Oregon daily emerald., July 08, 2004, Page 3, Image 3

Ieaks £tSd^^han'c
rtfs selecti0n
The man saw 'Edwards' decals
on Kerry's plane Monday
night and posted
the information online
DAVID BAUDER
AP TELEVISION WRITER
NEW YORK — The political scoop of the
year came not from some hotshot journal
ist, but an airplane mechanic in Pittsburgh.
Bryan Smith, a 39-year-old US Airways
employee who lives in Moon Township, Pa.,
found out that lohn Kerry had chosen John
Edwards as his vice presidential candidate
several hours before journalists, and even be
fore Edwards was asked Tuesday.
He posted the hot news on a little-noticed
Web site, USaviation.com, and went to sleep.
Most of the nation's top political journal
ists had been hunting the story for months,
with some staying up much of the night
Monday trying to uncover the secret.
On duty Monday night, Smith rode a golf
cart through a hangar where Kerry’s 757 was
resting, waiting for a trip from Pittsburgh to
Indianapolis the next day. He was later told
the hangar was off limits.
" They secured the hangar to keep people
out of it, but they didn't close all the doors and
some of the windows were open," Smith said.
He looked in and saw "Edwards" decals
being attached to the airplane's fuselage,
then quickly covered up with brown paper
and masking tape.
"1 guess l looked at the right time," he
said.
After getting off work, Smith went home
and, at 11:45 p.m. EDT Monday, posted a
one-line message on USaviation.com, using
the code name Aerosmith: "John Kerry's 757
was in hgr 4 pit tonight John Edwards decals
were being put on engine cowlings and up
per fuselage."
That was it. He didn't wait for any re
sponse or think of seeking out any political
reporters.
"At a quarter to 12 at night, I was just
thinking about going to bed," he said.
The first inkling that Web site owner Kevin
Laufer had that something was up was when
the Web site, used for chat on contracts and
other airline news, had more than 60,000
visits on Tuesday. Usually it gets 5,000 to
10,000 a day.
The first mainstream journalist to report
the Edwards selection was Andrea Mitchell on
NBC's Today" show at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Yet the story was there to be had, right there
on the Web. It would have been particularly
helpful to the New York Post, which put an er
roneous report that Kerry had chosen Rep.
Dick Gephardt on its front page Tuesday.
They should have looked at the right
place," Smith said.
Washington, Oregon sue
Department of Energy
The states claim
plutonium production
has caused harm to
natural resources
SHANNON DININNY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
YAKIMA — The states of
Washington and Oregon plan to
suethell.S. Department of Ener
gy, demanding the agency begin
assessing what harm 40 years of
plutonium production has
caused to natural resources at the
I lanford nuclear reservation.
A letter notifying the Energy
Department of the two states'
intent to sue will be filed Thurs
day, said Elliott Furst, senior
counsel for the Washington
State Attorney General's Office.
"We're not asking for money
for damages. It's very focused,
asking that the court order the
Department of Energy to start
studying what injuries there will
be to natural resources," he said.
Kevin Neely, a spokesman for
Oregon Attorney General Hardy
Myers, declined to comment un
til after the letter has been filed,
Eugene Airport breaks ground
on new runway, construction
The $ 16.5 million project
was delayed for more than a
decade because of funding
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oregon's second-busiest airport has
begun work on a new runway, part of
a $16.5 million construction project
more than a decade in the making.
Eugene Airport broke ground late
last month on the project, its largest
development in at least 20 years, offi
cials said. Ninety percent will be
funded by a grant from the Federal
Aviation Administration, with the
rest coming from airport user fees
paid by passengers.
First proposed in 1990, the con
struction project was delayed after
several airlines lost passengers and
flights following the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.
Almost three years later, the indus
try is recovering and Eugene Airport is
ready to build, said Gale Mills, project
manager for the city of Eugene.
Eugene Airport recently added
night flights to and from Las Vegas,
and a fourth major carrier, Delta Air
lines. That's putting even more strain
on the airport's two runways, one of
which is "falling apart," Mills said.
The new 6,000-foot-long runway
will serve as backup for commercial
air carriers, running parallel to the pri
mary, 8,000-foot runway.
Mills said the new runway system
will provide greater capacity and safe
ty by allowing airplanes to take off
and land simultaneously.
