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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1976)
Church lends support to Democrats "Let's put Oregon in the right column from the White House to the court house," said Frank Church, Democratic U.S. senator from Idaho Wednesday. Addressing a crowd of Oregon and Lane V. County candidates and supporters of the Demo cratic party at the Eugene Hotel, Church spoke out in support of incumbent 4th District Con gressman Jim Weaver and Democrats in gen eral. J Contamination problems seen Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series of articles deal ing with the Hanford nuclear energy plant. By MICHAEL THOMPSON For the Emerald In the early days of the Hanford operation, liquid atomic wastes were commonly poured into settl ing basins along the Columbia River. Here excess moisture ev aporated, concentrating the wastes for easier handling. Swallows found the contami nated mud ideal for nest construc tion. Humans became aware of this situation in 1956 when nests on the sides of occupied buildings turned out to be radioactive. Settling ponds had another problem that worried some scien tists. As the radioactive mud dried some of it turned to dust. Wind picked up the dust, together with its burden of radionuclides, and away it went. Where did it go? In 1970 during an attempt to measure the liquid level in a stron tium storage tank, there was an accidental release of radioactive waste into an open 25-acre pond. Water samples from the pond showed a strontium concentration level exceeding AEC standards for radiation release. A contaminated ditch was screened and noise guns used to scare off waterfowl. In spite of these efforts passing ducks and coots landed on the pond and be came contaminated. Hanford officials estimated that one pound of the radioactive waterfowl would give a person one per cent of the maximum permissible intake of stron tium-90, but that in some birds the amount of radioactivity from other isotopes was considerably higher. Where did the ducks go? Which hunter included them in his bag limit? U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maps of the Pacific flyway migra tion routes indicate that ducks heading south down the Hanford stretch of the Columbia River turn west at the Oregon line, turning south again into the Willamette Valley or down the east side of the Cascades towards the Klamath Basin. Some will stop there for the winter. Others continue on into California and Mexico. Sometimes plants instead of animals pick up radioactive wastes and introduce them into the biological web. Russian thistle or tumbleweed, for example, very prolific among the weeds on the Hanford Reservation, has been found growing in contaminated soil below leaking strontium-90 waste pipes, healthy and appar ently unaffected by a high con centration of radioactive strontium in its tissues. in 1974 Hanford researchers discovered that plutonium is picked up from the soil by plant roots with surprising efficiency. Using barley, Dr. Raymond R. Wildung and Thomas R. Garland (Continued on Page 2) dailv \J emerald An Independent Aewspa^er^ Vol. 78, No. 25 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Thursday, October 80^976 Oregon Input results in program proposal An alternative minority program proposal emphasizing student input will be presented tonight at the last of three public hearings on the University’s minority prog rams. The hearing was scheduled by Frances Scott, chairer of the Planning Committee on Minority and Disadvantaged Students. The committee was appointed last spring by University Pres. William Boyd to review the Academic Op portunity Program (AOP) and make recommendations for a new one. Barbara Koser, who has been involved in campus minority prog rams in the past, will present the proposal at the hearing. The plan was devised by Denny DeGross, former director of the Native American Center on campus and has been enlarged over the sum mer by Koser with the help of community members, faculty and students. “The initial idea developed by group consensus," says Koser. She says she has received en dorsements for the program from University faculty, ASUO officials and other community members. The University's minority prog rams have been the center of con troversy for the past several years. The minority program operating this fail is an interum program developed last spring and offers limited enrollment clas ses to students with grade point averages that fall in the 1.7 to 2.0 range. The program is adminis tered through the College of Lib eral Arts, but past minority prog rams have used socio-economic characteristics as a criteria for eligibility and gave been handled through the Office of Student Ser vices, The hearing is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the EMU. Stu dents with suggestions or criti cisms may attend the hearing or contact committee members per sonally. Committee members in clude Frances Scott, committee chairer and director of the geron tology center; Executive Dean John Lallas, AOP Dean Willetta Wilson, professors Theresa Rip ley, Joel McClure and Ed Col eman; School District 4-j rep resentative George Russell, and students Roberta Nasu, Raul Mecha, Molly Brady and Gary Kim. Persons having questions about the hearing may contact Scott at ext. 4207. Bridge obtains funds Thanks to local citizen concern and a bit of political muscle, Eugene will receive $288,000 from the Federal Highway Ad ministration (FHA) to build a bicy cle and pedestrian bridge across the Willamette River in the Valley River area. City officials received word of the funding Wednesday, which is available through the $6 million Bikeway Demonstration Act. The bridge, which will be ap proximately 175 feet long and cost more than $360,000, will cross the river in the Polk Street area near Railroad Boulevard. City funds will cover 20 per cent of the cost of the project. In September, the chances for federal funding of the project were considered dim. The bridge, one of ten bikeway proposals in the northwestern U.S. considered by the FHA’s Seattle office, was rated only fifth in priority for the region, However, on Oct. 1 the project received the #1 rating. This was due largely to the intervention of Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., ac cording to the Eugene Bicycle Committee. Packwood, author of the bikeway demonstration legis lation. has been a strong suppor ter of the bridge since he toured Eugene's bikeways last summer. Local citizens, led by the bicycle committee and Mayor Les Ander son, also were involved in lobby ing efforts for the bridge. Diane Bishop, Eugene's bicycle coordinator, said Wednesday she is pleased the bridge will receive federal funding. The bridge is necessary to link Eugene’s de veloping bike path systems on the city’s north and south sides, she said. Bishop noted that without the bridge, cyclists have great diffi culty crossing the Willamette River. Cyclists crossing the river in west Eugene are forced to use the hazardous Washington-Jefferson freeway, and the only pedestrian bridge is in the Autzen Stadium area. Construction on the project will probably begin within a year, Bishop said.
