Page 4-The Michigan Daily- Thursday, January 14,1993 c l e tcl igttn ttil READY.. AfIl. 6 r-+,c (f D/mayV 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 764-0552 Editor in Chief MATTHEW D. RENNIE Opinion Editors YAEL CITRO GEOFFREY EARLE AMITAVA MAZUMDAR Edited and Managed by Students at the University of Michigan Unsigned editor ials'represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Envotech ducks responsibility... In the 1970s, the waste management company Michigan Disposal dumped as much as 20,000 barrels of hazardous waste into an Augusta Town- ship landfill intended only for nonhazardous waste. When the state of Michigan warned parent com- pany Envotech that it had to clean up the contami- nated dump, Envotech tried to duck its responsi- bilities. The Department of Natural Resources ordered Envotech on Thursday to cap and monitor the dump site. Meanwhile, Augusta residents await a court ruling on the case they filed against the disposal company in 1988. The dump clearly poses an immediate danger to area residents, and the state should demand immediate and thorough clean-up operations. It appears that Envotech has tried to minimize its responsibility in the public's eye by engineer- ing complicated, smoke-screen deed transfers. Envotech owns a group of sister companies in Michigan, including Michigan Disposal. To avoid liability, Envotech created the dummy Augusta Development Corp., who subsequently purchased the landfill from Michigan Disposal. The estab- lishment of Augusta Development was apparently a legal move to reduce Envotech's liability. Despite the smoke screen, Envotech is still ultimately responsible for hazardous waste. Using a plethora of aliases may work to confuse the courts and the Augusta residents, but the state of Michigan is obligated to force Envotech to begin immediate clean-up. Envotech hired a group to investigate the area around the dump site, although the condition of the actual pit remains unknown. It is clear, however, that the site is unprepared for hazardous material and is leaking toxins into the surrounding area. For example, since the landfill was not meant to hold hazardous material, it lacks a bottom liner that keeps waste from leaking through the floor of the dump. If the waste seeps as far as some fear is possible, it could contaminate a delicate ecosystem and further threaten the already endangered lives of Augusta's residents. Beneath the dump lies two aquifers which pro- vide water for the surrounding area. The toxins found in drains nearby could make a short 12 to 15 mile trip into Lake Erie, poisoning the groundwater and soiling local wetlands that support wildlife. Citizens have already felt the impact of the dump, suffering reduced real estate values and threatened economic growth. Farms and animals also are a concern. "People in Augusta Township feel like they've been held hostage for 20 years,' said James Burger, a trustee on Augusta's environ- mental strategy committee. The state must retreat its current environmen- tally-unfriendly policies and keep environmental ogres like Envotech, and like-minded corporations, from destroying the quality of life in Michigan. a. :.:..a"4":.:" -. :...... .. .. YS..........~yi;:Q * -.: LETT'ERS Lift arms embargo on Bosnia-Herzegovina To the Daily: Herzegovina. overwhelming superiority in Western governments and On the other hand, the goal of weapons inherited from the former humanitarian rights organizations the Serbian leaders is to create Yugoslav army, the third largest in have documented the existence of and ethnically pure state within Europe. dozens of so-called "rape camps" parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Some say that allowing more where non-Serb women and girls, Croatia which they eventually weapons into the region will some only 12-years old, are hope to merge with Serbia itself, simply increase the killing. Well, systematically raped and often All non-Serbs and those Serbs the killing until now amounts to murdered by Serbian soldiers. The who oppose this policy are genocide against innocent following is the testimony of a "cleansed." For the past nine civilians and it is still happening. 40-year old woman: months the world has done If the United Nations and the West "Every day the same picture nothing to stop the atrocities and cannot decide to stop it, let the was repeated; they would rape the Serb policy of ethnic cleans- Bosnians at least defend them- and kill in front of hundreds of us. ing. Despite promises to close all selves. Please call or write the Once a young woman with a baby concentration camps, they still United Nations, Bush, Clinton and was taken in the middle of the exist. your congressmen and urge them hall. It was June. They ordered The Bosnian people have the to take action immediately to lift her to take off her clothes. She put manpower, the will and the right the arms embargo on Bosnia- the baby on the floor next to her. to defend themselves against Herzegovina. Four Chetniks (Serb soldiers) genocide. Yet the West continues Damir Juric raped her; she was silent, looking to impose an arms embargo on Engineering