WEDNESDAY, NOV.7, 2001
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Aquifer begins to run dry
New plan for Ogallala will allow communities to manage water source
The Associated Press
WICHITA — A new plan designed by western Kansans would localize management of the Ogallala Aquifer, the region's primary water source.
The Kansas Water Authority is to receive the plan formally in Dodge City today. The authority is to decide tomorrow morning whether to accept the proposal, the first step to including it in the state's 2004 water plan.
"This is the lifeblood of western Kansas, and that makes it the lifeblood of all of Kansas," said Rex Buchanan, associate director of the Kansas Geological Survey.
In its report, the committee said it believed that incentive-based programs, improvements in technology and education were the best way to conserve and extend the life of the aquifer.
Also proposed by the Ogallala Aquifer Management Advisory Committee is abandonment the so-called two-pools proposal that established a "use" pool and a "conservation" pool within the aquifer.
Buchanan, who was one of the staff members working with the
citizen group, said the new plan recognized the variable nature of the aquifer from place to place.
"It will help in the sense that it will identify the areas where the problem is more severe, and focus on them," he said.
Garden City farmer Cliff Mayo, one of the four Kansas Water Authority members who sat on the committee that drafted the proposal, said he expected the full board would accept the proposal.
Mayo said that the two-pool concept was not accepted by the groundwater management districts and residents of western Kansas because it was perceived as an intrusion on their property rights. He called it a misunderstanding by the public of the twopool proposal.
"I'm satisfied that we have given it our best effort to this point," Mayo said. "I'm not satisfied it is the total answer because I don't know what the answer ought to be. We worked pretty hard to look at it."
poor people "It wasn't accepted, and it wouldn't be accepted," he said. "The terminology was dropped."
The committee's plan would delineate the Ogallala Aquifer into aquifer sub-units with similar characteristics.
Water use goals would then be set according to the decline of groundwater.
Areas with ample water supplies would need either no or modest reductions in water use. For those areas with rapid declines in groundwater, and short usable lifetime, more aggressive goals should be set, the committee recommended.
For those areas with rapid decline in groundwater, strict administration of existing water law should be applied if incentive and voluntary plans fail, according to the recommendations.
The proposal also calls for research and education to extend and conserve the life of the Ogallala.
Buchanan said the problem of declining groundwater in western Kansas did not develop overnight and would not be solved overnight.
"There isn't one single magic bullet out there that is going to solve this problem," Buchan said. "There are a lot of things that when taken in conjunction will make a difference."
"This one isn't easy. It is a crucial issue," Buchanan said. "It affects the livelihood of nearly everybody in western Kansas, whether they are irrigators or not."
Man receives death penalty
The Associated Press
OMAHA, Neb. — A man was sentenced to death in the electric chair yesterday for raping and strangling a 13-year-old girl and drowning her 7-year-old brother after arguing with their mother.
Arthur Lee Gales Jr. was convicted in August on two counts of first-degree murder in the Nov. 12 deaths of Latara and Tramar Chandler. He was also convicted of attempted first-degree murder for beating the mother, Judy Chandler, whom he had once dated.
Gales, 36, maintained his innocence, but DNA evidence helped prosecutors convict him at trial.
He sat in silence without handcuffs as District Judge Gerald Moran handed down two death sentences for the murders and an additional sentence of up to 50 years in prison for the attempted murder.
"Now my children can rest. Justice has been served," Chandler, 36, said afterward.
She had urged that Gales be sentenced to death, but the slain children's father, Tracey Newman, disagreed.
"It's just more pain to other families and my family." Newman said. "I wanted him to live out his life like I have to live it out. Let him know what he did every day."
Prosecutors argued Gales should get the death penalty because of the cruelty of the crimes and because the children were killed to cover up their mother's beating.
Prosecutors also pointed to Gales' criminal history, which includes convictions for sexual assault and armed robbery.
Defense lawyers argued that Gales should be spared for the
Chandler said she and Gales had an argument over another man the night of the killings. She was beaten and left for dead on railroad tracks.
sake of his relatives.
broad tracks.
Chandler's daughter was found raped and strangled in a bedroom in Chandler's apartment. Her son was found drowned in the bathtub.
