 21 percent of freshmen between 1987 and
1990 from entering the university, according to the
university's college research and evaluation depart
ment. .
Had they been in effect between 1987 and 1990,
those denied entrance would have included 220
blacks (or 58 percent of all black students); 700 fe
males (29 percent); and 103 Hispanics (29 percent),
the department said.
Brenham gas explosion under study
Federal board investigators
question pipeline workers
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - National
Transportation Safety Board in
vestigators Wednesday ques
tioned gas pipeline workers about
events leading up to an explosion
at an underground storage facility
near Brenham that claimed three
lives and left 21 injured.
During the fact-finding hearing,
investigators questioned three
Seminole Pipeline Co. employees
and a Coastline Gas Pipeline Co.
official about the April 7 blasts.
A final report on the explosion,
which apparently occurred after a
cloud of liquefied petroleum gas
vapors was ignited, is not expect
ed for several months. The agency
in July held a two-day fact-finding
hearing in Texas and is planning
another session next week in
Washington.
Investigators Wednesday ques
tioned the employees about Semi
nole's safety, operational and
maintenance procedures at the
Brenham station.
It marks the first time the NTSB
has investigated an accident in
volving an underground storage
cavern, said agency spokesman
Michael Benson.
The Brenham explosion has
highlighted the fact there is little
federal or state regulation of un
derground storage domes, which
are created by flushing fresh wa
ter down a well to melt away salt
on the cavern's walls.
NTSB member Susan Coughlin
has said only minimal industry
standards — and no federal stan
dards — exist for the design,
maintenance and operation of un
derground storage facilities.
The NTSB has no regulatory
authority, but if it determines
rules would be appropriate it
could recommend them to agen
cies such as the U.S. Department
of Transportation's Office of
Pipeline Safety or the Texas Rail
road Commission.
The explosions occurred after
Seminole's underground storage
facility overfilled with liquefied
gas. The Tulsa, Okla., company
contends it responded properly
after learning an hour before the
first explosion that the cavern was
overfilling.
But during the NTSB hearings
in Texas two months ago, local
authorities claimed fatalities
could have been avoided had they
been contacted once it became ap
parent something was amiss.
Evacuation procedures could
have been implemented, they
Migrant children work illegally
Kids as young as 6 toil in farm fields despite child labor laws
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FREMONT, Ohio — It's backbreaking work
even for an adult, bending over row after row
of cucumber plants, plucking the mature veg
etables from the vine. But in the fields of
northern Ohio, children as young as 6 years
old can be found helping their migrant-worker
parents with the harvest, in violation of child-
labor laws.
The Associated Press found dozens of
young children at work during visits to 10
farms, most of which sell their crop to major
pickle processors like Vlasic Foods Inc., Heinz
USA and Dean Foods.
Federal law bars children younger than 12
from working in the fields. But the farm work
ers say they have no other choice, given the
lack of day care. And in a job where the pay
depends on how much you pick, putting the
whole family to work boosts the meager wages
of these migrants.
"I don't know what else to do," said Juan
Hernandez as his 9-year-old son, Migual, piled
cucumbers in a basket nearby. "If he wasn't
doing this, he'd be running around. We have
to watch him."
Hernandez spoke on the condition that the
farm not be identified.
"We don't even have enough money to get
back home," said Hernandez, who lives in
Pharr, Texas. "It's been a bad year."
An estimated 10,000 migrant workers arrive
in northern Ohio each June from places like
Texas and Florida to help harvest the cucum
bers, tomatoes and other crops grown in the
fertile plains west of the industrial city of
Cleveland.
The workers and their families live in camps
of one-room plywood shacks without indoor
plumbing for the summer, then move on in
September.
They can make as much as $300 a week, al
though a drought last summer reduced that to
$50 a week for some, said Baldemar Velasquez,
president of the Toledo-based Farm Labor Or
ganizing Committee, which represents about
5,000 migrant workers.
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Corps Cuts
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Barbershop
Flat tops &
Military
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