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WEATHER
Today: Mostly sunny, high about 95 degrees, overnight low about 70 degrees. Chance of thunderstorms is 20 percent.
Tomorrow: Partly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms. Highs about 93, overnight lows about 70 degrees.
Weekend: Slight chance of thunderstorms Friday and Saturday, weekend highs 85 to 90 degrees, lows 68 to 70 degrees.
Meet KU's new baseball coach Jury returns verdict in Goetz case Review of Witches of Eastwick
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Wednesday June 17,1987
Vol. 97, No. 147 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SUMMER WEEKLY EDITION
Published by the students of the University of Kansas since 1889
Plans for reactor site activate approval, concern
By STORMY WYLIE
Staff writer
Plans for storing KU's hazardous waste in the nuclear reactor building on campus have sparked premature concern, a University official said earlier this week.
The official, Steven Cater, KU environmental health and safety officer, said, "Let me emphasize this. We are just trying to get approval right now. If we get it, then we find the money. But even if we do get approval, we may not do it.
Residents react to hazardous waste storage
"There're really a lot of 'ifs' involved here — if we get approval, if we find the money, if we can do what we want and if there's not a lot of opposition."
The University is seeking approval from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to remodel the reactor building into a hazardous waste temporary storage area.
Harold Rosson, associate dean of engineering, wrote the NRC last week to ask for permission to remodel the reactor building.
Although the reactor was emptied of all radioactive fuel last year, it is still licensed by the NRC, and it must approve any plans to the reactor, said Robert Bearse, associate vice chancellor for research, graduate
By STORMY WYLIE
Staff writer
Residents of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house, 1602 W. 15th St., and the Jayhawker Towers Apartments, 1603 W. 15th St., expressed obvious concern about the plans to remodel the nuclear reactor center to house hazardous waste
The building is located on West 15th Street, across the street from the Towers and just east of the fraternity.
The University seeks approval of its plans from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission
John Montgomery, Junction City junior and vice president of the fraternity, said he wanted to know more about the plans.
"I'm a little uneasy about this," he said. "I would want to know more about it. When they took the child, we had both, and a half ago, it was a little scary."
The radioactive fuel from the nuclear reactor was taken out Jan. 28 and Feb. 2, 1986, in two loads. The reactor began operating in 1961 and was used by the School of Engineering and department of
Sue Reburn, housemother at the fraternity, said she also was uneasy about the plans for storing the waste.
radiation physics.
"I have mixed feelings about it," she said. "My personal opinion is: I don't like it, but what can I do? How safe is it, that's the question."
Tina Lux, Kansas City, Kan. senior, and Terry Tucker, Houston senior, said they wouldn't be concerned unless the hazardous waste was nuclear waste.
"I don't really want it across the street," Lux said. "I don't want it anywhere."
Tucker said, "I think a lot of people here will be unhappy about it if they do put it over there, but I don't think anyone will move over it. There will be some concern but not panic."
Lisa Carsten, Lawrence junior,
said she would just wait and see
what happened. She also lives at the
Towers.
"I don't like the idea of it being within a 50-mile radius of Lawrence," she said. "Anything that is hazardous is dangerous. The problem is, I wouldn't want it all in one spot. If there's a chance any of those chemicals could mix . . ."
studies and public service.
Bearse said that he hoped to hear from the NRC in July, and that it would be several months after that before remodeling could begin. He said it would cost about $40,000 to remodel.
The nuclear reactor building is across the street from Jayhawker TowerS Apartments, 1603 W. 15th St..
and just east of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house, 1602 W. 15th St.
The proposed facility would house chemicals, acids, bases, oil-based paints, paint solvents, gasoline, used fuel oil, herbicides, pesticides and other wastes, Cater said.
Bearse said none of these materials were dangerous as long as they were properly disposed.
"Sure they are hazardous, but so is life," Bearse said. "People are not going to start dying like flies, but these materials must be treated with the right amount of respect."
Cater said several types of hazardous waste could be found in most homes.
ticides, Drano or Liquid Plumber, household ammonia, paint solvents, or even a broken mercury thermometer or lead shotgun shells," he said. "These are all what we consider hazardous wastes and have to deal with at the University."
"A typical home will have some oil-based paints, herbicides and pes-
Presently, the University stores its hazardous waste in a semitrailer west of Iowa Street and just north of
the KANU tower, Cater said. The waste is transferred every four months to out-of-state storage facilities.
"The trailer itself is not unsafe, but is not in the best condition," Cater said.
He said the trailer was quite a distance from the main campus and had no electricity, heating, cooling or phone. Many of the chemicals need to be kept at a fixed temperature.
Cater said the University had two options other than remodeling the reactor building: to fix up the trailer or to build a new facility to store the waste. However, the federal government denied a request from the University for money to build a new storage building last year.
