Page 8A STATE Tuesday, Ff(r_ Index: Se< THE BATTALION ^Sports 2B Tuesday. Februai News in Brief Brewery will close two years early SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The his toric Pearl Brewery will be closed more than two years earlier than expected as it continues to lose money, a Pabst Brewing Co. official said Monday. The 115-year-old plant'on the banks of the San Antonio River will be shuttered in 60 days, Pabst chief operating officer Jim Walter told KTSA radio. Walter said corporate employees will remain in San Antonio, but 82 workers will be laid off. Walter did not immediately return telephone calls from the Associat ed Press. Last June, San Antonio-based Pabst’s board of directors voted to keep the brewery open for at least three more years but operating at less than half its capacity and with a skeleton crew. In July, more than 260 employ ees were laid off. The remaining workers have continued to make Lone Star and Pearl, two regional beers born in San Antonio. Search continues for missing sailor GALVESTON (AP) — The Coast Guard continued searching Monday for a man who apparently fell off a sailboat en route from Galveston to Isla De La Hara, Mexico. Mark Warren, 36, was discovered missing from the 27-foot sailboat Zephyr early Sunday afternoon when the other person aboard awoke to re lieve him on watch. The remaining sailor immediately radioed the Coast Guard. Gasoline additive cause of San Marcos pollui SAN MARCOS (AP) — State regulators are preparing to add a site polluted by a gasoline additive along the San Marcos River to their Superfund registry of Texas’ most environmentally contaminated ar eas in a move that has surprised government officials and environ mentalists. Cleanup of pollution caused by the additive MTBE and a solvent, if approved by the state’s Natural Re source Conservation Commission, would be the first Central Texas ef fort to get federal Superfund help since the program began in 1980. Investigators for TNRCC were scheduled to outline what they know about the plume of ground- water contamination east of the In terstate 35-Texas 123 intersection during a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. tonight at the San Marcos Public Li brary. “The public meeting is an at tempt to obtain some information about the site, maybe things the pub lic will know and will share,” the TNRCC’s Dick Lewis told the San Marcos Daily Record. Groundwater tests of Willow Springs Creek, one of the San Mar cos River’s chief tributaries east of 35, have since the 1980s found de tectable levels of MTBE and a dry- cleaning solvent. But city officials who occasionally test the river for contaminants such as fecal col- iform, said they were unaware of contamination near the river. Envi ronmentalists were also caught off guard. “This was a big shock to us,” Di anne Wassenich, San Marcos River Foundation president, told the Austin American-Statesman. “We knew nothing about this, and it’s a shame, because if we had, it might have been easier to trace the contamination.” She said researchers for the foun dation and Southwest Texas State University also perform tests along This was a big shock to us. We knew nothing about this, and it's a shame.'' — Dianne Wassenich San Marcos River Foundation president the river, but no one had identified the contamination by chemicals per- chloroethylene (PCE) and methyl tertiary butyl ether before. The TNRCC has investigated the area for more than 10 years, but only recently recommended the site for Superfund status, saidSitij commission project! “I know from thegenerJ viewpoint, il does lookli taken a long time," Loisj) will be addressed at then The MTBE contamd officials say, is linkedic United Parcel Service® the source of the solvent!) tion has not yet been !ra®| The level of con PCE and the MTBEi creek and the springs tliailj remained consistent form decade, according to r« ever, state records indicate! be no traces of the i river. 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