Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 1

REPUBLIC. MAIL The Ai EPU 25 cents 93rd Year, No. 333 Phoenix, Arizona Thursday, April 14, 1983 Copyright 1983, The Arizona Republic IIZOMA BLIC anel supports waste increase into Salt River State now can grant relaxed limit on discharges by Phoenix plants Rv Kathleen Stanton Republic Stuff The Arizona Water Quality Control Council on Wednesday overrode objections from state wildlife officials and voted to support a relaxation of limits on four loxic substances discharged into the Salt River from Phccnix sc wage-treatment plants. Based on the vote, the bureau of water quality ir the Arizona Department of Health Services now will be able to grant a request by Phoenix to loosen limits for cadmium, chromium, copper and cyanide in sewage effluent. The standards are contained in 1980 permits to operate the 23rd Avenue and 91st Avenue sewage-treatment plants.

Phoenix operates the plants for a consortium of cities. The final step to change the permits are a routine review by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to make sure the change conforms to state law. However, four Valley environmentalists have threatened to file suit to prevent relaxation of the standards. The istate (lame and Fish Department also may urge federal environmental agencies to veto the loosened standards. The council action was contained in a resolution clarifying the intent of water-quality standards set three years ago.

Under those standards, the state discontinued special protection of fish and aquatic life on the lower Salt and (Ida rivers. State law now protects the water for agricultural and some recreational uses. This allowed higher levels of toxic substances in the river. However, Phoenix's effluent-discharge permits were based on he previous, more stringent, limits to protect fish and aquatic life. Council members said they hope the resolution would provide relief for the city, which has been in repeated violation of its permit limits for cadmium, chromium, copper and cyanide.

Phoenix is under order from the EPA to clean up the discharges and could be fined up to $25 per day if it failed to comply. If the permits were relaxed, it would make the EPA order moot EPA officials said. State water-quality officials last year proposed! a relaxation of the limits but were advised by the attorney general's office that ambiguities in the law needed to be cleared up first. "Since everybody is happy except for a crawfish or two that's not there, let's pass a resolution to state that the protected uses are the ones we intended," Councilman Phil Briggs said. A state game and fish official said the action would seriously harm river-dwelling creatures on which fish and bird species, including the endangered Yuma clapper rail, depend for food.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department maintains two wildlife-management areas downstream from the sewage- River, A13 AP Helping Kong get a grip rains have kept workers from inflating the balloon, which is being erected to mark the 50th anniversary of the making of the original King Kong movie. Not even a panoramic view of New York City and Kong balloon. From atop the Empire State Building, the Hudson River can distract worker Mike Cruz Cruz adjusts the rigging that is holding the sizable from his task: helping to erect an 84-foot-tall King simian against the wall below him. Recent heavy Food-stamp cut would hurt neediest, study says proposed budget was designed to minimize the reduction of any households entitled to benefits." But the budget office found that about 5 million households, or 62 percent of all households receiving food stamps, would lose an average of $178 a year under the cutbacks. For 2 million households with incomes of less than $3,800 a year an income less than half of the poverty level the average loss would be $100 a year, the study said.

Among the hardest-hit households would be the 1 million with elderly and disabled people. They would lose an average of $250 a year, or 26 percent of their total food stamp benefits, the office found. states, according to Rep. Leon Panetta, chairman of the House Agriculture nutrition subcommittee, who the report with Rep. Jim Jeffords, R-Vt.

The 1983 budget provides about $12 billion for food stamps, and the administration has proposed reducing this to about $10.9 billion in 1984. The administration expects to save $5.4 billion between 1984 and 1988. Testifying last week before the Senate Agriculture nutrition subcommittee, Deputy Assistant Agriculture Secretary John Bode said, "1 think it's important to note that 80 percent of the savings will come about by reducing misexpenditures rather than recipients' benefits. This Republic Wire Services WASHINGTON The $1.1 billion that President Reagan wants to cut from the food-8tamp program next year would reduce benefits for the nation's poorest families rather than eliminate waste and misspending, as the administration has claimed, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Wednesday. The assessment appears to contradict recent Senate testimony by an administration official that 80 percent of the reduction would come from administrative changes rather than recipients' benefits.

The budget office study shows that 95 percent of the savings would come from reduced benefits to those who deserve them or from shifting food-stamp costs to the Goldwater opposes moving 1 30 off asbestos site relocation, which is expected to cost $2.5 million to $5 million. Among the Arizona politicians who support relocation are Gov. Bruce Babbitt, Sen. Dennis DeConcini, Rep. James McNulty and Rep.

