4A
Monday April 24,1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: ENDANGERED RIVER
River deserves protection from continued pollution
The Kansas River was put on the 10 "most endangered" rivers list Tuesday by the American Rivers organization because of threats from herbicides, pesticides and sand dredging.
What is perhaps most unfortunate about the decline in water quality of the Kansas River is that it easily could have been prevented through direct action by the farmers and through stricter federal regulation.
EFFECTS OF AGRICULTURE
Agriculture fields adjacent to the Kaw and its tributaries allow chemical run-off to drain into the surface waters, thus polluting them. Chemicals such as atrozine, a toxic herbicide, and chlordane, a toxic pesticide, have been the main pollutants.
The key to reducing pollution is to reduce the need for chemicals. Crop rotation achieves this goal. Farmers can also plant buffer areas of trees and other vegetation between their fields and nearby surface waters to help filter out the toxic run-off.
EFFECTS OF DREDGING
The current proposal by Victory Sand and Gravel to dredge the Kaw is impractical.
Dredging the river would further reduce its quality by resuspending the toxic pollutants that have settled on the river bed, primarily atrozine and chlordane. This holds the possibility of endangering Lawrence's drinking water supply. A representative for the company said Wednesday that the river was not as important to the company as many have perceived. If this is the case, the company should take back its request to dredge the river and the threat of further destruction to the river.
The average citizen can help preserve the Kaw by promoting the protection of wetlands that naturally filter and retain nutrients flowing off the land. Lawrence residents can also support organic farming by purchasing produce at the two local health food markets and the upcoming Farmers Market.
Farmers and federal regulations are key to preventing further pollution of the endangered Kansas River.
FEDERAL REGULATIONS
The Clean Water Act of 1977 and the Water Quality Act of 1987 represent the federal government's efforts to control pollution of our surface waters. The goal of these acts is to make all U.S. surface waters safe for fishing and swimming.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted a National Water Quality Inventory in 1990. This included testing 11,942 river miles in Kansas to see whether they were safe enough for swimming.
Only 627 miles were swimmable.
Maybe if these laws encouraged farmers to lower their overall chemical use, then more than 5 percent of the streams, rivers and lakes in Kansas would be safe enough for swimming.
POTENTIAL CRISIS FOR THE CITY
The Kaw's listing as an endangered river should worry everyone who drinks water that originates from the river, roughly half of Lawrence. Even though the other half of Lawrence receives its water from Clinton Reservoir, in about 50 years the reservoir will inevitably be dry. In 50 years, if citizens and farmers have not worked together to clean up the river, Lawrence will have a major water quality crisis on its hands.
Yes, the technology does exist to remove most of the pollutants that find their way into the Kaw. But, this is no justification for the continuation of farming techniques that threaten the wildlife composition of the river's ecosystem and the city's water supply.
AMY TRAINER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
JENNIFER PERRIER
Business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
News...Carlos Tejada
Planning...Martin Markt
Editorial...Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial...Heather Lawrenz
Campus...David Wilson
Colleen McCain
Sports...Gerry Fey
Associate Sports..Anisha Miller
Photo...James Filmo
Associate Photo...Paul Kotz
Features...Nathan Glason
Design...Brian James
Freelance...Susan White
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Beth Pole
Regional mgr ... Chris Branman
National mgr ... Shelly Falvels
Coop mgr ... Kelly Connealy
Special Sections mgr ... Brigg Bloomquist
Production mgrs ... JJ Cook
Kim Hyman
Marketing director ... Mindy Blum
Promotions director .. Justin Froselone
Creative director .. Dan Gier
Classified mgr .. Lissa Kuleth
Jeff Mac Nelly/ Chicago Tribune
Spirit of friend kept alive one year after his death
Today marks the one year anniversary of Scott McWhorter's death. It marks a day when many lost a confidant, a brother and a true friend.
Never was I ready at age 19 to bury one of my friends. Hell, no one is ready to bury anybody at age 19.
But Scott was different. He wasn't an acquaintance or someone who I had just bumped into one night. He was my and many others' friend.
If God ever blessed me with a son,
I would want him to be like Scott;
to be just like the friend who left us so early.
He was someone who embodied all that we admire in a person: confidence, strength, conviction, happiness and kindness.
Not one single day goes by when I don't think of Scott. Every night before my head hits the pillow I think about him.
I think about how he would have handled a certain situation or about how he would have reacted to a specific event. I think not in a mourning or melancholy frame of mind but instead in a way that reflected Scott's life: positive, straightforward and honest.
I now know that Scott is happy and where he truly belongs. He is in a place where he can look down on us and smile his cov smile.
But that makes it all the better. Because now Scott is where he needs to be, among the blessed and the special ones. I cannot express in words how much I miss him, and I do not expect many of you to understand.
I firmly believe that God took Scott for a reason. It is a divine reason, one that no one will ever know.
Just know that now my friend is
STAFF COLUMNIST
away from the pain and angst of this wretched world.
Scott was special for many reasons, but one particular reason sticks out in my mind. He was here on this Earth because people needed him. They needed to be close to someone like Scott.
