Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 1

Fsffi-fiisii food It's pickin' time in Willcox Accent, Page ID loroi swt ioni High schoolers preview college MetroRegion, Page IB if 1 1992 The Arizona Daily Star Vol. 151 No. 213 Final Edition, Tucson, Friday, July 31, 1992 35 U.S.50$ In Mexico 76 Pages mil Ste VO a tions cover-uo is alle ged in Fire Dept Fire Chief Richard Moreno yesterday said he will order a departmental investigation into the allegations that his officers violated both federal and city regulations. He adamantly denied rumors that he will resign as a result of controversy surrounding the department. City Councilman Bruce Wheeler said Leahy's charges are serious enough that he will ask the state attorney general and county attorney to investigate possible criminal charges.

Leahy's allegations include: By Joe Burchell The Arizona Dally Star High-ranking Tucson Fire Department officers knowingly ignored hazardous-waste storage and disposal laws and ordered a cover-up of city violations, a department hazardous-materials inspector has charged. "While I was expected to support the prosecution of private companies who broke the law, violations within the city were treated very casually or ignored," Inspector J. Fred Leahy said in a July 29 letter to the City Council. The Fire Training Center at 797 E. Ajo Way received labeled hazardous waste and burned it in the fire simulator.

When an assistant chief was told that a site where hazardous waste had been abandoned may have to be reported to the state, "I was told that if the state found out I would be looking for another job." A city worker digging with a backhoe in a suspected hazardous-waste dump "was not informed as to the nature of his duties and was not provided with any personal protective equipment." Leahy said when he asked that the digging be stopped until proper precautions could be taken, "I was told to just take my samples and be quiet." A battalion chief ordered him to abandon chemical wastes from the city print shop. The material was in a 55-gallon drum, which was left next to a building at the Thomas 0. Price Service Center, 4004 S. Park Ave. The chemical eventually leaked out of the drum onto the pavement and evaporated.

A federally required hazardous-waste audit of all city departments, which Leahy said he has been requesting since 1988, has; not been done. Leahy said he was "told by manager's office that we did not want to', out about violations because we might lave to do something about them." A fire prevention chief ordered him not; to remove combustible storage from under the stairs in the fire prevention office, "a condition which is not permitted in private; businesses." The city stores hazardous wastes in violation of federal regulations and the city See WASTE, Page5A; Set tare take ff Km. i ay ff. If 7 1 4 on council reject aiding leak inquiry Say they won't cooperate with mayor's task force By Joe Burchell The Arizona Dally Star Four City Council members said they will not cooperate with a mayor's task force investigating allegations that city officials withheld information about leaking underground fuel tanks from the council. The task force has requested copies of any documents or correspondence council members had exchanged with the city manager's office on the underground storage tank issue and soil or water contamination at the Thomas 0.

Price Service Center, 4004 S. Park Ave. Councilwoman Molly McKasson said the request is "an empty gesture" since eight of the 10 task force members already have announced they don't believe council charges that information was withheld. Those charges led former City Manager Tom Wilson to resign at the request of five members of the all-Democratic council. Fire Chief Richard Moreno has refused a similar request.

McKasson is the only one of the five to express willingness to cooperate with the task force. "I'll provide anything I have, but they'll find nothing to justify the decision they've reached," she said. In a letter to task force Chairwoman Sam DeLong, Councilman Mike Haggerty said, "Since the mayor's task force was created by the mayor with no intention other than to justify his own political agenda, I have no intention of participating in your glaringly apparent charade." He added: "Furthermore, I find it rather remarkable that your committee is now pursuing additional information after your committee has made its publicly pronounced conclusions based on only one week of review." Councilman Bruce Wheeler said the task force was handpicked by Mayor George Miller "to carry out his political vendetta" and is improperly spending taxpayer money. More than $1,400 has been spent for labor and printing to provide the task force with copies of thousands of pages of memorandums and documents on the underground tank issue. According to an opinion obtained by Wheeler from City Attorney Fred Dean, a task force created by the mayor "may not, without authorization of the governing body, collect, commit or make direct expenditures of city funds." The expenses were not approved by the council.

DeLong said the council members' refusal to cooperate was a mistake, "but that's their prerogative." She said conclusions voiced by task force members See COUNCIL, Page5A The Associated Press into a ditch when flames engulfed the plane from wings to tail. Authorities suspect the fire started In one of the three engines on the L-1011. TWA Flight 843 became a fireball yesterday before leaving the ground at John F. Kennedy International Airport In New York. All 292 people aboard the San Francisco-bound flight were evacuated safely, but at least 51 suffered minor Injuries.

After an aborted takeoff, the plane veered Elmer is denied bond, ordered jailed till trial The ruling surprised even members of Valenzuela's family, who had expressed doubts about the fairness of the judicial system after the earlier bond ruling. "Oh, he's going to go free," said Maria Valle, Valenzuela's cousin, just before yesterday's proceedings. But afterward, she said, "Justice will be done. We're very happy." Luz Castro, Valenzuela's mother, hugged friends and other family members and had to be escorted out of the courtroom, quietly crying, without comment Michael Piccarreta, Elmer's attorney, said he intends to appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In his ruling.

