Landmark bla
chad d
back to court
Andrew-Young.
announce bid
for governor
ATLANTA. 01.- Former At­
lanta mayor and civil right
leader Andre Young la t
wee launched his formal cam­
paign to become tbe first Black
ovemor of Georgia.
The 57-year-old Young who
al 0 served the U.S. Con­
Ire and as United Nations
1mb r vowed to protect
bortion ri&hts. p h economic
gro nd permit a statewide
vote on a lottery. If uccessful,
Youn ould come the
nat'on econd BI c gover-
nor. L. Dougla Wtkler won the
top po 'ti pot in Virginia
I t year.
o ervers give the Young
bid a reasonably good chance
of beiD succ:e ful.
TOPEKA. KaD.- The Topeka.
KanSi school board an­
nounced lasl eek that it will
ask the U.S. Supreme Court to
review its progress in
de gregating city school .
It was in 1954 in Topeka'
landmark "Brown v. Board of
Education" case that the high
court decllred that egregated
chools deprived Black tu­
dents of equal educational op­
portunities. However, the ca e
wa reopened in 1979 when a
group of. Black paren filed a
uit en rging tbat city officials
still had not sufficiently in­
tegrated public schools.
In 1987 I federal appe rs
court agreed ith the parents.
The case begin in 1953
A surfacing
U:ndergrou d
I .
C OMIE
9IpiIal News Service
LANSING - Up until a coup e
of years ago, underground
orage t..w were out of sight
and out of mind.
That is, until the state
Department of Natural
KaIOU1.cea realized many were
JeakiaK. Now, 1,532 leaking un­
dcrgrouDd QI' tanks make
up abouut half of the at te',
critical toxic . es scheduled for
clean-up.
Problem is, evea ofJiciaJs
theDNR aren't me bow many
are leaking. Officials predict
tbcrc �y be many 5,(0)
"We're discovering them on
a daily b . - said Tom Rohrer,
admini tr tor of the DNR's
Inking Underground Storage
Tank Program. "It's a very
serious problem and
reprresen very serious threat
to the ground er resources,"
On Feb. 15, the Michigan
Underground Storage Tan
Fmancial Assurance act will go.
int(\effect·. The 1989 legislation
ill provide an 0 ner of a
properly registered leaking
up to $1 million, providing
that the owner pay $10,000 of
tb -,!p cost.
a respo
- .. to a sen 0 ana. dlines
for inspecting, repairing,
removing and cleaning up leak­
DIg UDderground storage tanks
passed by Congress in the
1980's.
Why the concern?
Mo t of the leaking tanks
contain gasoline or other fuels,
whose fumes can enter base­
ments, cause explosions and -
fires. Rusting tanks and pipes
allow gasoline - which contains
cancer-causing benzene - to
enter groundwater. Half of
when a Black (ather ued
sayinS hi d ughte� was not al­
lowed to attend a white school
near her home.
Black Mayor
(i -e' c� d In
New Orlean
NEW ORLEANS. LI.--New
Orleans econd Black mayor
la t week defeated a white
lawyer in hi ucce ful bid for
a second term.
Forty- even-year-old Sid­
ney Barthelemy th continued
hi winning trelk of 16 years
in politic without ever uffer­
ing a defeat. An e limated 55%
of t city's voters went to the
polls. More than 54% of the
237.000 registered voters are
Black.
Barthelemy i kno n (or hi
easygoing, conciliatory style.
Mlchigan'S 9.5 �OD residents
drink groundwater.
Benzene· kD to cause
leukemia, lymph d blood
complications. problCms with
the central nervous system, lM:r
nd kidney damage Rohrer
said.
The new regulati 0
being phased in graouauy
. will be in full effect � 1998,
said. The most r� deadline
as in December ",he. the
fcdral Environmental Protec.­
tion Afplcy required owners to
iDsped and remewe of upgrade
tanks ewer 2S years old.
"It's my contention that if the
(g ) stations can't clean-up
they shouldn't. be in b· -
Rohrer said
Oean-up costs for )eaking
tank depend on the exteat of
contlmination, he, id, Some
ites havc cost tank owners up
to $250,(0).
But to Marshall .Klaus,
program coordinato pf C ean
Water Action in l.ansing. the
environmental effects of leaking
tanks are far more important
than the financial costs of clean­
up.
"To me it's one of the biggest
problems facing the te, - he
·d.·-Nobody DO C1W long
the cont in • on been
going on.·
People dO n the
full extent of the co tamina-
I tion-especially in places like
Macomb and Oakland counties
where there are service stations
on every corner, Klaus said.
Prank on R p.
Terr I dra
wide attention
lANSING - Someonce said,
-There will come a day when
everybody is famous for 15
minutes·.
Rep. Bbe1 Tcnell, O-High-
Park, is eamiDg Ia fame
DCWS � a practical joke she fell
victim to is drawing nab
tention.
On J 24 0 � Terrell's
coli Reps. PbiI Hoffman,
R-Ibtoa, and Jeny Bartnik, 0-
� pulled a palik OIl
Tcnell, the Legislature's m t-
m�.
Bartnik introduced Hoffman,
a seven-year House veteran, to
Terrell newly elected Warren
Republican Rep. Ro KuI­
chitsky.
Hoffman and Terrell
cUl1'Clltly serve together on the
. House T portati Commit­
tee, e did too her fellow
committee member as not the
real McCoy -(or in this case K -
chitsky).
When the word- 01'
- got b to Terrell, he
clem ded a public poloay
froID her coil IDd said he
3
•
•
an
s
Steel tanks-the m com­
mon - only havc a life expectan­
cy of bout 15 to 20 years, he
said. But many tanks gave been
underground since the 1960's
d havc rusted.
A leabge of eli
secood can lead up to
gallons of fuel a year
a.baw·���nmwou
of ,ICla
"We ha'Je a ole generation
of storage tanks th tare
presenting the problems that
we're dealingwitb now,- he . d.
Some of the newer tanks are
made with Fibergla or are
double-walled, said Tom Voice,
as ociate environment I en­
gineering profe or and
sociate director of Michigan
State University's Hazadous
Substance research Center. But
e� the new tanks sometimes
leak. .
By 1998, it is estimated that
10 to 20 percent of registerd
tanks will be leaking, Voice
said.
A ide form potentipllY }
threatening groundwater su
.plies, leakages also damage
he . d, �n after clean-up, the
gasoline-tainted soil has to go
somewhere. .
Usually, it ends up in .
landfills, Vo· ce said.
"From a philo ophical
standpooint, moving somethins
from one pi ce to another
doesn't solve the problem, - h
said. "But we don't have good al­
ternative to landfills right
now."
Rep.
would return to the
until got oee, Bartnik and
lkifman obliged.
The item printed in The
Detroit ew and Detroit Free
Press, and many other Michigan
papers, the tory does not
eudthere.
I w sent ou acr the
country on the Associated Press
and Gannett new services and
been pick� up by papers
far w y s the Chicago
Tribune, Baltimore Sun and
New York Times.DC