The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 1

Settlement State due $50 million from Hughes estate 2 NEW LOCATIONS' 4920 Seawall 22nd Market InterFirst Astriaut Brester Shqw space experience Sports LM Cougars look to run-and-shoot offense Established in 1 B4S. Dedicated tothe growth progress of Ga.veston and ah of Ga.veston^un^ BOB PAGAN FOKD MAZDA TOYOTA '84 MODEL CLOSE OUT 14e. No. 1 4a Member. Associated Press THURSDA aocu aBB GALVESTON, TEXAS.

THURSDAY MORNING AUGUST 1 unx, a i exas oldest newspaper Daily, Alvenus' intentional grounding cited By JOEL KIRKPATRICK By JOEL KIRKPATRICK News Staff Writer GALVESTON As attorneys began taking sworn statements Wednesday from the officers and crew of the tanker involved in Galveston's most disastrous oil spill, there was testimony about two groundings one of them intentional. Attorneys involved in litigation against the British-flag tankship Alvenus, its owners and operators, took depositions from the captain the first officer, and the fourth engineer. The depositions are related to lawsuits already brought as a result of the spill. There were indications during the taking of de- positions Wednesday that additional lawsuits as a result of the spill are possible. The Alvenus, owned by a British firm, is in Galveston at Todd Shipyards, where she is soon to undergo repairs to ruptured cargo tanks and a tear across her foredeck.

Lawyers on Wednesday were questioning whether the ship may have been damaged on July 21 at the Venezuelan Port of Caripito. The ship sailed to Caripito from Quebec, and when she arrived there, she was berthed by ramming her into a submerged mudbank, then swinging her from side to side until she was alongside the bank The cargo was then loaded, and she was sailed at the next high tide, when she was freed from the mudbank The ship was heavily loaded at Porta De La Cruz Venezuela, with 219,692 barrels of "Pilon" crude oil' and 137,568 barrels of "Mercy" crude oil. The Pilon crude has a consistency of butter at a loading temperature of CO which is the standard temperature for figuring crude loading quantities However, when the cargo was put into the holds of the ship, the average temperature was 121.8 F. The ship was loaded, according to statements introduced during the depositions, until she had a freeboard of 4.433 meters or about 14.4 feet. Her draft aft was 12.06 meters, or 39.19 feet Her draft forward was 38.87 feet.

The mean draft of that Coordinator says fed aid to replace sand not justified ship, heading for the Calcasieu channel leading to the Port of Lake Charles, was 39.03 feet. The channel has an authorized depth of 40 feet. Charles R. Houssiere III, a trial attorney representing west beach property owners who contend they were damaged by the spill, said there was testimony at the deposition taking on Wednesday that the ship ruptured at 12:36 p.m. on July 30th, between buoys 19 and 20 in the Calcasieu Channel, about 11 miles off the coast.

The pilot had come aboard at 11:40 a.m. on that day. The captain, the first officer, and the fourth See SHIP Page 2A By JOEL KIRKPATRICK News Staff Writer The on scene coordinator for the oil spill cleanuo Unty Judge Ra Holbrook and Mavor San In the ''whole scheme of things, the amount of sand removed in the 000 1 0 rds iS 6qual t0 the amount removed bv one good storm," Capt. Kyle Shaw said Wednesday Shaw met in a closed session with the mayor: Holbrook; Rick Ansell assistant county attorney; Sylvia Jackson, representing ate SPH Chet S5? in nd TOM A Baxter, hazardous Materials branch of toe Is ational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Also in the meeting was Mark Cohen of the law firm of Rovston Ravzor Vickery and Williams, representatives of the owners of the ship Alvenus area beaches The Shaw said he excluded the press and the public from the meeting because he wanted a "frank and candid discussion of the cleanup "51 later said his meeting with the public officials was "mostly informa- However, he met with Cohen and an unidentified man for two hours prior to meeting with the public officials. Cohen refused to talk with reporters about the meeting.

Shaw said the meeting was called to present Mayor Coggeshali and Holbrook with an overview of the cleanup. He said there were no "bie secrets discussed" at the meeting, but he felt he should talk with the officials privately. He said no agreements with either the owners of the ship or the public officials made. "There were no big secrets," he said, "just a He termed the earlier meeting with the two representatives of the Alvenus owners as "something that just happened." He said he had made no agreements with the representatives of the Alvenus but held the meeting private since a member of the press was in the waiting Shaw said he presented the officials with a report prepared by Erich Gundlach of the NOAA scientific and support staff that showed Hurricane Alicia, almost a year before the spill, had removed 1.8 million ya SJand from west beach Tne P' cleanup removed 85 to 90,000 cubic yards of sand "which is about equal to a small storm Shaw said, however, "If your view is that there is a finite amount of sand out there, and 90,000 yards is removed, then that amount is gone He added that he told the public officials that the study shows sand is building back up on the beach. The cleanup contractor, Maritime Loss Control, from New Orleans has been subcontracting others to do much of the work and has been told that as of last week no more sand will be removed from the beaches, Shaw said.

He said some sand may have been removed after they were told to stop, but now all contractors have been told to stop. The U.S. Coast Guard is monitoring the cleanup efforts to see that when the contractor quits, the spill is in fact cleaned up said Shaw Shaw, the U.S. Coast Guard Captain of the Port, is also the on-scene coordinator for the cleanup. "And right now, on the beaches, we have gone about as far as we can go.

