The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 21

July 27, 2003 Section FOCUS: African-American Family Reunion Festiv; filled with fun and sun B3 Sunday News Journal, Wilmington, Del. www.delawareonline.com Police report Obituaries B3 B4 News tips for Local: newsdeskdelawareonline.com Citystate editor: Rick Raber, 324-2882 Women's prison may get chapel Nonprofit group seeking donations to build interfaith facility at Baylor rvKi-z HOW TO HELP Prison Ministries of Delaware Inc. is seeking individual, group and corporate support for its state-approved effort to build an interfaith chapel and multipurpose room at Baylor Women's Correctional Institution. Donations, which are tax-deductible, can be sent to 1 Hartford Place, Newark, DE 19711. Checks made out to Prison Ministries of Delaware should be marked "chapel." The group administers a separate emergency fund.

For more information, call Prison Ministries of Delaware founder Fay Whittle at 731-1884. build the combination chapel and multipurpose room. Donations and fund-raisers, such as a May concert by the New Castle Community Band, have raised about $35,000 so far. Whittle said Prison Ministries is organizing a campaign to seek individual, group and corporate donors this fall, as well as support from other faith-based groups. One former inmate said current and future inmates would benefit from the project.

"They need a chapel," said Debra Clark Smith, 39, of Wilmington, who was released in See CHAPEL back page Newark, who has worked with inmates for about 25 years with the Prison Fellowship group. Whittle and others have formed another nonprofit, interfaith prison ministry organization to build a women's chapel. And they have the backing of the state Department of Correction and the women's prison's part-time chaplain. What Prison Ministries of Delaware Inc. doesn't have is the roughly $2 million needed to By ROBIN BROWN Stall reporter The vast majority of incarcerated Delawareans have access to an interfaith chapel.

They are men. There is no chapel at the state's only women's prison, which houses 300 to 400 inmates, or about 5 percent of the incarcerated population. "We use the gym," said volunteer minister Fay Whittle of The News JournalFRED COMEGYS Volunteer Fay Whittle (left) and Chaplain Bernita Earle are aiding efforts to raise $2 million to build a chapel at the Baylor Women's Correctional Institution. Right now, inmates pray in the gym. EARTHWATCH GLOBAL WARMING LARGE CROWDS CAP OFF STATE FAIR wm Infant found in marsh Father, 22, accused of attempted murder By MIKE BILLINGTON Staff reporter A 22-year-old Dover man has been charged with attempted murder after state police detectives said he severely beat his infant son.

Delaware State Police spokesman Lt. Tim Win- mm nm Tr-5 -f i Jf "i HJ Aim is to develop regional proposal to cut emissions from power plants at stead said Saturday that James G. Wells II of North Bay Road is accused of fracturing the skull of the 3-week-old boy. The baby was found James G. Wells II WHAT IT MEANS Carbon dioxide is considered to be a leading contributor to global warming.

Several states including Delaware have banded together to come up with a plan to help reduce emissions of the gas from power plants. Although there are no details of what the plan would entail, DNREC's Phil Cherry says it would likely involve a cap-and-trade approach, in which limits are set on the amount of gas a plant can release. Companies that stay within the limits receive credits, which can be transferred to help a dirtier plant ft il By PATRICK JACKSON Dover Bureau reporter Gov. Ruth Ann Minner and governors of nine other East Coast states said they plan to work on a regional plan that could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. New York Gov.

George Pataki in April called on other governors in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states to band together and develop a plan. Minner spokeswoman Kate Bailey said the governor endorsed the idea. In a letter to Pataki, Minner said she agreed that cutting carbon dioxide emissions was "an area where we can act most effectively regionally." Besides New York and Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont have signed onto the proposal. Maryland might join, too. Preliminary discussions have begun, and state officials are scheduled to meet again in September for further talks.

Pataki has said he hopes the states can put the regional plan in place within two years. There are no details of what the plan would entail, but Phil Cherry, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control's director of policy planning, said it probably would involve what is known as a cap-and-trade approach to controlling carbon dioxide. The gas is considered by scientists to be one of the most common contributors The News Journal GARY EMEIGH Brooke Winkler, 8, of Houston spends her last day at the state fair in the barn with her cow, Rosalyn. Good weather has contributed to high attendance for this year's fair, which might set a record. Attendance expected to set record alive, half submerged in water in a nearby marsh, Winstead said.

Wells was baby-sitting the infant Friday evening at the residence he shares with the baby's 16-year-old mother when she called to check on the child, Win-stead said. The baby's mother, whose name was withheld by police, told detectives that Wells seemed agitated and intoxicated during the call, which ended in an argument. The mother told detectives that Wells threatened to kill the infant, Win-stead said. The mother called police, and troopers raced to the North Bay Road home, Winstead said. They found the home empty and started a search of the area, he said.

