University Daily Kansan / Monday, March 20, 1989
Nation/World
7
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators have concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency is risking a major procurement scandal by letting Superfund contractors for potential conflicts of interest.
EPA enforcement is so lax that a Superfund contractor investigating a hazardous waste site could also be working for the polluter who dumped it, and the agency wouldn't even know it, the General Accounting Office said.
"This system is currently dependent on contractors' identifying and informing appropriate EPA officials about conflicts," the report said. It said a company working for both sides could feed the EPA biased data, thereby weakening legal efforts to recover cleanup costs from a politicized environment.
The GAO, Congress' investigative arm, said that in one instance the EPA did not discover such a conflict until a company attempted to represent both the agency and a polluter at a preliminary settlement hearing.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press during the weekend, said the EPA "relies heavily on contractors to avoid conflicts, but does not review contractors' performance to ensure compliance with EPA's conflict of interest requirements."
The GAO investigators said few conflicts had been found so far, but cautioned. "This risk is a growing possibility in light of EPA's continuing efforts to expand the number of contractors used to perform remedial and technical enforcement activities."
Superfund, an $8.5 billion program to clean up hazardous waste sites, relies increasingly on private companies for the preliminary investigations of Superfund sites because the government has neither the personnel nor the expertise to do it in years, contracts north more than $600 million were approved by the agency, compared to $97.3 million in fiscal 1982.
David O'Connor, director of EPA's procurement and contracts management division, said: "We're not in a position to police every situation with our officers." The amount effort required to do that just wont be overwhelming."
He said that a company caught working for both the agency and polluters at the same site could face a ban from EPA work or termination
Eastern searching for new pilots
MIAMI — Eastern Airlines went shopping yesterday for the new pilots it will need to survive a criollin strike now in its third week.
"We've waited patiently for the pilots on to come to its senses," Eastern spokesman Robin Mattell said. An advertisement ran in yesterday's newspaper appealing for pilots to "be part of the new Eastern."
Similar advertisements will begin running tomorrow in other newspapers across the country, Matell said.
The Associated Press
Marten said.
The advertisement promised an "outstanding opportunity for the very best" and tried to put the best light on the strike, telling pilots to "understand that this is an unprecedented opportunity for growth and success."
Matell said that Eastern was not lowering its requirements for experience and was offering the same wages and benefits that pilots had been receiving in their current's contact with the Air Line Pilots Association.
Pilot association. Only about 200 of 3,600 Eastern pilots have crossed picket lines since the machinists union strike began March 4. Eastern acknowledged
earlier that it would live or die on its number of
wheelies, not less than its percent of its pre-strike schedule.
It takes at least six weeks to train a pilot who is new to an airline, and Eastern — whose daily losses are in the millions — may run out of cash within a few months. On March 9, the airline filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of federal bankruptcy law, and officials insisted that the airline would keep flying with a smaller, cost-effective operation.
Fits union spokesman J.B. Stokes said that the advertisements were aimed as much at picketing pilots as at pilots who might want to come to work for Eastern,
"It's two-fold," Stokes said. "They want to test the marketplace, and they also want to try to frighten our photos into thinking they're being intimidated they could be ignored by now that intimidation isn't going to work.
"They're going to be disappointed. There isn't a pool of pilots out there."
pool or picture the user Stokes said that other carriers were hiring pilots and that other carriers offered better working conditions and long-term stability.
Matell said that Stokes was engaging in "ALPA propaganda." He said that Eastern had received more than 100 unsolicited resumes from qualified pilots before the advertisements began running.
Eastern reported light loads on its Northeast shuttle flights Saturday and yesterday. Fares were back to the usual $69 weekend rate after the previous weekend's promotional $12 fare helped Eastern to pack about 62 flights daily between New York, Boston and Washington. Some passengers got stranded at airports last week because return flights were sold out.
Matell said that Eastern was encouraged by last week's weekday shuttle service, offered at a discount $49 a ride, because it attracted many of the business travelers who most frequently used the shuttle. The weekday rates return to their normal $99 this week.
Mattell said that Eastern's Latin American routes were seeing steadily increasing loads.
the declined to comment on a threat made Saturday by Teamsters union leader William F. Geneseo to organize a sympathy walkout at Palm Beach, concentrating on the Pan Am Northeast shuttle.
150 left dangling over Magic Kingdom
The Associated Press
About 150 people were aboard the ride at the time. No injuries were reported during the shutdown and a one-hour rescue effort. McTyrse said.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — A stalled aerial ride left about 150 persons dangling in the sky over Disneyland for workers struggling to rescue them.
The Skyway cable stopped Saturday, apparently after someone in one of the four-person gondola boats sailed in vain, said Disneyland spokesman Bob McYtey.
All the attractions in Fantasyland and several in Tomorrowland were closed because fire trucks had to maneuver underneath each car during the prolonged rescue effort. Firefighters used hydraulic lift equipment.
ment to rescue passengers, one by one, from gondolas suspended about 40 feet overhead.
The gondola ripe shut down automatically Saturday evening, the spokesman said. Riders had to be lowered to the amusement park floor by firefighters using extension equipment.
Firefighters from the Anaheim, Orange County and Garden Grove
fire department assisted in the rescue effort, he said.