Scott showed the way to many people. If I had never met him and died tomorrow, I would die a lonely man.
People need someone like Scott in their lives. He was the example of true friendship and livelihood. He filled a void for so many people in his own unique way.
We all need a guide to silently lead us, to inadvertently show us what is right and what is ultimately wrong. Scott did this for so many people.
Just his mere presence would fill a room with an indescribable aura. It was a sense of safety and warmth, a notion that things would be taken care of and done right. We all needed him for our own special reasons.
And those reasons ran the gamut of every facet of existence. By this I mean that Scott brought certain things to certain people. To me he brought friendship and admiration, to others he brought what they needed.
I firmly believe that when Scott died he was called up because he
had fulfilled his ethereal duties and done what God had prescribed him to do. It was his time to go, and there is nothing that anyone of us can do.
All we can do, however, is realize that what Scott taught us was life. A thing that is unfair and bitter at times but that somehow turns out for the best in the end.
The end for Scott was abrupt and chilling, but his very existence left us with more than enough wisdom and grace for a thousand lifetimes.
And I know in my heart that my friend is somewhere right now, smiling upon us all in a way that only he could.
I did not write this article to make people sorrowful or upset. I wrote this to remember a friend, a young man whom everybody should have known. I know many people who are better people after being with him.
This day should be spent in positive reflection. Thoughts should be focused not on Scott's actual death but instead on his life. Who he touched, influenced and affected is more important than the tragic accident that took his life.
Today is not a day of atonement for me. In fact, I feel selfish that I am the only one of his friends who is able to make his feelings known publicly. And in no way can I do Scott justice in one reading, one writing or one thought.
He was too much of a friend for that. So with that, I will say that I miss Scott, and I always will. I am by no means the only one.
Carter Voekel is a Dallas, Tex., sophomore in English.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"It's kind of like when you ask someone out on a date, and you don't know what the answer is yet."
—Josh Selzen, first-year law student, who became a student senator after an election tie made it necessary to decide the outcome with a coin toss.
"Whoever did this was an animal."
-Oklahoma governor Frank Keating, following the blast that tore a nine-story hole in the federal office building in Oklahoma City on Wednesday.
"It is between me and the Legislature."
—Ron Ash, professor of business, about the Kansan decision to run faculty salaries in an April 20 special section.
—Cancellor Del Shankel on the Board of Regents unanimous vote to drop the word 'interim' from his title.
"Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart."
compiled by Kansan staff the week of April 17
Kansan misses point by naming wrong person as child abuser
Under my photograph in the Tuesday, April 18 edition of The University Daily Kansan there appeared a guest column. The column described the heart-wrenching account of how a sibling and I overcame years of mistreatment from an abusive father. The column also
GUEST COLUMNIST
described our in effectual mother who could not find the strength to intervene. It was a story, but one that offered hope to other survivors of childhood abuse. At least that is what was printed by the Kansan.
Besides hope,
that column
offered another
lesson. It opened my eyes, and hopefully yours too, to the hysteria, stereotypes and misconceptions that exist about such abuse. Recent events on campus have made sexual abuse a hot topic. However, the rampant stereotypes that exist are preventing us from seeing the issue as it really is. Worse yet, these stereotypes are preventing us from ever weeding out this deeply rooted problem from our families and society.
The column that I submitted to the Kansan originally stated that one of my parents was the abuser and that the other was incapable of intervening. The Kansan copy editor that made the final edit of my column was the one that added the words "mother" and "father." When he or she made the decision to assign a sex to the perpetrator, it was an action undeniably influenced by rampant stereotypes and misperception about childhood abuse. Although most likely well-intentioned, the Kansan printed its version of the truth that will defame the person of my father forever.
It was my mother who was abusive. My father never laid a hand on me. That is not the point that I wanted to make. Nor did I think that pointing the finger of blame could help rectify the injustice that occurred. The column was an attempt to make the reader think about the circumstances that lead to the abuse of a child. What I tried to say was that no abuse occurs in a vacuum. I talked about poverty and the way our society trivializes violence. I also mentioned that many abusers were in fact abused themselves and how children are treated more like property than individuals of dignity. These are some of the circumstances that lead to the abuse of a child.
To make this the main point of the column, I purposely left out the identity of the abuser. I wanted people to reflect on the causes of abuse and not the violence itself.
In a last minute edit, my column became an inaccurate and sensationalized tale of the abuse itself. I naively thought that I could share my experience so that others might come to understand how abuse occurs and what we can do to stop it.
However I was the one who learned the biggest lesson of all from this. Our sensationalism of violence and our misunderstandings of its causes are so strongly embedded in us that they change our perception of the truth. This distorted perception is what made the copy editor assign the role of abuser to my father. It is the same forces that quite possibly might never allow us to get to the root of violence that has plagued us for countless generations, such as the violence that is the physical and sexual abuse of our children.
MIXED MEDIA
John Bernett is a Mohovlehva, Pa., non traditional student in biology.
By Jack Ohman