Page 4-Tuesday, August 1, 1978-The Michigan Daily michigan DAILY Eighty-eight Years of Editorial Freedom 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, M. 48109 Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 55-S News Phone: 764-0552 Tuesday, August 1, 1978 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Hands off sources T HE FIRST Amendment used to assure a free press. In recent months, though, both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Soviet government have joined in the assault on the press. First, the Stan- ford ruling determined that police may conduct a general search of newspaper offices with nothing more than a search warrant. Then the Soviet courts convicted two American journalists of libel for printing quotes from the families of dissidents Anatoly Scharansky and Aleksandr Ginzburg. Now, New York Times investigative reporter Myron Farber is threatened with a jail sentence unless he agrees to relinquish all his notes per- taining to the case of a Mario Jascalevich, a doctor who is being tried for the murder of 13 patients. In 1975, Farber began an investigation of 13 mysterious deaths at Riverside Hospital in New Jerser in 1965-66. Farber wrote a series of ar- ticles providing evidence that the deaths were actually murders committed by a person he identified only as "Dr. X". These stories led to the indictment of Jascalevich on 13 counts of murder. Jascalevich claims he needs Farber's notes for his defense, although he can not point to any specific, vital information in the reporter's records. The Superior Court ruling in favor of Jascalevich grants license to anyone who, behind the guise of justice, launches a fishing expedition through reporters' or newspapers' records. Faber claims, and rightly so, that the police and Jascalevich have just as much access to the undisclosed sources he used to write his articles. Farber also asserts that if he were to reveal his records and sources to the court, news people, and therefore the entire country, would no longer be privy to anonymous sources. The court's ruling is just one more action taken by the judiciary which limits the public's right to information. WHEf o0 GU GtWS TuYOts ARE .... AMEA cA 7" ±11 - 1 a 1 ffxL - ' fMe% IC ttlf 2AV tuIV X LAWtoF- sWaiting frank plant. to, defus, By Rasa Gustaitis Amid world-wide controversy about nuclear waste disposal, an even tougher problem has arisen: how to dispose of a used- up nuclear power plant which will be too hot to dismantle for decades without exhorbitant ex- penses and hazards. The 100-megawatt reactor in Niederaichbach, Germany, was closed in 1974 because of defects. Since then it has been under 24- hour guard because, despite im- mediate removal of the uraninum that fueled it, the entire in- stallation is permeated by radio- activity. AUTHORITIES PLAN to main- tain it under guard for at least 25 years, at a cost of 150,000 marks ($75,000) annually. Similar radioactive fortresses are likely to proliferate in Europe and North America as nuclear plants reach the end of their life span, estimated at 30 years. In Western Europe, about 16 plants are likely to proliferate in Europe and North America as nuclear plants reach the end of their life span, estimated at 30 years. In Western Europe, about 16 plants are expected to be per- manently put out of action by 1990. In the United States, 60 to 70 small-scale installations, most of them experimental and prototype plants, have been decom- missioned so far. But 71 commer-- cial plants, mostly of 1,200 megawatts, are now in operation and eventually will have to be put away, according to Carl Gold- stein, assistant vice president of the Atomic Industrial Forum. It involves encasing the entire plant in cement for a hundred years and rigging it with intrusion alarms. OR THE PLANT could be guarded around the clock for a century, then dismantled, he said. The term for this alter- native is "mothballing." "Utility companies don't think this would be a terrific burden," Goldstein said. Some, he said, are planning to put money away for decommissioning costs. Goldstein estimated that such costs for a large single reactor would run $30 to $40 million, about 6 or 7 per cent of the plant's cost. But entombment costs of one reactor, at Oyster Creek, N.J., has been estimated by in- dustry sources at half the con- struction costs. IMMEDIATE dismantling, if possible without undue hazards to workers and people in the area, - would run much higher. The only power plant to have been dismantled fully in the United States so far is at Elk River, Minn., and the cost ex- ceeded construction. The 30- megawatt demonstration facility, only one-fourth the size e itself S commercial reactors now coming into use, was passed to Dairylaid Power Cooperative by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). It was shut down by order of the state's pollution control agency because it leaked. The AEC planned to entomb the installation, but the cooperative, armed with a contract that promised the AEC would restore the Site to original con- dition when the plant's usefulness was over, insisted on disman- tling. TO AVOID CONTAMINATION by radioactive dust, the facility was first encased in concrete, then flooded. From 1972 to 1973 divers with acetylene torches took apart the equipment under- water. The cost of the job, $6.5 million, suggests that dismantling a 1,200- megawatt plant would require $260 million. But with inflation continuing, it could go much higher. The alternative would appear to leave the mammoth power plant ruins standing, to be dealt with by future generations. In Germany, officials have looked to salt caves as possible future power plant disposal sites. But local authorities have begun- to resist radioactive dumps. Rasa' Gustaitis is an associate editor of the Pacific News .Service. LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Kennedy better choice in '80 To The Daily: Since around the time of the New Hampshire Primary in 1976, I was a supporter of Mr. Carter for President. He seemed to me and to many others as someone whou could unify the country in the implementation of new programs that would for once benefit those in need instead of, as is usual, in catering to the "needs" of the very wealthy few. But as time goes on (two years already) and such programs as wonders whether Carter lives up to the expectations many of us had of him. As stime goes on he resembles more and more a complacent Republican than a progressive Democrat. Perhaps Senator Edward Ken- nedy would be a better choice in 1980. -Arthur Arroyo Editorials which appear without a byline represent a consensus opinion of the Daily's editorial board. All other editorials, as well as cartoons, are the opinions of the individuals who submit them.