"The guests have all been calm, and no one was injured," McYreton said. "It's just been a big inconvenience for us, but we've got in the air and those on the ground."
No legal action was planned against the riders blamed for setting off the ride's emergency shutdown system, the spokesman said.
News Briefs
AFFIDAVITS REEVAL BICKERING: Efforts to the story of the late mob leader Meyer Lansky apparently became embroiled in a struggle between two powerful Mafia families when one family sought to have a favorite actor portray Lansky, court documents show.
portray Lansky. It recently unsealed FBI affidavits disclosure evidence that New York's Genovese crime family sought to ensure that actor James Caan would play Lansky in any film made, yesterday's Los Angeles Times reported.
But a prominent Hollywood executive was backing another Lansky script with which Caan was not associated and turned to the river Gambino crime family for help, according to the
paper reports. The alleged involvement of the Genovese and Gambino crime families in the dispute reflects the mob's fascination with its portrayal to the public as well its interest in potential profits from a movie, the Times said.
The affidavits, which included transcripts of telephone conversations between people involved with the film deals, are part of a wide-ranging investigation of organized crime infiltration of the entertainment industry, the newspaper reported.
Lansky died in 1983 at age 81, and investigators called him the undisputed patriarch of organized crime, having allegedly made millions of dollars in loan sharking, gambling and prostitution.
END FOR EXILE: The son of Italy's last king has recognized the Italian republic, renewing his campaign to convince the Italian government to allow him and his son to return from a 43-year exile despite a constitutional ban, media reports said yesterday.
In a letter to Italian president Francisco Cossiga published in Italian newspapers, Victor Emanuel wrote from exile in Switzerland that he did not, however, renounce his claim to the former throne of the House of Savoy.
former thronе of the Rudder II,
Victor Emmanuel IV, 51, wrote the letter Saturday,
the sixth anniversary of the death of his father.
King Umberto II.
He said that he had appealed especially on behalf of his 17-year-old son, Emmanuel Filiberto, whom he hoped would be allowed to attend an Italian military academy and university.
Victor Emmanuel has appealed in the past for the government to allow his family to return.
Italy's 1947 constitution, however, bans Victor Emmanuel and his heirs from the country, and a two-thirds majority vote of both houses of the Italian Parliament would be required to alter that constitutional ban.
FAMILY SUES CEMETERY: A family has sued a cemetery for $1 million, claiming that a damaged casket allowed mourners to see the deceased's foot and that a cemetery employee interrupted the funeral to demand that the rabbi move his car.
The family claims that all of that happened at the funeral of Pauline Rosenthal last year. They filed a lawsuit in Broward County Circuit Court last week.
last week.
Her husband, Arthur Rosenthal, and her two daughters and their families are seeking the damages from Menorah Gardens and Funeral Chapels for putting them through an emotional wringer at the funeral in January 1988.
Pallbearers were supposed to carry the casket from a hearse to the grave site. Instead, the lawsuit alleged, "slovenly attired and unclean" cemetery workers did so until family members insisted on completing the task themselves.
Japanese ruling party sees decline in election
The Associated Press
TOKYO — The governing party's candidate won a third term as provincial governor by a sharply reduced margin yesterday in one of two elections considered a trial of the scandal embroiled Liberal Demo-
With 99.5 percent of ballots in the prefecture of Chiba counted late yesterday, Liberal Democrat Takesh Numata had 96 per cent of votes, Shoji Ishii of the Japan Communist Party, election officials said.
Numata was elected by a 3-10-1 margin in 1985, and the narrower margin could indicate trouble for the governing party in voting scheduled this summer for half of parliament's upper house.
Prime Minister Noboru Kakeshi's chances in October to win another two-year term as party president and prime minister.
In Miyagi prefecture in northeast Japan, Socialist Party candidate Shuntaro Honma easily won election as governor. Liberal Democratic candidate Kazuo Aichi had withdrawn after attackers forced 4000 from a company accused of influence pedding and insider trading.
Three Cabinet ministers have resigned because of links with the company.
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KANSAS SOFTBALL IS COMING!
Thursday, March 23 at 2:00 p.m.
at Jayhawk Field
Kansas vs. Wichita State
Two FREE round-trip airline tickets to anywhere Braniff flies in the continental U.S. will be given away at the game!
- Look for recycling bins next to trash cans*
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Why not recycle your paper?
*If you're in the Union, drop off your paper in the SUA office.
ALUMINUM CANS • NEWSPAPERS
Office space & work stations
NOW AVAILABLE
at the
ATTENTION ALL STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS 1989-90 Space Applications
Pick up information & Applications
SUA Office, Level 4, Kansas Union
Kansas Union-Organizations & Activities Center
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canterbury house
Morning Prayer - 7:30 a.m. Monday-Friday Evening Prayer - 5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday
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Holy Week
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Maundy Thursday, Holy Eucharist, Noon (Danforth Chapel)
Prayer Vigil: 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 a.m.
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Quiet Meditation begins at 5:30 a.m.
Call for more information 843-8202 1116 Louisiana, St. Anselm's Chapel
Thursday, March 23 is the filing deadline for the
BOARD OF CLASS OFFICERS
Applications are available in 410 Kansas Union and are due NO LATER THAN 5 P.M., MARCH 23.
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