Gales joins six other men currently on Nebraska's death row. Nebraska is one of only two states with the electric chair as the sole method of execution. The other is Alabama.
Alabama Under Nebraska law, death sentences are automatically appealed to the state Supreme Court. No date has been set for the appeal.
Nazi guard may get deported
CHICAGO — The federal government wants to revoke a 77-year-old man's citizenship, claiming that when he applied to become a U.S. citizen he failed to reveal he had been an armed guard at two Nazi concentration camps.
The Associated Press
An attorney for Joseph Guzulaitis claims his client was forced to work at a German prison camp but never entered it and does not know what happened there.
"At worst, he was a lowly guard," attorney John Gibaitis said of Guzulaitis, a retired baker. Gibaitis said he would fight any effort to strip Guzulaitis of his citizenship or deport him.
According to a civil complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago,
Guzulaitis was a member of a Lithuanian battalion that worked as security for Nazis and killed Jews.
and killed jews. The government said he patrolled Polish and German camps, and guarded prisoners during a "death march" from the German camp at Hersbruck to the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945.
Guzulaitis was arrested in Germany in October 1945 after two Holocaust survivors recognized him on a Munich street as a concentration camp guard, according to the complaint.
But he was released in March 1947 after U.S. authorities misplaced paperwork, the Justice Department said in a news release. He entered the United States in 1950 and was naturalized in Chicago in 1964, according to the department.
The Justice Department alleges that during the naturalization process, Guzulaitis mentioned he had been fined for running a stop sign, but not that he had been arrested in 1945 as a suspected war criminal.
Nazis built the Majdanek concentration camp in eastern Poland in 1941. By 1944, 360,000 mostly Jewish inmates were killed. Court records allege that Guzulaiis served as an armed guard at the camp and was there on Nov. 3, 1943, when at least 17,000 Jews were shot to death.
The average life expectancy of a prisoner at the Hersbruck forced labor camp in Germany was two months during the time Guzulaitis allegedly was there, according to the Justice Department.
Dirty birds cause health woes
The Associated Press
WICHITA - Two educators have been diagnosed with a respiratory illness caused by exposure to the pigeons that flock around the high school where they work.
Northeast Magnet High School will close tomorrow at 3 p.m. for a four-day cleaning, during which workers will vanquish any remaining birds and remove their droppings and feathers. The school will reopen next Tuesday after the Veterans Day holiday.
Victoria Science teacher Jean LakeBrown and guidance counselor Victoria Jackson were diagnosed with pigeon fancier's disease this fall.
"We are now being told we
can never go back in the building, and I have to be careful for the rest of my life," Lake-Brown said.
The disease, which is sometimes called pigeon lung, is an allergic reaction to bacteria in the droppings. It can cause shortness of breath, coughing and in some cases, fever, said Garold Minns, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita. Some people are predisposed to pigeon lung while others might never be bothered.
No other faculty members or students have reported respiratory problems and they are not in danger, said Tim Phares, the district's environmental services supervisor.
Several parents said they were not especially worried about their children's safety, but some said they may take extra precautions.
Lake-Brown and Jackson are still working for the school. But since Oct. 5 they've been doing their work at the Atwater Neighborhood City Hall, which is two blocks away.
It is unclear whether either woman will remain at the school in the spring,but neither wanted to quit her job mid semester.
"Their status in the future is up to them and their doctor," assistant principal David Wessling said.
The Associated Press
Birthday suit banned in Dodge
Wichita. Violators would face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
DODGE CITY Commissioners have approved an ordinance banning nudity in public places in an effort to regulate adult entertainment.
The Dodge City Commission voted unanimously Monday to adopt the ban, which is modeled after a similar law in
Exceptions were made for certain artistic endeavors, such as nude modeling for art classes or a theatrical production with what the ordinance calls "serious literary, artistic, scientific or political value."
Commissioners first started
debating whether to ban public nudity in August.
"The response was that we didn't really feel we had a serious problem; however, the intent was to regulate this industry before problems might occur." City Manager John Deardoff stated in an Oct. 31 memo to the city commission.
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