The Greenville News from Greenville, South Carolina • Page 19

Markets Thursday, October 27, 1983 Section 3 Firefighters battle textile on aze ill bl IB had more than minor injuries, said John Roberts, director of the Greenville County Emergency Management Authority. The fireman was taken to Greenville Me PIEDMONT Firefighters worked into the night Wednesday, while authorities began warning nearby residents to prepare for possible evacuation within a mile of an old textile mill in Piedmont after flames from the burning buildings threatened to ignite toxic chemicals stored in a nearby warehouse. The house-to-house alert came about five hours after fire broke out in a vacant textile plant once owned by J.P. Stevens Co. Inc.

No cause for the blaze at the complex now owned by Aquenergy Systems Inc. of Greenville has been determined, said Piedmont Fire Chief Doug Cowart. Aquenergy president Ralph Walker would not estimate the value of the buildings. As of early Wednesday evening, only one fireman the blaze from reaching a J.P. Stevens chemical warehouse, where, Roberts said, 1,000 pounds of mineral spirits, 1,000 pounds of kerosene and 100,000 pounds of plastic sizers were stored.

Also, an unknown quantity of polyvinyl chloride was in the warehouse, said Mickey Corbett of the state health department. If that chemical got hot enough, it could emit toxic fumes, he said. Greenville County officials were setting up an emergency shelter at Piedmont United Methodist Church to accept residents should they be evacuated. Last year, Stevens sold the complex, which includes three buildings and a hydroelectric power plant, to See Fire, Page 1 0B By Terry Creaar ffhf Nru Piedmont bureau morial Hospital after suffering a fractured ankle. Several firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation, Roberts said.

Wednesday evening, firefighters were trying to keep Fire takes more than town's mill i PIEDMONT Part of a town died Wednesday afternoon when fire destroyed most of the old Piedmont Manufacturing Company, a cotton cloth mill built shortly after the Civil War. "The mill was the town," Curtis Terry said as he stood several hundred feet from the red brick buildings collapsing in 1 $7 n. flames. Terry who worked in the mill for 34 years and several of the hundreds of area residents who clocked millions of hours in the plant watched By Paul Martin I (tht Nam staff writer 'if I 1 1 1 1 (I Ill CO f) with sadness and nostalgia as firefighters sprayed tons of water in a futile effort to save the buildings. "This was the main part of the town," said Floyd Smith, who started working at the plant in 1933, the year Franklin D.

Roosevelt took office. "It just hurts your feelings." Standing on the Greenville County side of the Saluda River, the plant was built in three stages beginning in 1874 and ending in 1896, said Don Roper, the mill's warehouse supervisor until J.P. Stevens Co. sold the plant in 1982. Named a National Historical Landmark in 1978, the mill's maple floors and 8-inch round pine posts caught fire quickly, producing intense heat that reddened faces of firefighters and spectators standing a hundred feet away.

A strong breeze fanned the bright orange flames through the buildings as billows of gray-black smoke brought an early evening darkness to an otherwise bright fall afternoon. Roper said for many years a water wheel by the river's edge powered the mill that turned cotton into gray cloth. "It's sad to see such a landmark go up," Terry said on the steps of the Piedmont Community building, where his wife, Jesse, works as town magistrate. Terry said he was at home Wednesday afternoon when he saw smoke coming from the general area of the community building, which is ten feet from the entrance of the plant. "I thought it was the magistrate's office and I was coming down to get the records out," Terry said as he and his wife pulled town records from file cabinets in anticipation of fire officials' orders to evacuate the building.

Patches of windblown soot and ash covered the See Mill, Page 1 0B -V .,1 ON CAROLINA 1 i Panel reviews SRP health studies ATLANTA A panel of scientists and epidemiologists studying possible health and safety problems at the Savannah River Plant ended a two-day meeting Wednesday, apparently without reaching conclusions. About 15 scientists and epidemiologists reviewed dozens of health and environmental impact reports compiled on the South Carolina nuclear plant over the past 30 years. Dr. Glyn Caldwell, assistant director of the national Centers for Disease Control and head of the independent study group, said the panel discussed a lot of proposals and reviewed a lot of data. But he said it will be months before the group forwards its proposals to the Department of Energy, which asked the CDC to form the panel.

The panel was convened in an effort to allay public concerns over the risks of operating the facility about 20 miles south of Augusta. The plant produces plutonium used to manufacture nuclear weapons. Caldwell said the group was asked by the Energy Department to consider what potential studies might be done to further define any health or safety risks at the plant, which has a work force of about 9,400. adjustment ordered COLUMBIA The state Public Service Commission has ordered South Carolina Electric and Gas to lower the amount it charges customers to purchase fuel for its plants, meaning a drop in the electricity bills of customers after Jan. 1.

The average customer's bill will drop by $2.25 a month after Jan. 1, coinciding with the first full-time commercial operation of the utility's V.C. Summer Nuclear Plant. The PSC denied the utility an increase in the fuel-adjustment fee, which it adjusts every six months. spokesman Buddy Clark said the fuel-adjustment rate, figured into electricity bills, reflects variations in fuel costs to the utility.

