Friday March 4,1988
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, No.110 (USPS 650-640)
Hazardous chemicals spill into creek
Stephen Wade/KANSAN
Three members of the Douglas County Hazardous Material Response Unit leave the scene of a toxic chemical spill seven miles east of Lawrence on the Kansas Turnpike. The herbicide Ethalfluralin was found leaking from an overturned tractor-trailer truck yesterday.
By Ric Brack Kansan staff writer
Hazardous chemicals from a tractor-trailer truck carrying more than 40,000 pounds of the herbicide Ethali-furalin spilled into a creek about seven miles east of Lawrence after the truck overturned Wednesday night.
Leavenworth County officials said yesterday that the accident occurred on the Kansas Turnpike near Pony Creek about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, but officials did not find out until 14 hours after the accident that hazardous chemicals were leaking from the truck
The truck's driver, Michael W. Shannon, 32, Olathe, received only minor injuries in the accident.
Ethalfuralin will explode if it is exposed to temperatures exceeding 86 degrees Fahrenheit and can be melted. It is heated, or absorbed through the skin.
The leak was discovered at about 1 p.m. yesterday after a turnpike investigator began experiencing dizziness and headaches while he was photographing the accident scene. No other person was reported affected by the chemical.
"That was the first indication that something wasn't right out there," said Mike McCulley, a turnpike authority dispatcher.
McCulley said that after that discovery, the right lane of the eastbound side of the turnpike was closed to traffic about 2 n.m. yesterday.
Officials cordoned off an area about one half mile on either side of the accident to ensure that no one gets into the hill or cause the chemical to explode.
Ron McCutcheon of the Environmental Protection Agency's Kansas City, Kan., office, said last night that Environmental Specialists Inc. from
Kansas City, Mo., began to clean up the chemical around 10 p.m. last night.
He said the first step of the cleanup would be to empty the remaining chemical from the truck and to remove the wrecked truck from the
McCutcheon said removal of the truck and its chemicals should be completed by morning. He said that the chemical that was spilled on the shoulder of the turnpike, on the ground below, and in Pony Creek
would be picked up by a vacuum truck today and would be taken to a disposal site.
After the chemicals have been removed, McCutcheon said, state officials will determine whether any soil will need to be excavated.
Yesterday afternoon, the Douglas County Hazardous Materials Response Unit built two dams on Pony Creek to contain the chemical.
McCutcheon said that two large pools of the chemical were found near the truck and that the pools had
Pony Creek flows to the south from the accident scene to Nine Mile Creek. Nine Mile Creek flows into the Kansas River.
overflowed into the creek.
McCutcheon said last night that there was no danger of contamination to the Lawrence water supply.
Leavenworth County Commissioner Gerald Orok, who was on the scene yesterday afternoon, said that 864 cases of the chemical were in the trailer. He said each case contained two two-and-a-half-gallon bottles of
the chemical.
Emergency workers set up roadside command posts upwind of the site to avoid the fumes. Units from the Lawrence Fire Department and the Kansas Highway Patrol assisted at the accident site.
Timetable for Soviet exit is set
The Associated Press
GENEVA — Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed yesterday on a nine-month timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and said half the soldiers should be out of the country in the first 90 days.
The two points long had hindered progress toward a settlement aimed at ending nine years of fighting in Afghanistan, where an estimated 115,000 Soviet troops are backing the government against Muslim guerrillas.
But a U.N. report released yesterday warned that success at the Geneva talks could leave another problem unresolved: the return of more than 5 million Afghan refugees who have fled to neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
The report said the refugees were unlikely to return unless the Afghan government of President Najib was informed of the opposition and refugee representation.
Agreement on the withdrawal timetable had been widely expected.
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil said he was confident that remaining issues, which he did not specify, also would be resolved, provided "Pakistan could abide by the tacit and formal agreement not to raise anything new."
Pakistan represents the insurgents in the talks.
Pakistan has said that a successful settlement must be accompanied by formation of a broad-based transitional government to replace the Afghan government.
Hoch is new site of forum
Bv loel Zeff
Kansan staff writer
The free speech forum tentatively scheduled for Monday has been moved to Hoch Auditorium for security reasons after increased opposition in the University community.
Michael Foubert, director of Slightly Older Americans for Freedom, organizers of the forum, said yesterday that he had decided to move the forum from the Kansas Union's Woodruff Auditorium because of the possibility of a large crowd and security problems.