There may still be some oil out there and some oil may still come ashore, but the major cleanup on the beach is over "On the seawall the oil has now shown signs of weathering that it was hoped it would show fay this time. The use of chemical dispersants notably "Corexit 9527" have failed. ur Sh Said the ma stand down for the Labor Day Weekend on Seawall cleanup, and come back later to attempt to clean See SAND Page 2A Up in smoke Firefighters work to extinguish a smoking 1973 Lincoln Continental which burst into flames Wednesday afternoon. The driver of the car, a 29-year-old Galveston man, pulled tin- car off Interstate 45 at the Teichman Road exit heading into Staff IMuilo Hy Hubert Stnnton town. After discovering the engine was on fire, he awakened his traveling companion, a Cialvoston woman and the fire department was called.

GCWA official explains no- show ByJACKSTENGLER News Staff Writer TEXAS CITY Several reasons were given Wednesday by Galveston County Water Authority general manager J.A. Willhelm for not appearing before the La Marque City Council. He had been asked to give a detailed presentation of the proposed 1984-85 water authority budget for operation of its surface water treatment plant. The water treatment plant, which came under water authority control in March 1982, supplies La Marque, Texas City, Bacliff, Bayview and Water Control and Improvement District 1 in Dickinson with potable surface water. La Marque Mayor Jack Nash has been critical that Willhelm has not honored the council's repeated requests, the latest for last Monday's meeting.

When asked by the mayor why Willhelm was not at Monday's meeting, city manager Ivan Langford said, "I do not know. I received a call last week from Willhelm's office requesting to be on this agenda, but have received no further word." "Our budget is still under discussion and has not been presented to our (GCWA) board." Willhelm said Wednesday. "We have been working with all our customers to out a compatible budget they all can accept. "Also. I do not like to try to solve the problems of the water authority in the newspaper.

Problems should be solved through meetings between the parties involved," Willhelm said. The water authority manager said his agency has g'iven all its customers tentative budget figures, consisting of two pages listing 52 accounts by number and name, the proposed budget for each account, the present budget for each account, the increase or decrease between the budgets, expenditures through June 30, 19S4. projected expenditures through the end of the current fiscal year on Aug. 31. and total money spent in and 11)84.

Willhelm calls this a proposed budget, while La Marque officials have dubbed it "a bunch of "The first time 1 received a request from the La Marque city council to attend their meeting was on the Friday before Monday meeting." Willlielmsaid. "1 wasn't the office, but I called Ivan (Langford) Monday morning and told him we were reworking our proposed budget See WILLHELM Page 2A Santa Fe EMS says ambulance has had it By BETTY MONYCH News Staff Writer SANTA FE Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel here say the ambulance they use now has worn out and may not last until Christmas. For that reason a special fund was set up recently to raise money toward the purchase of a new ambulance. EMS Coordinator Denise Newsome said that between $4,000 and $6,000 has been collected from fundraisers to date, but also said the service needs at least $15,000 for a down payment on a new vehicle. "Our ambulance has really just worn out," said Mrs.

Newsome. "First of all, it's not really an ambulance. It's a 1980 Ford Supervan that was converted, and it is pulling more weight than it can carry." She said the vehicle has been driven nearly 82,000 miles and the EMS began having major maintenance problems with it earlier this year. "It has caught fire, broke down once and loses power or nearly loses power often," she explained. "We've put a lot of money into it just in the past year.

We've had a new alternator installed, more than one radiator, and have been told by several mechanics that the engine has just worn out." She said that the service deals in life or death situations only, and because of the problems with the vehicle, will only carry patients to mainland hospitals. "In an emergency situation, the patient should be taken to the nearest hospital anyway, which is (Memorial Hospital of "Galveston County)," she said. "But some- limes they request to be taken to John Sealy, and since we've lost power or nearly lost power trying to go across the causeway, we just can't take that chance anymore. "We are still providing service, though, and we'd like to do it better," she.said. When they have mechanical problems with the ambulance, or get two calls at the same time, the Santa Fe EMS relies on the Hitchcock Volunteer Life Support Team as a back-up unit.

"Hut they're having so many manpower problems now. they have trouble finding enough people to run their ambulance. We cover for them during the day." she said. Mrs. Newsome asked City Council at Tuesday's budget hearing to allocate funds toward See AMBULANCE Page 2A Weather AREA FORECAST Fair and warm with chance of mostly daytime thundershowers.

High today and Friday in the mid-80s. Low tonight near 80. South and southwest winds 10-15 mph. GALVESTON BAY South and southwest winds 10-15 knots through Friday. Bay waters slightly choppy to choppy.

BEACH WATER 82 degrees Afore Weather. Page 9B Index Amusements Bridge 6B Briefs 6A Bulletin Board ISA Business News SB Classified 10-20B Comics 6B Court Beat 2A Crossword 6B Dear Abby 19A Passing Parade It's a Girl for Ruben and Mellnda C. Martinez of Columbus. Laura Estelle was born Aug. 10 at 7:40 a.m.

at Youens Memorial Hospital In Weimar. She weighed 5 12 oz. and was 20 inches long. She was welcomed by brothers Al and Christopher, grandmother Mrs. Asencion Compean and aunt Norma Compean of Galveston.

About 100 guests are still raving about the Hurricane Alicia Anniversary party hosted by Jamaica Beach mayor pro tem Van Berson and wife Anita. A 7 4 07.. baby girl, Jodie Dannelle, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Billy Burnette.

Grandparents are Mr. and Mrs David Rose, Mr. and Mrs. Stringer and great- grandparents are Mr. and Mrs.

Bernice Wooley and Mr. and Mrs. Haris Whitaker. Great- nuuv iikaft Horoscope 6B great-grandmother Is Mrs. Obituaries 6A Jodle's mother is the former Dianne Wooley.

Dr. Bill and Brenda Clayton announce the birth of their son Police Beat 6A Sports I-SB Texas Outdoors 4B TV Listings 6B Viewpoints 8A See PASSING Page 2A.