opinion
'Build-down plan':
a one-for-two deal
The old saying "the more things change, the more they re
main the same" justly applies to Pres. Ronald Reagan's "build
down plan."
This latest in a slew of Reagan plans, proposes to the Soviet
Union that each side remove from its arsenal two nuclear
warheads for each new nuclear warhead deployed. Reagan will
be outlining this "build-down plan" at the United Nations
General Assembly today.
Sounds like a one-for-two bargain that only a fool would
pass up. Or does it?
The "build-down plan'^ would achieve a reduction of
nuclear arms in number but not in effect. Consider which
nuclear warheads the U.S. or the Soviets would eliminate for
each one deployed. Rather than arms limitation this seems an
opportunity for each side to rid their arsenals of those outmod
ed Cold War era warheads for the newer, more technologically
sophisticated warheads.
The "build-down plan" in no way serves to ease the tense
worldwide situation. Rather than a bargain only a fool would
pass up, the "build-down plan" is a fool's paradox.
The Reagan administration, in previous arms talks, has pro
posed a ceiling of 5,000 nuclear warheads on each side. This
means the U.S. would have to destroy 2,200 warheads, while the
Soviets would have to destroy 2,900 warheads. The "build-down
plan" isn't presently part of the ceiling proposal, but officials say
it could be incorporated when negotiations resume Oct. 5 in
Geneva, Switzerland. If the "build-down plan" were in opera
tion then those 5,000 warheads would be state-of-the-art and as
effective as twice their number.
The "build-down plan” is the second arms reduction pro
posal to be offered by the United States government in the last
week. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent the Senate
a nuclear freeze resolution and the alternative — a "build-down"
proposal. Instead of a one-for-two offer it appears the Foreign
Relations Committee was acting like a used car salesman slapp
ing an arm around a buyer saying: "If you don't like that plan, try
this one." It would appear that way except that the Foreign Rela
tions Committee, in sending the proposals to the Senate, sug
gested both be defeated. Why did they bother?
Despite all the activity very little has changed at all in the
worldwide nuclear arms situation. Reagan's "build-down plan"
seems more an exercise in phrasemongering as enduring as his
"zero option." Rather than "building-down" or "zeroing" the
Reagan administration should take a unilateral nuclear freeze
proposal to the Geneva talks and stick to it.
New bicycle plan
promotes campus safety
A pedestrian on campus occasionally puts life in peril walk
ing from class to class — not so much from crossing the street
but from hordes of bicycles charging down the narrow
pathways.
However, after a three-year study by the University Campus
Planning Committee, there are now bike-free no-ride zones
where pedestrians can walk without having to constantly look
over their shoulders.
We applaud the plan and urge every student who rides in
and around campus to follow the routes and steer clear of those
areas in which bicycles are prohibited.
Bicyclists are, under the new regulations, required to dis
mount and walk their bicycles in these areas:
— The residence hall area from Agate Street between 13th
and 15th Avenues.
— The pathways between University Street and the library
north of Gerlinger Hall.
— Riding is prohibited in the entrance to Science I.
— The EMU breezeway from University Street to Onyx Street
is off-limits to bicycles.
"The idea is to promote the safety of pedestrians and cyclists
in these. . .especially crowded areas of campus,” says Don
Brooks, associate director of public safety.
The new regulations are a postive step toward ending fre
quent bicycle/pedestrian accidents.
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POWM PASiNK, US NOO YOIKERS KNOWS HOW TO HANDLE DEM BUMS...
An inept EPA and a dioxin scare
The Environmental Protection Agency under Ann
Gorsuch Burford and Pres. Ronald Reagan has again
revealed itself to be not only negligent, but incompe
tent and inept as well.
Government agencies like the Forest Service, the
BLM and the EPA like to paint environmentalists as
well-meaning but misguided Don Quixotes who ride
jackasses and rail romantically against benign wind
mills, but this summer's dioxin scare in Oregon is the
first phantasm in recent memory conjured by the
government itself.
Reporter's notebook
Brooks Dareff
Consider the story, so far, as a three-act farce,
possibly to continue as an ongoing serial.
