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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 18, 1978)
... Of environmental concern By Catherine Siegner The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will hold a conference July 24 and 25 in Port land to discuss whether hearings should be held on restarting the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. The NRC recently turned down a petition submitted by the plant’s owners asking that Trojan be al lowed to restart while modifica tions to the control building are being made. It was found earlier this year that the control building walls do not meet federal specifi cations for withstanding earth quakes. If the NRC decides to hold hear ings on the matter, restarting the plant could be postponed until next year while at least eight indi viduals and two organizations that have requested to intervene pres ent testimony on the modifica tions. The conference will be held in room 223 of the Federal Building, 1220 S.W. 3rd Ave., Portland. A total eclipse of the sun will occur in the early morning hours on February 26, 1979 over the Northwestern United States. The University's Outdoor Pro gram plans to coordinate efforts with other outdoor groups to find locations which will offer the best opportunity to view this unusual event. Ideal locations would be high in the mountains where the sun shines most of the time such as the Eagle Cap Wilderness in Oregon; the Mt. Adams Wilder ness in Washington; the Idaho Primitive Area, and the Bob Marshal Wilderness Area in Mon tana. If you have a site in mind or would like to be notified of efforts to see the eclipse, write to Gary Grimm, University Outdoor Pro gram, EMU Room 23, University of Oregon, Eugene 97403. All plans and contact persons for the event will be published in the University’s Cooperative Wil derness Adventures brochure to be sent out December T, 1978. Workers at Portland General Electric Co.’s coal plant site near Boardman staged a sympathy walkout July 12, after a Spokane man working at the site was crushed by boxes he was loading onto a truck. The man, Loyal Vick, was taken to a Pendleton hospital but died en route. Workers maintained that telephones should be provided Drug patrols cut, sheriff unhappy By KEVIN HARDEN Of the Emerald Lane county drug users may be relieved, but Sheriff David Burks isn’t smiling. Budget cuts that have taken nearly $200,000 from the county's Public Safety Department have taken a large bite out of the county's narcotics and drug enforcement team. Burks, speaking at the Republican Roundtable Luncheon Friday, said the loss of $175,000 from the Sheriff’s Department budget alone has left five people without jobs. Two of those belonged to the nar cotics team which enforces county drug laws. The cuts were the result of programs added to the county budget by the Lane County Commissioners several weeks ago. The programs weren’t part of the original county budget, and money had to be approp riated from existing programs, Burks said. Burks protested the appropriations during a news conference after the commissioners intituted the new programs, but to no avail. “I did go to the people because I was concerned about what was happening to our budget,’’ Burks said. “The people had a right to know what to expect from the sheriff’s department if the cuts went into effect.” The Department of Public Safety, which runs on an annual budget of about $6 million, usually gives $200,000 back to the commissioners each year. Most of its operating funds come from outside the county, Burks said. Federal funding for the county Traffic team, the Interagency Rape team and the burglary team will end at the end of this year. After that, the programs will be taken over by the county. Which may not happen if the commissioners take any more money from the sheriff’s department, Burke said. Burks said the budget cuts forced him to set up 13 priorities for the sheriff's department. At the top of the list is the new jail, scheduled to open next March. With the addition of the new jail, built with county tax bonds, the department would be able to house almost 250 prisoners in both the old and the new facilities. The old jail, on 5th Street downtown, houses 188 prisoners, nearly 40 more than its capacity, Burks pointed out. "Frankly, there are a lot of people sleeping on the floor over there right now." But, even with increased jail space, Burks says, he and the county's narcotics team won't be able to fill the cells with area drug law violators. The loss of two narcotics agents and a lab scientist have put a damper on drug law enforcement, he observed. “We aren’t out to get everyone who smokes marijuana," Burks explained. “That’s not what we are going to do. Now we re going to go after the big-time dealers who are selling the drugs in the county." on the site, and an ambulance helicopter should be at hand in case of accidents. Union representatives met with PGE officials Friday and were promised the safety improve ments. Half of the 150 to 200 workers returned to their jobs Friday, while the rest were standing around or had left the site. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has chosen the Wheelabrator CleanFuel Corpo ration of Washington, D.C., for negotiation of a contract to oper ate the DOE’s Biomass Liquefac tion Facility in Albany. The Facility, built in 1976 at a cost of $3.8 million, is a testing station for perfecting a process of converting wood chips to oil. Wood chips are ground to a coarse powder and blended with a coal tar distillate to produce a thick paste. Gasses are added and the paste is cooked at high tempera ture until it is converted to oil by a chemical reaction. The two year contract will run through June 30, 1980. The State Board of Forestry’s three regional committees, which advise on forest practice rules, will meet this month to consider pro posals by the Oregon Environmen tal Council and Gov. Straub to tighten controls on the use of her bicides in Oregon's forests. The Northwest Regional Forest Practices Committee will meet in Salem on July 26 at the State Forester’s Conference Room, 2600 State St., beginning at 10 a.m. The meetings, open to the pub lic, are being held to determine if the committees v/ish to make any recommendations to the State Board of Forestry at the formal public hearings on the herbicide proposals scheduled for August 3 and 4 in Salem. The formal public hearings in August will also be held in the State Forester's Conference Room,-beginning at 9 a.m. each day. The Crabshell Alliance, an anti-nuclear group based in Washington State, has filed a class-action suit against the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) in an effort to halt construction of five nuclear power plants in the state. The Alliance charged that the plants planned by WPPSS de grade the environment, cause birth defects, and lower property values. In another action filed against WPPSS in Grays Harbor County Superior Court, the Alliance is seeking $1.5 million for “illegal ac tions" taken against demon strators during a June 25 occupa tion of the S.atsop nuclear plant construction site. Crabshell charges that “legal demonstrators were damaged by the malicious and arbitrary instiga tion of arrest and prosecution” by WPPSS on June 25. THE TILL IS LOCKED BUT— WE’RE OPEN! THURS NITE FROM 6-9 Find out, is depth of field an agricultural term? Gerlachs will have a team of photographic specialists on hand to answer your questions on cameras, technique and theory; IF you want to buy anything, come back another day, be cause we promise not to sell anything tonight! THURS, JULY 20, IS QUESTION & ANSWER NITE Where we sell photography, not just cameras. erlach*: 849 E. 13th Camera Centers
