Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Student trustee Executive Committee illegally comprised, USC asks for change A university committee came up with a proposal to send to the state legislature. It seems the Board of Trustees' Executive Committee has been composed of six members for the longest time, at least, as one ,mlvorc,'tu ?ffi?a1 said, since 1089 R,,t ctatP la?, mcnHatP* the """"~ ,lulv urn.. committee be comprised of five members. The problem is the board has made a point of allowing the chairman emeritus of the Board of Trustees to sit on the board. State law doesn't say that. So basically, the committee has been illegally comprised since at least 1982. And so the Board of Trustees is planning to ask the state legislature to rewrite the statute to allow the current composition of the committee to become "legal." There's no real problem here. Somehow, almost magically, the Executive Committee, like the board itself, almost always votes unanimously on just about everything the board acts on. So it really doesn t matter if five people unanimously voted on such and such a proposal or six people unanimously voted on such and such a proposal. But what is disheartening to The Gamecock is the response students got when they asked for the board's support in helping get a voting student on the Board of Trustees. Basically the attitude of the administration was there's nothing the university or the board could do to change the situation. The makeup of the board is comprised by state law and the university can't do anything about that, they said. And yet, here sits the board, which will soon try to correct ? after the fact ? the illegal composition of its executive committee by making a request to a legislature it earlier said it couldn't affect. So this is put up or shut up time for the university. The students want a voting student on the board. It is the only way ^1? i 1 T4- irt rvnK; \\m\r wrck we can get itui icpicisciuaiioii on me ooaru. n is mv ?v can find out what goes in the seemingly endless streams of closed sessions held by the board and its many committees, and to find out what effect these have on students. So when the secretary to the board drafts the letter to the education committees of the S.C. House of Representatives and the S.C. Senate, it would please the students of this university to have the voting student on the board of trustees added to the board's request. As much as the board and the university have been willing to ignore the students in the past, maybe now is a time for that to change. If the board can request that state law be changed to cover itself, than it can also request change to add something that would cover the students and protect their interests. Left By The Wayside | ^ vA The Gamecock Best Non-daily Collegiate Newspaper, Southeastern Region Society of Professional Journalists, 1987-88 Editor in Chief Datebook Editor STEPHEN GUILFOYLE JENNY SHARPE Managing Editor Graphics Editor SON HA MICHAEL SHARP Copy Desk Chief Comics Editor WAYNE YANG TRACY MIXSON Assistant Copy Desk Chief Adviser KATHY BLACKWELL PAT MCNEELY News Editor Graduate Assistant HAL M1LLAKU PHILLIP MCKLNZIL Assistant News Editors Director of Student Media STEVE PRADARELLI ED fiONZA MARY PEARSON Advertising Manager Features Editor MARGARET MICHELS SUSAN NESBIT1 Production Manager Assistant Features Editor LAURA DAY TOM JOYNER Assistant Production Manager Sports Editor RAY BURGOS KFVIN ADAMS Assistant Sports Editor Mamg" CHRIS SILVESTRI BARBARA BROWN Photography Editors BRIAN SAULS TEDDY LEPP Letters Policy: The Gamecock will In lit print I tilers received. I.cllers should he, at u maximum. 250 lo .100 words long. Luesl editorials should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right lo edit letters for slvle or possible libel. The Gamecock will not withhold names under am circumstance. SRP waste cc There's a bomb plant here? Go west on 1-20, take a left on Highway 1, and you'll run dead into it ? a 300-square mile chunk of South Carolina's soil devoted to the production of nuclear weaponry. More commonly referred to as Savannah River Plant (SRP), this federally owned nuclear production reactor is the sole manufacturer of plutonium and tritium in the United States. Savannah River Plant's only purpose is to produce nuclear weapons; and you thought it was a power plant! While it is true that a large percentage of South Carolina's power is nuclear, these power reactors are owned independently from SRP. The goal of a power reactor is to make steam which turns turbines which generate electricity. The goal of a pro auction reactor is to maice tritium ana piutomum which turn the wheels of the U.S. nuclear war machine. South Carolina has recently attracted national attention for being chosen over Hanford, Wash, as the new production reactor site. The New Production Reactor (NPR) would replace much of the workload of the existing five reactors at SRP. Of these five, three operate at reduced levels, one