A trooper found Wells in a marsh about a tenth of a mile from the residence, and he was taken into custody, Winstead said. When asked about the child's whereabouts, Wells told troopers that he had taken the infant to a friend, Winstead said. Troopers, however, did not believe him and launched another search. They found the boy soon after, Winstead said. See CHILD B2 to global warming.

In cap-and-trade plans, limits are set on the amount of gas that can be released by each plant, and companies get credits for meeting the targets. Credits earned at clean plants can be transferred and used to help dirtier plants. "It's not an approach you would want to use for a local problem, like mercury releases," said Cherry, who has attended preliminary meetings. "But cap-and-trade plans work very well at dealing with more global problems where the emissions may have a bigger effect outside of the See WARMING -B5 last night, and rain cut further into the turnout. The one year in the last seven in which fair attendance failed to set a record was 1999, when intermittent rain and oppressive heat held turnout to 236,402 down 6.5 percent from attendance for 1998.

That year, attendance exceeded 250,000 for the first time, passing a milestone that even some longtime fair officials had once considered unattainable. "It's been absolutely gorgeous," Hooker said of this year's weather. "We have been fortunate all week." The only weather-related problems were touched off by a fearsome thunderstorm that struck the fairgrounds about 2:30 a.m. July 19. Strong winds ripped down the goat tent, damaging pens and setting loose about a dozen of 300 show goats sheltered by the tent.

"Fortunately, there were no people under the tent at the time, only goats, and we rounded them up in fairly short order," Hooker said, noting that See FAIR B5 By JAMES MERRIWEATHER Dover Bureau reporter The 84th annual Delaware State Fair came to a close Saturday, chalking up what will likely be record attendance for the sixth time in the last seven years. As the gates opened Saturday, the fair needed to draw only 420 people to exceed last year's record total of 271,056. That number was topped by mid-afternoon as throngs of patrons circulated through exhibit halls, livestock barns, food booths and the Wade Shows midway Randy Hooker, the fair's marketing director, was daring to entertain notions of topping 300,000 patrons for the first time. Feeding that possibility was a sold-out Travis Tritt show set for 8:30 p.m. and prospects for continued good weather that had prevailed during the fair's first nine days.

Last year, the ESPN Free Ride Moto-X, a motorcycle stunt show, failed to sell out on the fair's WECste EPA unearths irony in investigation of DI If it was the latter, those responsible almost certainly will lose their jobs, and deservedly so. In fact, I'd expect regulators and lawmakers to shower the wrongdoers with righteous indignation. The public might even benefit from this embarrassment if regulators and lawmakers remember that feeling of indignation next time industrial polluters are caught doing the same thing. Al Mascltti's opinion column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at 324-2866 or amascittidelawareonline.com.

To comment on today's column or read past columns, visit www.delawareonline.com. Environmentalists often complain that the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control gets too close to the industries it's supposed to police. Until last week, they didn't realize how right they were. As all Delawareans with even a rudimentary sense of irony know by now, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, armed with a backhoe, swooped down Tuesday on a Lewes site owned by the state agency Once they started digging, the feds unearthed several containers (the latest count is 18), some empty but others holding well, nobody's sure exactly what. the Division of Soil and Water Conservation the very division Hughes ran for more than 10 years before assuming the agency's top job last fall.

Hughes said he thinks the containers must have been buried after DNREC bought the land in 1995. He already has questioned site supervisors, whom he said denied ordering that anything be buried there. The EPA, which seized documents as well as containers, won't comment until its investigation is completed. The state Attorney General's Office has decided to wait until the EPA is finished before deciding what to do. 9 That meansShe public is likely to learn first about what happened through DNREC's internal investigation, described last week as a management audit.

Since the Motiva disaster two years ago, the General Assembly and Gov. Ruth Ann Minner have made a public show of getting tough on polluters, so DNREC can't expect gentle treatment. Yet critics had to snicker when Minner spokesman Greg Patterson said, "We want DNREC to pursue this as aggressively as they would pursue the investigation of any industrial polluter." Under that standard? would take months, pefnaps years, before any findings were released. Fines would have to be carefully negotiated for many more months. Perhaps by 2006 we could expect some sort of penalty to be imposed and if it were to fit the normal pattern, it would amount to a slap on the wrist.

Considering the budget of the agency and the salaries of its employees, the total would be about $250, and nobody would get fired. In all likelihood, whoever is responsible can expect considerably harsher treatment. Unless outsiders sneaked onto the site and buried the materials without anyone noticing, someone at the agency either blui dered big time or broke the law. Al Mascitti "It could be pesticide, wood preservative or Evian water," said DNREC Secretary John A. Hughes, who can be reasonably sure it's not Evian water.

What makes this especially awkward forJIughes is that the site houses Me headquarters of.