graduate student at her crying child. When she was Bosnia while the Serbs enjoy left alone, she asked if she could ______________________________ breast-feed the baby. Then a Chetnik cut the child's head off Process of getting promoted with a knife. He gave the bloody T head to the mother. The poor To the Daily: the candidates mentors or co- woman screamed. They took her In a recent article on retention authors). It is common that this set outside and she never came of faculty at the University ("The of external letters is supplemented back." flip side of the Michigan Man- by three or four letters from There are hundreds of reports date," 1/6/93) some persons were faculty colleagues here at the such as this that make your quoted as saying that three or University. External letters of stomach turn. 35,000 women are four letters of recommendation recommendation are critical to the held captive in these camps. should be enough to support a entire promotion process. To be 30,000 women are pregnant, promotion in academic rank at effective, letters must be written at forced to bear Serbian children. our University. Students and a level of detail that will assure Tadeuz Mazowiecki, a former faculty need to know that this our promotion committees that the prime minister of Poland, now a statement simply does not apply candidate is indeed recognized as special envoy of the U.N. Human to professional ranks in LSA or in a significant scholar at the Rights Commission, has reported Engineering, by far the largest national and international levels. the following to the United teaching units in the University. The evidence of scholarly Nations: In these colleges it is abso- distinction, letters and the publica- "The collected evidence leaves lutely routine that 10 or more tion record, is then put together no doubt as to who is responsible letters are included in the dossiers with the candidate's teaching and for the horror: the Serbian of individuals being considered service record to form a promo- political and military leaders in for promotion in the professorial tion dossier that is scrutinized and Bosnia-Herzegovina, supported ranks. These are letters from debated at the departmental, by the authorities of the Serbian established scholars, most of collegiate and university levels Republic." whom must be at institutions before being submitted to the The objective of the Bosnian other than the University. regents for approval. The integrity government is to establish a free, Moreover, it is mandatory that no of this promotion process is basic civil, modern and democratic more than one or two of these to the future of our University. society of Bosnians, Croats, Serbs letters be from persons who have ens Zorn and all other nationalities in the close professional associationsPysrsso sovereign state of Bosnia- with the candidate (for example, -.. Waffling over CRISP concerns a ..while planning another dump E nvotech continues to play Russian Roulette with the residents of Michigan. The company currently has a plan to build the nation's second largest hazardous waste disposal site, just 12 miles north of Ann Arbor in Augusta Township. Though their last proposal was turned down by the Michi- gan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) be- cause of questionable and obsolete information, they are expected to submit a revised version by the end of the month. Envotech, however, has already proven its willingness to dismiss resi- dents' health and en- vironmental con- cerns. The DNR. should inform- Envotech that Michi-- ganisn'tinterestedin the further construc- tion of waste sites. The proposed __ waste site would con- sist of a hazardous waste landfill, an in- cinerator and two deep injection wells. Though Envotecha promises that the 1,800 acre landfill -__-_- will be completely safe, the DNR should recall the Environmental Protection Agency's warning that all landfills will eventually leak. Since waste disposal companies subject incin- erators to only one trial burn, the threat that they pose is often unpredictable. Moreover, toxins es- cape into the atmosphere as stack gas. Though it is difficult to test the effects of the toxic chemicals that incinerators emit, scientists say that they undoubtedly cause both short and long-term health problems. Deep injection wells will be little more than a half a mile below the aquifers, which provide water for thousands of Augusta residents. This medley of environmental threats would only be compounded by the danger that trucks transporting the millions of pounds of waste would cause. Highways 23 and 94 would be time bombs with the threat of accidental spill forever imminent. Because the proposed site is near a prison which has no evacuation capability, such an event would be a compounded disaster. Supporters of the proposal claim that the oppo- sition, spearheaded by Michigan Citizens Against Toxic Substances (MCATS), is just a not-in my- backyard effort. NUT 1A UL.,s!. I'~IWECIL Yet, the argu- ments against constructing the site are convinc- ing. For instance, the wetlands on which Envotech would build the landfill are not