Tentative plans to remodel the reactor building call for the addition of a room on each side of the reactor vessel, located on the south side of the building, Cater said. The rooms would be partitioned to separate the various kinds of hazardous materials.
He also said the Lawrence Fire Department suggested putting in several safety factors.
Bearse said rerouting the driveway to accommodate heavy trucks would cost the most.
Cooler weekend forecast for city
By CARLA PATINO
Staff writer
It should be easier to breathe this weekend.
Richard McNulty, deputy meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Topeka, said temperatures should fall by the weekend.
"The moisture should also decrease," he said. "The uncomfortableness that the humidity levels bring would be less."
Bill Hibbert, Liverpool, N.Y. senior studying meteorology, said the heat wave that broke over Lawrence this week was caused by a very persistent high pressure system. The system, he said, was not allowing fronts to come through and lower the temperature.
Hibbert said that at this time last summer Lawrence was as hot as it is now, but the nights were cooler.
"By June 1986, we had temperatures in the higher 90%, but we had cooler nights with temperatures in the higher 60%," he said. "Lately, night temperatures are in the mid-
to upper 70s, due to the higher humidity."
Sarah Eiesland, Topeka junior and a cashier at the Kansas Union, said it took some time for the air conditioner at the Union to cool down the building in the morning.
"The air conditioner is turned on around seven in the morning, and it doesn't cool the building until eight," she said. "But it gets pretty cool around noon."
"It is a shock after being here during the day to go out. It is like walking into a blast furnace," she said.
"It is uncomfortable to work in these conditions," he said. "I look forward to 3:30 p.m. That is the time I quit."
Terry Nash, a plumber working outside the Union on renovations, said he tried to cope with the heat by drinking a lot of water.
Robert Porter, associate director of the physical plant for facilities and operations, said that the team has designed the strain of cooling the campus.
"We don't have any more load than in winter time." he said.
Jennifer jameson, tett, and Abbe Schrager, Chicago juniors, cool off in the Chi Omega fountain. High humidity and temperatures in the upper 90s have area residents seeking ways to cope with the heat. The students stopped at the fountain on their way home from class.
Summer orientation provides transitions
By KFITH ROBISON
Staff writer
For potential KU students and their parents, summer orientation is more than just enrollment and getting to know the campus.
"Instead of it being an enrollment program or an admission program, it should be a transition program," said Lovely Ulmer, coordinator for orientation. "If you can get the student through the first year, the attrition rate drops on a lot."
"One thing we want to stress is that this is a transition for the family," she said. "As the students break away from home, they become more in terms of their egos, personalities and cognitive development."
Ulmer said the separation of students from parents at orientation was important to the transition process that students and their families go through.
She said that at orientation she and her staff talked with parents about the changes in values and beliefs that students go through at school.
"If students come home and announce that they've changed religions, or if a student was a Republican when he went to school and comes home a Democrat, that's normal."
Ulmer and her staff usually begin preparing for the summer orientation sessions in February, when student and staff members are selected to help with the program.
"The kind of staff I like to put together is the kind of staff that represents diversification of the University. I want it to be balanced so that a new student can identify with at least one of the staff members," she said.
Ulmer said that between 4,000 and 5,000 new students would go through the orientation program this summer.
KU summer enrollment down 10 percent
"Hopefully, by the time they graduate, they will have returned to the values they came here with," Ulmer said.
"We had 120 applications for 10 positions. It's very competitive," she said.
See ORIENT, p. 8, col. 1
By CARLA PATINO
Staff writer
A University official provided figures Monday that show enrollment at the University of Kansas this summer semester is down about 10 percent.
Sally Bryant, assistant to the dean of educational services, said that a total of 7,972 students were enrolled at KU campuses as of June 9, the first day of the summer session.
First day enrollment figures for summer 1986 show that 8,797 students were enrolled. 825 more students than this summer. The official total, computed at the end of the session, jumped to 9,482 last year, an increase of 685 students from the first day count.
According to University figures, Lawrence campus enrollment was 6,390, compared with 7,273 in 1986. However, enrollment climbed at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where 1,582 students were enrolled, compared with 1,524 in summer 1986.
As of Tuesday, officials at the Med Center were unable to provide figures of an increase or decrease in summer course offerings.
Del Brinkman, vice chancellor of academic affairs, said he had expected summer enrollment to decline because of fewer courses being offered this summer.
"The percentage of the decrease is less than the percentage in offerings." he said.
James Carothers, associate dean of liberal arts, said he was surprised that the enrollment had
declined by only about 10 percent when course offerings had been cut by about 25 percent.
"I thought that summer would probably be proportional with the budget cuts," he said.
Don Foster, registrar at Kansas State University, and Myrre Roe, director of communications at Wichita State.
enrollment was up at their respective universities.
Foster said the tentative enrollment, as of June 8, for on-campus classes at K-State was 4,266, or 40 more students than last year.
Roe said enrollment at Wichita State, as of June 12, was 7,771.