Monday, June 25, 1979
5
South Africa protest ends with both sides satisfied
Members of the KU Committee on South Africa said Saturday that their success in being allowed to distribute protest materials during summer orientation vindicated their right to distribute literature anywhere in the Kansas Union.
"I think we proved we are allowed to distribute literature," said Ron Kuby, a member of the committee and May KU graduate, "and that while one or two of us will be harassed, ten or twenty will be allowed to stay."
University officials, however, said the committee's action in setting up its information table outside the orientation area community a request administrators made last week.
"I don't mind them being out there, outside of the orientation area, as long as they aren't interfering with traffic," Gil Dyck, dean of admissions and records, said.
About 10 committee members gathered
Saturday morning on the first level of the Kansas Union and set up an information table at the head of the stairway south of Woodruff Auditorium. Committee members visited the auditorium and leaflet the ballroom and Woodruff distributing leaves to students arriving for orientation.
ON WEDNESDAY, Dyck and Del Shankel, executive vice chairman, had asked Laired Okle, a committee member, to lead the effort to move the ballroom to any other place in the Union. Shankel said he thought the table, because of its location between two signs directing prospective students to registration, might be considered part of the orientation process.
Saturday, Shankel did ask committee members not to distribute their literature in the room outside the ballroom. The committee members would have much right to distribute literature in the
hallway as they had outside the orientation area. Shankel did not force them to move, and the group left when it ran out of pamphlets.
"THESE PEOPLE come off the elevator," Shankel said, of the people arriving for orientation, "and the first thing they are handed comes from the committee. I just want to make sure they aren't misled because this is an official University position."
In a speech welcoming the prospective students and their parents, Chancellor Ar-venezi said that he has been asked to announce that not all the librarians being given is sponsored by the University. The first test for entering freshmen is to take an exam sponsored by the university and what is not.
"He was leaving, Kuby told Dyk, "I guess I'll see you at the next orientation event."
Profs study effects of dredging
By JIM BLOOM Staff Reporter
This summer, two KU ecology professors are heading a study of the environmental effects of sand and gravel dredging operations on the lower Kansas River.
Frank Cross, professor of systems and ecology, and Jerry DeNovelles, associate professor of systems and ecology, are doing the study for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to establish a possible licensing and regulating commercial operations on the Kansas River.
The dredging operations remove sand to be used for construction in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Cross said. To remove sediment, dig a deep pit in the river and sit upland sediments.
"We're going into this thing with an open mind," Cross said last week. "We want to find out both the good and bad effects of dredging, if there is an effect at all."
In the winter, the pits could be a benefit to the river's fish onnucleus. Cross said.
"FISH LIKE DEEP holes and pits in rivers during the winter. That's where they find most of their food when the low spots are frozen," he said.
There are, however, some drawbacks that could arise from the project, Cross said. One drawback is turbidity—the amount of solid particles suspended in water. The floating debris can also attract fish to find food and could damage plant growth on the river bed by blocking out sunlight.
The presence of heavy metals and pesticides is another drawback, Cross said. These elements enter the river and gradually settle among other sediments. The chemicals dips up sand, these metals and the chemicals could be redistributed in the river.
A THIRD DRAWBACK could affect the reproduction cycles of fish populations. Cross said the dredges could damage or destroy snawning sites.
"These factors are all possibilities," Cross said. "We're not sure that these things will affect anything. If we find that they do, we need to get ready for the dredging operations are the cause."
The study was requested by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Kansas Fish and Game Commission. The Corps of Engineers agreed to authorize the study.
In addition to Cross and DeNoyelles, four graduate and two undergraduate students are enrolled in the program.
DENOYELLES SAID he and Cross read about the project, and applied to the Corps of Engineers to conduct the study. The professors received a $234,000 grant from the Corps to fund the three-year project, which began May 24.
"We run the tests on the fish ourselves," said Crawford, who is also the curator of fish for KU's Natural History Museum. "But we have to collect the water and soil samples and send them to the Environmental Protection Agency in Kansas for tests."
CROSS SAID the project team collected samples along a 14-mile stretch of the river, from just downstream of DeSoto to the Interstate-635 bridge west of Kansas City, Kan. There are nine dredging operations along this stretch of the river.
Working from two boats, the students take samples at 21 different sites. Control samples are taken at three sites, two upstream and one downstream of the nine dredging operations. At three of the nine sampling operations, experimental samples are taken.
Six experimental samples are taken at
different sites for each of the three dredging operations, Cross said. The students transect the river 50 yards upstream from each of the three dredging operations right downstream to the dredge. Samples are taken 200 yards and 400 yards downstream from the dredge.
"WE TRY TO complete taking samples from each of the sites in a two-day period." Cross said. "I'dlearn, we would want the samples to be as fresh as possible way that our samples would be as thorough."
Cross said that conditions such as currents and water levels could change quickly in the river, possibly affecting the samples.
The students will collect samples monthly until November, Cross said. They will take one sample in mid-winter, and then they will start taking samples again next March.
"We'll work from March through November, because that's when the dredging operations are taking sand from the river," Cross said. "It'll be difficult to take the samples in the winter, but it's important that we do it."
ONCE THE SAMPLES are collected, the Environmental Protection Agency will test the soil and water. The agency will examine the chemical pesticides and 18 heavy metals. Cross said.
Every fish will be weighed and measured at KU, Cross said. If the fish is large, the team will release it back in the river. However, most of the fish will be brought back for reproductive tests—egg of gonad counts and conditions.
The fish will not initially be tested for concentrations of the pesticides and metals, Cross said but if high pesticide and metal contamination is detected in fish it might be retested for chemical levels.
LAWRENCE OPERA HOUSE PRESENTS IN CONCERT
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