geographically favorable. Additionally, Michigan al- ready has the ca- pacity to handle the toxic waste that will be pro- duced in Michi- 0 gan for the next 20 years. The site would become a dumping ground for this entire part of the country. Michigan already imports millions of pounds more hazardous waste from other states and Canada than it exports. Envotech has further complicated the issue of the dump by linking it to a cleanup of the leaking site in Augusta. It promises to remove the hazardous waste from the current Augusta site by pumping it into the proposed injection wells. Envotech would use the remaining capacity to make a profit. One offense can't be used as an excuse to commit a larger one - Envotech's plans must be quelled. Split emerges in Republican party "political elections often result in major realign- ments of political parties. Parties can shrink (Republicans, 1912), expand (Democrats, 1936) or disappear completely (Whigs, 1852). Follow- ing George Bush's defeat this past year, the Re- publican party seems on the brink of a major upheaval which will determine its future course. Housing Secretary and likely presidential can- didtate Jack Kemp, as well as neocon notables William Bennet and Jeane Kirkpatrick, formed an advocacy group for what they call "progressive conservatism." Its oxymoronic nature aside, "pro- gressive conservatism" promises to be a more palatable alternative to the fascism of Pat Buchanan, which the Republican Party has been heading to as of late. This schism could be viewed less as a reaction to Bush's loss than as a culmination of the Chris- tian Right's twelve year ascendancy into the main- stream of the Renublican Party. for a new direction. (It is a testament to the Right's success that what is today considered a "moderate" Republican would have been considered conserva- tive 15 years ago.) It remains to be seen whether the rift will heal by 1996. Under Ronald Reagan, the party has held together by adopting the supply-side economic policies of the more moderate Kempites with the social agenda of the reactionaries. Young urban and suburban professionals were attracted to the former, born-again Christians to the latter. Now that its charismatic leader has departed, it is clear to the two factions that their political objectives are incompatible. The moderate formula for electoral success entails winning back the inde- pendents who supported Reagan by emphasizing low taxation while de-emphasizing divisive social issues. The right seeks to mobilize what it sees as a slumbering conservative white Christian majority Selecting a schedule is one of the most difficult choices you will make during your college career. Actually, this is untrue. Select- ing a schedule is easy. The old guy at the CRISP station simple tears it off the printer and hands it to you. There's no real choice involved. Select- i n g classes, on the other JONATHAN hand, can be an or-- deal. My first few times, I w e n t through the following procedure: Look through course descrip- tion book, find a set of interesting classes. Go to Angell Hall, get in line for CRISP. Discover that all the courses I had signed up for have closed. Look over the shoulder of the person in front of me in line to see what they're signed up for. Copy their schedule. The major drawback is that my classes always come as a c'omplete surprise. By the beginning of the year, I've forgotten whatmy classes are about. The following is a verba- tim transcript of a conversation I had with another student on the first day of classes last semester: Me: So, what class is this? Him: Poli Sci 412 Me: What are we studying? Him: The legal process. Me: The legal process? I don't want to study the legal process! What was I thinking? Him: I really don't know. Me: Can I borrow some note- book paper? And, of course, the system breaks down completely when deal- ing with foreign languages: Professor Etbrichtu ma drolgin ha'vrahin. Me: Excuse me, what language is she speaking? So now I've changed my method, and I carefully consult the course description book before CRISPing. Only now I've realized that the courseguide system, too, contains one major flaw: everv- of the department, each description conveys two basic pieces of infor- mation. First, the class entails a lot of work. Second. it fulfills the race- gender-ethnicity requirement. Here is your typical course description: History345:Developmentofthe Frozen Waffle, 1657-present. "Lego my ego." What does this mean? In this course, we will trace the developmentof the frozen waffle from its inception, including such innovations as syrup and the micro- wave. If you're not prepared to do a lot of work, this is not the class for you. By the end of the semester, you will be expected to prepare a frozen waffle using the method of your choice. We will also examine the impact of the frozen waffle on the oppression of women and people of color. Four credits. now So say a group of students likes the description and signs up for the class in March. The summer passes. They come back to school in Sep- tember, and all they have is a sched- ule that says. "History 345."