The fossil fuel is mostly coal and is used to generate electricity at no profit to said. He said the reason for the rate reduction is that nuclear fuel is cheaper to use than fossil fuel. had asked for an increase of $1.76 per 1,000 kwh a month to collect $3.3 million it had "under-collected" between last April and now. Reconsideration sought RICHMOND, Va. The Catawba Indians' tribal land lawsuit has "dramatic" national significance and should be decided by a full federal appeals court, argue attorneys for private landowners and South Carolina.

The attorneys have asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its panel's 2-1 ruling that the Catawba Indians have a right to sue for tribal lands. The land the Catawbas are seeking, 144,000 acres in York and Lancaster counties, is worth billions of dollars, said the petition filed Tuesday. The court's decision could "destroy the titles of more than 27,000 South Carolina citizens." "The rights of these South Carolina citizens to the unclouded ownership of their homes, schools, churches and businesses are at stake and deserve a decision by an en banc (full) court rather than a divided panel of three," the petition said. If left intact, the decision also would have far reaching effects throughout the nation because the Catawba Termination Act was only one of numerous such acts passed by Congress, it said.

Libertarian Party sued A Greenville County man has filed a $105,000 lawsuit against the Libertarian Party and its chairman, saying he was denied a seat at the Sept. 25 meeting of the state party's executive committee. William Dean Allen said in his lawsuit that party chairman Steven Kreisman and other party members "conspired to deny his lawful seat on the state executive committee." The action "has been done for political reasons not related to the plaintiffs qualifications or election to the position," Allen charged. He also said in the lawsuit that the action "is an attempt to discredit plaintiff as a Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate." Allen said in the suit that in a meeting of the Greenville County Libertarian Party executive committee on Oct.

15, he was unanimously re-elected to represent the county on the state executive committee. Also in the lawsuit, in which Allen represents himself, he said the minutes of the October meeting were filed with the Greenville County Clerk of Court, "because of defendants' allegations that plaintiff was not properly elected" in an earlier county committee meeting. Allen has asked that the court issue a temporary restraining order keeping the Libertarian officials from denying him his seat as a member of the state executive committee. He also has asked $5,000 in actual damages and $100,000 in punitive damages. -TV.

Th Nwi Fred Rolllton Firefighters spray water Wednesday at the Piedmont Manufacturing Co. buildings. Officials feared fire would spread to warehouse full of chemicals State unemployment rate falls to 8.6 percent turing sector in September, indicating the part of the economy most affected by the recession has returned to moderate health. "This is significant, since manufacturing has borne the brunt of this recession and has such a direct effect on other parts of the economy," David said. Other employment figures released Wednesday indicate that, although the drop in unemployment might slow, it should continue for the next few months.

The average manufacturing workweek rose again in September to 41.2 hours, and nine of the state's 11 economic indi cators were positive. "That (increase in the manufacturing workweek) is very positive because it's an added pressure on employers to call people back because they're paying people overtime," David said. "We're at a point where manufacturers are beginning to make decisions about calling workers back or putting on extra shifts." David said declines in unemployment should continue through the remainder of the year, but said he "wouldn't predict that the rate would fall below 8 percent. See Rate, Page 1 0B South Carolina's unemployment rate, helped by a burgeoning level of manufacturing employment in the state, dropped to 8.6 percent during September, the lowest point since October 1981. Including the lastest half-point decrease, the rate has declined by 1.2 percentage points in the past two months, and by three points since the rate peaked at 11.6 percent in February.

The number of unemployed people in the state fell last month to 122,800 from more than 131,000. The rate is at its lowest point since October 1981, when it was 8.2 percent. By ChffsMykranu 8hf Nrus staff writer Robert E. David, South Carolina Employment Security Commission executive director, said Wednesday much of the reason for the decline was the addition of 1,300 jobs in the state's manufac 1 Group will take plan for buying into plant to state's high court Saying it wants to buy time, the anti-nuclear Palmetto Alliance decided late Wednesday to appeal to the Oil storage tank explodes, burns GOOSE CREEK (AP) A storage tank holding about $1.3 million in oil exploded and burst into flames Wednesday at a South Carolina Electric and Gas Co. generating plant, where firefighters expected to spend the night putting out the burning tank.

The fire sent smoke billowing hundreds of feet into the air. Plant officials estimated it would be well into Thursday before the fire was extinguished or burned itself out. "We don't know what started it," said Williams Station manager David Plunkett. "We had been loading fuel from the tank to a barge since midnight last night. Then, for some reason, the tank caught on fire." There were no reports of injuries and no damage estimates were available late Wednesday, said Bill Cary, corporate communications manager for in Charleston.

The explosion occurred about 12:30 p.m. in one of See Tank, Page 1 0B 5rv I state Supreme Court 10 Upstate cities' plan to buy part of a Duke Power Co. nuclear plant. The alliance hopes the appeal will stall the cities' planned $1.2 billion purchase long enough to make them back out, director Michael Lowe I ght Naw staff writer said. 1 TtM AllockitKl Prni "We believe the cities' power users would be captive customers to this debt, and that the public is beginning to realize this," Lowe said.

"A lot of people have said that this is too important a case for us not to appeal." Jack Millwood, chairman of the cities' Piedmont Mu- A tank of heavy fuel oil explodes no Injuries were reported at the plant See Nuclear, Page 5B.