is a "stand by" because of cracks in the reactor vessel that have resisted welding, and a fifth one was shut down in 1964; today its parts serve as repair parts for the other reactors. The NPR will continue producing tritium and plutonium in order to squelch congressional fears of a future shortage. However, these fears are groundless. A shortage of plutonium is highly unlikely because plutonium essentially lasts forever. It never needs to be replaced. The current number of U.S. warheads (23,000 plus) can be maintained by recycling the plutonium from old warheads into new ones. In recent testimony to Congress, Energy Secretary Harrington even admitted, "the nation is awash in plutonium." Tritium, on the other hand, must be replaced every 13 years. Independent experts estimate that five kilograms of tritium a year would maintain our current nuclear arsenal. The annual output of one SRP reactor operating at 50 percent capacity is five kilograms. Despite this figure, the Department of Energy states it needs to produce almost 10 kilograms per year to build future warheads. It is not as if alternatives to a new reactor don't exist. The Energy Research Foundation, located in Columbia and headed by Frances Close Hart, has Letters to the T nnl/ nf miann queen usu. JLjavn U1 UUVVU color. 9 In addil coverage racist ^ one, I thir To the editor: those thins Homecoming at Carolina is a USC stud festivity that is looked upon as a time that The for celebrating. During this time, the refrain fr students, alumni and Gamecock fans judiceness look forward to the crowning of the amount ol queen. In the past, this has been an issues invc occassion that has received an enormous amount of coverage by The Gamecock. However, this was not the case during Homecoming '88. In getting to the point, I would like r I 'Kn to say that I am very displeased with the small write-up on the crowning of Miss Homecoming '88, Nanette mus Graham. Actually, there was no write-up at all. There was only a picture, which was a nice shot of Presi- To the edii dent Holderman's arm and an exten- I am 8( i pmnfinnal 31V^ tapuun. 1 111111 N niai Graham, Miss Homecoming '88, 1 was cirivii deserves more publicity than what Charlotte, she has received. After all, she was Columbia elected by the students. Therefore, I favorite, F believe that 1 speak for everyone in after a fe\ saying that an article on the crowning Columbia' of Miss Graham should receive station, W precedence over an article on The thought. B Last Temptation or an article on the music. Su "Five Points Shuttle." In other thought I \ words, she deserves front page station. Ye coverage. It seems to me that this is a 8?t, the cl racial issue. In my opinion, Nanette my horror Graham, Miss Homcoming '88, has said- "yoi been cut short of the glory, which the Hot 95." mtaminates So offered some possibilities: 1) Use weapons designs which require less tritium but which would not require testing; . 2) Use existing inventory more efficiently; 3) Promptly retire obsolete warheads that contain tritium for recycling; 4) Eliminate existing "neutron" warheads and recycle the tritium; 5) Use the tritium in tactical or battlefield weapons to replenish strategic weapons. Aside from the obvious disadvantage of production reactors ? that they supply the ingredients for a nuclear war/holocaust ? other paramount concerns arise, namely doubts about the production reactor's safety and the environmental problems it creates. 1 Savannah River Plant boasts of an outstanding safety record for construction and operation; never has there been a plant related death. There is, however, an abundance of problems and increasingly severe criticism of the Department of i Energy's reactor safety program. The most recent blunder involved an aborted restart during which i operators increased power without understanding what was happening inside the reactor. Experts nationwide have paralleled the procedural crisis to the 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl. Luckily, no serious damage resulted, except to the credibility of SRP. The dangers of nuclear power are also manifested in serious environmental problems. To begin with, millions of gallons of water run through the reactors daily to cool them. This thermal water is often dumped into natural ponds, scalding, boiling and destroying all forms of wildlife. Low level radiation has been buried incorrectly, and some of the underground high level editor illy receives because of her I thought it must be a Monday and Tuesday it wai tion, I would like to say thing, R&B and soul mus Gamecock is the school wondering what was going , and, in functioning as favorite station that opera ik that it should report on Batesburg. A hostile takei ;s that are of importance to terrorist group perhaps? ents. Furthermore, I feel discovered the truth that I Gamecock staff should of WKWQ, formerly K' om allowing their pre- changed the station's pro; from determining the . format. And he lives in ' publicity