The forum, which would involve bringing members of the Ku Klux Klan to campus, is scheduled for 8 p.m.
"By moving the forum, we can accommodate more people and not worry about the other events that mattering on in the Union," Hohbert said.
Ann Eversole, chairman of the university events committee, said she would like to
"It's hard to predict what will happen," Eversole said. "There is a lot of interest, and I'm sure there will be demonstrations."
Foubert said there had been speculation that only KU students and faculty could attend the forum. But
Protests of KKK planned
See SECURITY, p. 10, col. 1
By James Buckman Kansan staff writer
About 50 KU students and Lawrence community members gathered last night at the Burge Union to decide what actions they would take if members of the Ku Klux Klan appear Monday night in a campus forum on free speech.
The meeting included both whites and blacks and people of different religious backgrounds. The group, whose members had met once before and had called themselves Students Committee, changed its name to Students and Community Against Oppression and Racism last night.
After extended discussion, the group voted with a show of hands to
See MEETING, p. 10, col. 1
Art history students experiment with bronze
Course teaches 'creation of art'
Bv Kevin Dilmore
Kansan staff writer
Elden Tefft probed beyond emerald flames into an orange-glowing hole in the floor of his studio in the Art and Design Building. He checked a gauge on his yard-long thermometer, then pulled it from the furnace. After only seconds of exposure, the tip of the rod was red-hot.
of his safety helmet. "Back-ups, take your positions."
"it's time. You know what to do." Tefft,
professor of art, shouted the shield
Four students wearing green lace coats and leather safety leggings went into action. Two of them manned a clamp and extracted from the furnace a metal crucible containing molten bronze. It glowed as if blown from a volcano.
The students on the "pour team" hooked the crucible to a power winch and hoisted it a foot from the floor. They maneuvered the cooling container over five plaster molds, which had been secured in a pit filled with sand. The team centered the crucible over holes in the molds and steadily began to pour.
The bronze, beated to more than 2.000
degrees Fahrenheit, flowed into the molds.
After each mold had been filled, the remaining bronze was poured into steel troughs, to cool and be used again someday.
The bronze pour was only one of a series of hands-on art experiences provided in Methods and Materials, an art history course offered this semester. There are about 20 students in the class.
Stephen Addiss, professor of art and one of the class instructors, said students would visit various classes during the semester in addition to the annual dental brush painting to ceramics and textiles.
"It is possible to get a Ph.D. in Art History, yet still not know what goes into the creation of art," he said. "This class lets
Molten bronze is poured into the molds after heating in the furnace for about an hour. From left: Julie Naggs, Bettendorf, Iowa, senior; Kim Tefft, Lawrence graduate student; and Eldon Tefft, professor of art.
Lindley Lewis, Manchester, Tenn., senior, and Eldon Teft chip away a plaster mold to reveal the bronze sculptures. The pieces will later be washed and polished.
students get technically and creatively involved in the process of art."
"It is a very complicated course to arrange," she said. "We must ask many artists to give up their time to do this."
Jeanne Stump, associate professor of art history and the other instructor of the course, said this was the first semester the course had been offered in about six years.
Stump said the class was a necessary static outlet for students to work with art for real-world applications, not museums.
"For some students," she said, "this bronze pour could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
Scott Almsberger, Overland Park senior, watched as the mold of his form study project was filled. Although he would not know the fate of his semester's work for another hour, he said he was not worried.
"I'm more nervous about rugby practice right now," Almsberger said.
But Julie Naggs, Bettendorf, Iowa, senior and a member of the pour team, said she loved it.
"I had seen a pour once, but I had never seen it," she said. "It was fun, but it was pery-wrashing."
Although hers was one of a few sculptures that did not cast, Naggs said the experience was thrilling and that she planned on doing it again.
After the pour, students celebrated their success by roasting hot dogs and popping popcorn over the cooling floor furnace. Teft raised a punch glass and toasted the poul team for their efforts. He said he played host to a pour party after every pour to wish students good luck on their projects and to appease the gods.
"Also, if you are known for good pour parties, people will turn out to help you be said."
Almsberger said he gained an insight to art from the class.
"After looking at a bronze sculpture that has been around forever, it's interesting to know how it was done." he said.
Ruth Jacobson/KANSAN
A student holds a snake cast in bronze. The process took about nine hours of work.