Roll denied attorneys for the victim's family a chance to present an argument, even though See ELMER, Page2A later and said in a statement Elmer had discussed burying the body and also apparently pointed a gun at him. An investigation showed the body had been dragged about 175 feet toward the Mexican border. In his ruling, Roll said Elmer is a danger to the community because of his alleged attempts to cover up the shooting, his apparent threat to the other agent, and his failure to report the shooting, among other things. Roll also cited in his ruling information that was revealed in other recent hearings, including Elmer's alleged theft of 5 kilograms of cocaine from a seizure and his alleged bragging to another agent and to his ex-wife that he had shot other illegal aliens. "We have always felt very strongly in our position," said Santa Cruz County Attorney Joe Machado, who is prosecuting the case.

"I'm very pleased that the court agreed with the position of the state." By Tessie Borden The Arizona Dally Star A federal judge yesterday denied bond for a U.S. Border Patrol agent accused in the shooting of a Mexican man and ordered him jailed until his trial. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John M. Roll reversed an earlier magistrate's decision that set bond at $120,000 for Michael Andrew Elmer.

"There are no conditions of bail that can guarantee that Mr. Elmer will appear at trial," Roll said at the hearing. "The presumption of detention is appropriate in this case." Elmer allegedly shot Dario Miranda Valenzuela twice in the back during a drug surveillance June 12 and then failed to report the killing. Another agent reported the shooting about 15 hours U.S. POWs held after WWII may be alive, Izvestia reports Award winner plans to sell Oscar for wife's eye operation NEW YORK (AP) Harold Russell, the handicapped former Army instructor who won an Academy Award as a handless sailor In "The Best Years of Our Lives," loves his Oscar, but he loves his wife more.

So he's selling the golden statuette to the highest bidder over the protests of those who awarded it "My wife has to have an eye operation and we had a problem with the house and I need some money," the 78-year-old Russell said in a telephone interview Wednesday from his home in Hyannisport, Mass. The Oscar that Russell won in 1946 as best supporting actor will be sold next Thursday in New York by autograph specialist Herman Dar-vick, who estimated it will bring $20,000 to $40,000. Actor Karl Maiden, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has pleaded with Russell to reconsider. In a letter. Maiden said that the academy knew of no other See RUSSELL, Page 2A Cancer patients in study live longer with new vaccine LOS ANGELES (AP) Patients with the deadliest form of skin cancer lived dramatically longer when they were injected with a vaccinelike treatment for the disease, according to a study released yesterday.

The experimental vaccine is among several being developed. They are aimed at curing patients whose malignant melanoma has spread throughout the body despite surgery to remove cancerous moles and affected lymph nodes. It will be five to 10 years before a government-approved vaccine is on the market and widely available, said the study's author, Dr. Donald I Morton, medical director of the John Wayne Cancer Institute at SL John's Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif. Traditional vaccines stimulate the body's Immune system to prevent a See VACCINE, Page 2A Possible Showers.

Today is expected to be partly cloudy with a slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Look for a high near 100 and an overnight low in the mid-70s. Yesterday's high was 97, and the low 75. Details on Page ISA. Malcolm Toon, Volkogonov's American counterpart on the POW commission, said in June that he doubted there were any American POWs still imprisoned in the former Soviet Union.

"There may be former American POWs living in Russia or the former Soviet Union voluntarily. We don't know that," Toon, a former ambassador to Moscow, said at the time. Volkogonov's brief article, headlined "Sensations Possible," did not identify any of the Americans, but he promised to publish a list in the next few days. The article did not specify whether the 39 were servicemen or when they were imprisoned, except to say it was after World War II. Volkogonov was at his country dacha yesterday and could not be reached for comment, according to a woman who answered the telephone at his home.

President Boris N. Yeltsin caused a stir in the United States in June when he said that the Soviet Union had imprisoned hundreds of American soldiers after World War and the Korean and Vietnam wars. He said most had been returned or See POWs. Page2A MOSCOW (AP) Some Americans imprisoned after World War II may still be alive in the former Soviet Union, the Russian co-chairman of a commission investigating American POWs said yesterday. In an article written for the newspaper Izvestia, Gen.

Dmitry Volkogonov said Soviet authorities had pressured 39 Americans to renounce their citizenship. He said those who refused were jailed as spies, and those who agreed were sent to prison camps anyway. "There is reason to believe that some of them are still alive and that they live on the territory of the former U.S.S.R," Volkogonov wrote, citing newly released KGB documents. In Washington, Deborah De Young, spokeswoman for the Senate Select Committee on POWMIA Affairs, said late yesterday. "We're encouraged and it's exactly the sort of news we hope to find out more about" The committee has had investigators in Moscow tracking down POW reports and looking through Russian files, and De Young commented, "What this is going to boil down to is a lot of elbow grease." I INDEX Msaey MB Movies 1IF News summary IK Obituaries ID Public recerds 2B Sptrts I-12C Starlight 1-24F TV 7D Accent 1-7D Bridge JD Classified ID-IE Camies ID Comment U-17A Cresswwd ID DearAbby ID Horescspe JD.