Morris Udall. All are Democrats. Goldwater, however, wrote the EPA in July, "1 just can't for the world understand why this place should be picked out to receive federal money. It conclusion after visiting Globe last year and talking to people "who've mined asbestos, worked with it, played in it and been around it all their lives." Initially, Goldwater had supported the relocation. Leading scientists, including those from the U.S.

surgeon general's office and the national Centers for Disease Control, have said the 130 residents of Mountain View Mobile Home Estates should be relocated because of the By Bruce N. Tomaso Republic Staff Sen. Barry Goldwater, voicing what an aide concedes is a minority opinion, has opposed the relocation of 130 Globe residents living in a mobile-home park built atop asbestos tailings. "He is just not convinced that it really does pose an environmental health hazard," Jim Horton, a special assistant to the Arizona Republican said Wednesday. He said Goldwater reached that hazards posed by exposure to asbestos fibers, which can cause lung cancer and other fatal diseases.

The subdivision was built in 1973 on the graded tailings of an old asbestos mill. The Environmental Protection Agency is considering relocation of the residents under the "Superfund" program, created in 1980 to identify and eradicate toxic-waste deposits. The agency expects to decide within a month whether to proceed with the mwm Opt mMk few ,1 1 1 nofeiii r-' ff-rtMr i I I AP ON TV planning to halt programming to Valley Today STATE WEATHER Variable clouds; some showers. Highs 30s-40s mountains, 65-75 deserts. Lows 10-20 mountains, 35-45 deserts.

86. Weatherline 957-8700 been pegged as May 4 by two sources familiar with the situation. The intent of the committee meeting, called by ON TV's parent company, Oak Communications is to end the service, a company spokesman verified late Wednesday afternoon. "I can only confirm that we are taking steps to terminate that operation," said Bob Hartney, vice president of corporate relations, who was reached at Oak Communications headquarters in Rancho Bernardo, Calif. "We, Oak, have requested a meeting of the management committee to be held early next week, at which time By Bud Wilkinson Republic Staff ON TV, the local subscription-television company that serves more than 24,000 Phoenix area customers, reportedly plans to cease operating in the Valley within a month.

The company, which employs more than 100 people locally, has provided subscribers with uninterrupted movies and sporting events since September 1979. It reportedly has experienced a serious erosion of subscribers in recent months. An official announcement concerning the fate of ON TV is expected Tuesday after a meeting of the ON TV Management Committee, although the actual shutdown date has COPPER ACCORD A tentative agreement between Kennecott and 14 copper unions might avert a strike for the first time in 16 years. CI. LA RAIDERS WIN SUIT A jury awards $34.5 million in damages to the LA Raiders and Coliseum in an antitrust suit against the NFL E1.

CHUCKLE April 15 is when millions of Americans have a rendezvous with debt PRAYER Lord, we pray, watch over those who need work. Guide them toward new opportunities to produce what is needed. Amen. Donor found Astrology Dl Leisure F4 Bombeck Dl Movies F7 "Bridge F7 Obituaries D2 Close-ups Fl Outdoor Ell Comics C7 Radio F5 Crossword Dl Scrabble Dl DcarAbby Dl Sports El Economy CI TV log F5 Editorials A6 Wanteds Dl Fitzpatrick A2 Weather B6 Hutton Fl Wynn Bl Billie Hall of Walnut, expresses relief that a liver donor was found Wednesday for her 13-month-old son, Brandon. Afljert Gore head of the House subcommittee on science and technology, shares her joy.

The donor was found before Hall testified on organ transplants to the panel in Washington. The operation will take plaice in Memphis, Tenn. 'sprit corps ompiris firm then rehired all of the employees and continued work on the Defense Department contracts. Rainey said a Labor Department official contacted him after one employee complained. The official told him he had violated the Walsh-Healey Act, which prohibits workers from volunteering time on government contracts.

Rainey said a Labor Department compliance officer, James Blaschak, told him the workers must be paid for their work and that the company could incur a penalty equal to the amount of the wages. Blaschak declined to comment on Rainey'6 case but said that in general, employers cannot allow workers to perform their regular duties for free because it would be unfair to competing companies. Associated Press MURRAY CITY, Ohio A businessman whose employees volunteered to work for free on a government contract to help save his company says the Labor Department has threatened him with a fine and told him to pay the workers. Harold Rainey, president of Rainey Fabricating, said Tuesday the workers volunteered to go without pay last month on a $28,000 contract He said the action saved the firm, which had been shut down. Rainey said he was short of money because the government has been slow in paying him for $2.5 million in defense contracts.

Rainey Fabricating makes tarpaulins for military equipment He said his workers volunteer efforts put the southeastern Ohio company back in business. Rainey said he would fight any citation issued but, that if he lost he might close the company. "I'm going to quit as soon as they push; I don't intend to honor any of the penalties they have imposed," he said. "They can put me in jail. They can take everything I've got I'm not going to give in." Rainey said he had checked with the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services and was told last month he could use the volunteer labor.

He said all but two of his 22 employees pitched in and that the contract was completed in less than a week. He Free labor in violation of U.S. rule saves company but may close it.