that is given to Va.!!! living minority students. What the hell is this? Do bia not have enough R& Arethia B. Hyatt stations? Are there not r Criminal Justice junior you can count on one hand the Big DM 101.3, B96, 10: rjni/ iUp 106.7, and the list goes onI-IIC newest member being Hot ? orroinct RQOlll IP QjPg In fact, if it weren't for tl we wouldn't have the grea Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye tor: Brothers and the Motown g jing through an extreme enough is enough; do we n trauma. Sunday afternoon K95 was the only station ng back from a weekend in stantly played great rock and I began picking up my Yes, Fox 102 plays classii radio stations. My second roll, but you won't h ox 102, came in first, and Osbourne on there mu v more miles, I tuned in though I enjoy classical 1 s only real rock 'n' roll jazz now, my roots are pre* KWQ K95 Rock, or so I ly rock 'n' roll, lut what I heard was soul rely, not K95 Rock. I And now I have been d< vas picking up a Charlotte my only escape to the worl t, the closer to Columbia I And what about those pc earer it became. Then to who work at K95? What the DJ came on the air and Boerke, who not only is/w Tre listening to the new K95 but also one of the p< helped give a new uth Carolina waste storage tanks have leaked, releasing radiaiition directly into the environment. These 51 storage tanks were not well planned for. In the event of an earthquake the tanks could crack, emitting enough high level plutonium to make 50 bombs! I These are only some of the KNOWN problems that have plagued SRP. Ambiguous claims and faulty statistics that are released by SRP spokespersons make it extremely difficult for individuals and organizations outside of the plant to uncover operational truths. Andre Carothers of Greenpeace magazine reports of a former manager of the plant's burial ground, Bill Lawless, who exposed the illegal burial practice of dumping low level; waste in regular cardboard boxes. In a matter of hours after burial, this waste was slowly burning a trail to South Carolina's water supply. Mr. Lawless also described the practice of keeping two sets of statistics ? the confidential one that revealed water table contamination, and the fals? one which heralded the absence ol ground water poisoning. The condidential set of statistics was obtained after Lawless's testimony. Among the things it cited were that people in Aiken and other surrounding areas were receiving radiation doses 50 times greater than the amount DuPont said they were receiving. Despite these nuclear horrors, many elected state officials enthusiastically support the NPR and hail it as a godsend for South Carolina's economy. Both Republicans and Democrats support the new reactor because of the economic boom it would bring to the state. It would take 10 years to build, and construction alone would bring 4,000 jobs. But these 4,000 construction jobs will be about the only jobs created, and once the plant is completed, there will be 4,000 unemployed construction workers. Also, a reshuffling of employees and. a drastic employee cut will probably result from the; new reactor taking the place of the existing three reactors. While it is a fact that the reactor will create an econonic boom, it will only last 10 years.South Carolina won't solve any economic pro-' blems with a short-sighted solution. As many critics of NPR have suggested, the' wisest thing to do is to use the $6 billion it would, take to build the reactor and channel it towards cleaning up the existing damage to our environment. People could then be employed for decades and decades cleaning up the mistakes of our past. joke; yet, Kockateilas' this summer: how > the same would you like to work in a place that. ;ic. I was totally went opposite of what it was? on at my Students and lovers of rock 'n' roll, 1 tes out of urge you, please call, write or do Dver by a anything to get our station back. Then I Send letters to K95 or call. There has :he owner to be something we can do to stop 95 Rock, this nightmare. Maybe K95, like gramming Rockafellas, can be reborn through Norfolk, our efforts. We have to show the new Hot 95 that we want to rock 'n'| es Colum- roll!!! B/Top 40 nore than Todd (.ariand ' ? We have Media Arts junior' J.l, 104.7, - with it's and'fUn^ Movie slanders: tat music, w ^9 :rrsf Jesus Christ rroofc Rllt eed more? To the editor: that con- I feel there is nothing wrong with, 'n' roll. as The Gamecock puts it, "freely ex: rock 'n' changing controversial ideas," accorear Ozzy ding to the First Amendment. ! ch. Even However, when these "ideas" are nusic and contrived perversions of the history dominant- of an individual, slander has taken place. The movie The Last Tempta- ; tion of Christ not only offends the ? jprived of faith of millions of Christians, it d of rock. commits slander against the person i or people Jesus Christ, about Art as a DJ at Bill Haulbrook ;ople who Chemical Engineering and birth to South Carolina College senior