To build the runway, Eugene Air
port has chosen the city's Wildish
Construction, which handled a 1991
project to extend the main runway by
1,800 feet.
The company first plans to build
earthwork to prevent the pooling of
water, which can attract birds. Then
Wildish will build most of the runway
as well as an electrical vault, a waste
water runoff channel at the end of the
mnway, erosion control systems and
a storm drainage system.
Eugene Airport expects to open the
new runway in late 2005.
Information from: Daily Journal Of
Commerce
House votes to overturn
restrictions on mail to Cuba
Some say such economic
sanctions undermine'
democratization in Cuba
ALAN FRAM
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON — The House
dealt an election-season setback to
President Bush on Wednesday by vot
ing to overturn restrictions his admin
istration has issued on the gift parcels
that Americans can send to family
members in Cuba.
The 221-194 vote was won by a
coalition in which Democrats were
joined by nearly four dozen farm
state and free-trade Republicans to re
buff the president. The vote came just
four months from an Election Day in
which Bush would like to once again
win Florida, the pivotal state in his
2000 victory, by gaining the support
of that state's Cuban-Americans.
The House vote followed a familiar
pattern of recent years in which the
Republican-run Mouse , and some
times the Senate, has voted to block
Bush policies restricting trade and
travel with Cuba, which communist
leader Fidel Castro has now run for
more than four decades.
Wednesday's debate was an emo
tional one, as the debates over Cuba
policy often are.
"It's hard to think of an economic
sanction that does more harm to the
welfare of families in Cuba, or does
more to make the IJ.S. seem mean
spirited toward families who already
have the misfortune to live under
communism," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R
Ariz., one of the sponsors.
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a
Cuban-American, said the proposal
was "dishonest" and "condescend
ing," adding, "It seeks to undermine
an entire policy President Bush has
just implemented ... to hasten the De
mocratic transition in Cuba."
• The new Commerce Department
rules, which took effect July 1, bar
people from shipping items includ
ing clothing, seeds, veterinary
medicine and soap-making ingredi
ents to Cubans.
No items at all can be shipped
to relatives who are not parents,
grandchildren, spouses or other im
mediate relatives.
The administration and its support
ers have said the restrictions are aimed
at weakening Castro. They say the
Cuban government seizes the
packages and demands payments
they say garner Castro millions of
dollars annually.
Opponents say such rules will do
little to hinder Castro. They have also
accused Bush of politically motivated
restrictions aimed at courting Flori
da's Cuban-American voters.
The amendment was offered to a
$39.8 billion measure financing the
departments of Commerce, Justice
and State next year. The Senate has yet
to write its version of the bill.
but said the state has been dis
couraged by the federal govern
ment's position and is prepared
to take action.
The Energy Department can
not respond until after the letter
has been received, said spokes
woman Colleen Clark.
The two states, as well as the
Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho, had
asked to be allowed to join me
diation talks between the Ener
gy Department and the Yakama
Nation. The Yakamas filed suit
against the federal agency in
2002, seeking restoration of
Hanford natural resources that
may have been damaged by plu
tonium production for the na
tion's nuclear weapons arsenal.
The tribes allege that contam
ination of the Columbia River
with radioactive waste and oth
er hazardous substances had
contributed to declining North
west salmon populations in the
past 50 years.
A court ordered the Yakama
Nation and the Justice Depart
ment, which represents the En
ergy Department, into media
tion talks earlier this year.
The Energy Department de
clined to allow any new parties
to join mediation.
Washington and Oregon offi
cials had hoped that by joining
the mediation talks, they could
begin pushing for an assessment
of harm done to natural re
sources at the site, Furst said.
The Energy Department has
said it is too soon to determine
if there were injuries to the envi
ronment or whether reparations
should be paid.
A spokesman for the Yakama
Nation did not immediately re
turn a telephone call seeking
comment Wednesday evening.
Hanford, located near Rich
land in south central Washing
ton, was created as part of the
Manhattan Project in World War
II to make plutonium for nuclear
weapons. The 586-square-mile
site now contains the nation's
largest collection of nuclear waste.
Cleanup costs are projected at
between $50 billion and $60
billion, with cleanup to be com
pleted by 2035.
Shannon Dininny is a writer
for the Associated Press.
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