Act 1. Day: Wednesday, Aug. 3. Setting: a hearing
in Eugene's Circuit Court on a lawsuit aimed at ter
minating all herbicide spraying by government agen
cies in Oregon and Washington.
Three years after taking 2,4,5-T exposed samples
amounts of dioxin.
Rep. )im Weaver, D-Ore., says he has asked EPA
Director William Ruckleshaus for a complete report
on the tests.
Act III: On Monday, Aug. 8, the EPA reports that
the two samples may not be accurate or represen
tative, that additional tests may be conducted,
that they had narrowed down the origin of the
samples to "somewhere in the upper Midwest."
At last report, the EPA is trying to obtain a frozen
chicken from Five Rivers resident Carol Van Strum,
who has been keeping the fowl in her freezer since
1980 as a test sample on instructions from the EPA.
Van Strum tells a reporter the EPA was supposed to
return for the bird years ago, but assures the media
that the EPA is unlikely to get it now because in light
of recent developments she considers the agency to
be untrustworthy.
Subplot: On Friday, the last day of the hearing,
Bob Lee, the attorney for the defense, requests that a
ruling on the trial be delayed until a new hearing
takes place, in which the EPA can defend itself
from Oregon s Five
Rivers Area, the EPA
finally coughs up the test
results after concealing
the information from
people ranging from its
own regional office in
Seattle to a Five Rivers
At last report, the EPA is trying to
obtain a frozen chicken from Five
Rivers resident Carol Van Strum.
against attacks made on
it by the plaintiffs.
(The day before,
former EPA official Rita
Lavelle is indicted by a
federal grand jury on
five felony counts o^^t
ing to Congress and^^B
Area resident who appealed repeatedly by mail to the
Freedom of Information Act.
The time frame indicates the testing was under
taken by the EPA during the Carter administration,
the failure to release the results occurred during the
Reagan administration, and the release of the infor
mation occurred after Ann Gorsuch Burford resigned
as EPA director.
The testimony given by the chemist who con
ducted the tests indicates extremely high levels of
dioxin are present in the Eive Rivers water supply
system, but when queried by reporters, the chemist's
supervisor at the University of Nebraska and EPA of
ft< ials from Washington, D C., suggest caution, ad
vise against panit and deny that there was anything
conclusive.
Act II: On Friday, Aug. 5, an EPA official from
Washington, D.C., says the samples were mislabeled
and had actually been taken from "somewhere in the
Midwest." The official suggests people in the Five
Rivers Area — located 24 miles east of Waldport —
shouldn't be worried because they'd found two
samples from the Five Rivers Area that contained
what is considered to be almost imperceptible
government about her actions when she headed rTTe
EPA's toxic waste cleanup program.)
Judge lames Burns denies the motion.
Reporter's Prologue: If the EPA's mislabeling is
supposed to make Oregonians breathe and drink
their water easier, what about all those poor people
who live "somewhere in the upper Midwest?"
By its carelessness and secrecy, the EPA has cer
tainly caused a great deal of people a great deal of
consternation. How many of those people would
have chosen to move if they'd known two or three
years ago what they had every right to know?
The Five Rivers mislabeling doesn't excuse the
tact that the EPA concealed the information in the
tirst place, or eliminate the possibility that dangerous
levels of dioxin are present there.
Where else could they be present? What else
isn't the EPA telling us?
My confidence level in the EPA certainly hasn't
been enhanced by this "farce" — and I don't sup
pose Carol Van Strum will ever be dethawing that
chicken for dinner either.
Oregon daily
emerald
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letters
Profound
"No Toto,
This could never be Kansas."
— too much a laid-back
throwback to the
sixties.
— Co-ops converge into natural
food nirvana...
granola, sprouts and tofu.
Public notice profusion paints a
mural of
paper patchworks
pronouncements:
— "Free kittens to a good fami
ly. . . homebroken, mellow."
— "Lost dog, answers to
'Peyote'.. .mellow;
if fed a vegetarian diet."
— "Meditation group for people
who love humanity"
... mellow.
Students ponder the
imponderable:
they sit in cafes,
with their Kierkagaard, java and
croissants,
Continued on Page 3A