Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 12

State region Page2B ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES Saturday, Jan. 14, 1995 Maadeair board rate M-C's ftn.iradl raqaoesS. hsiOff commission members. um How can we be so far off from the initial estimate," asked state Sen. Charles Hawkins, a Virginia representative on the commission.

Hawkins offered a motion to give the commission only $3 million additional funding, but later agreed to vote for the $5.4 million. "Don't we have an obligation to ask questions of Chem-Nuclear," Hawkins asked. "We write the check. People are going to start wondering where we are going and what we are doing. We need to send a message that there needs to be some accountability." Commission members from Tennessee also expressed concern with expenditures and voted against allowing the addi- lina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The current disposal site is at Barnwell, S.C., and will close at the end of 1995, forcing low-level waste generators to store waste on their own property. Low-level radioactive wastes range from protective clothing worn by nuclear plant workers to equipment used to change fuel rods at nuclear power plants. The actual rods are considered high-level waste. Mac Millan said if the Wake County site is ultimately approved by state regulators the earliest a facility could open would be the summer of 1997, but a more real realistic schedule would be the summer of 1998. The last estimate was to open the facility by March 15.

missioner Michael Mobley of Tennessee. The money will get the state through the critical period of assessing the site and answering questions posed by state regulators after Chem-Nuclear applied for a license to operate the dump, said John Mac Millan, executive director of the North Carolina authority. Commissioners said they want to know at some point when North Carolina will know if the site is suitable. Mac Millan said that could be in September. Original estimates to construct the facility were about $40 million.

The current estimate to obtain a license is about $112 million and another estimated $65 million to build the dump. The commission represents Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Caro THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RALEIGH North Carolina got less than half the additional money it requested Friday to continue testing at a controversial site for a low level radioactive waste dump. The Southeast Compact Commission, which dispenses money and oversees disposal for eight southeastern states, gave the North Carolina Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority $5.4 million. The authority had requested $13 million, most of which would be paid to Chem-Nuclear Systems for more evaluations of a site for the disposal facility in Wake County. That money didn't come without some misgivings being expressed by several In other action, the commission: Approved another $5 million payment to South Carolina as a penalty for failing to have the facility open in March.

South Carolina previously was awarded $5 million because North Carolina failed to have a license on schedule. I Transferred $6.6 million to a reserve fund from the commission's $37 million surplus to fund identification of the next host state and pay for commission operations through the year 2002. Agreed to delay collection of fees charged generators of the nuclear waste until Sept. 1 tional funds, as did Virginia member Peter Schmidt. "We're moving ahead without knowing if we can close on this site," said com FOGGY MORNING IN CAROUNA Ke of slain soldier says Die foli safe since U.S.

forces began their intervention there in September. Until Thursday, no American soldier had been killed by (rX hostile fire -even with thousands of paramilitary attaches loyal to Haiti's ousted military rulers rumored to be at large. Cardott wmm THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FAYETTEVTLLE The wife of the first U.S. soldier killed in Haiti since military intervention began last fall, said Friday what would have been her husband's birthday that he had felt safe there and had expected to come home next month. The Pentagon said Friday that Sgt 1st Class Gregory D.

Cardott, 36, based at Fort Bragg, died in Haiti Thursday after a gunfight with a Haitian officer. Cardott's wife, Darlene, a 30-year-old nursing student, said Army officers came to the couple's home in Fayetteville Thursday night to tell her and her two young daughters of his death. Friday would have been her husband's 37th birthday. "They wear their pretty uniforms to the door, and they tell you," she said, a catch in her voice. "I last talked to him night before last He just said they needed to be coming home.

Everyone thought they were safe there." Cardott had been in Haiti was a career Gregory Cardott soldier in the U.S. Army special forces. During the past six years, his life also had included his wife, their 3-year-old daughter Elise, and his 8-year-old stepdaughter, Erica. Her relatives were with her Friday. The loss was difficult for the 8-year-old, she said, because Cardott had been her father since she was 2.

"The younger one's a little too young to understand," she said. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS GOlfiSBORO A horse stands In a fog-covered pasture Friday morning near Goldsboro. Unseasonably warm temperatures were part of the equation that produced the dense fog, which covered most of eastern North Carolina. Wilkesboro slaying suspect arrested by Georgia police CALHOUN, Ga. Elwyn Anueurin-Jones, suspected in last July's slaying of his ex-wife in Wilkesboro, N.C., was arrested Friday in this northwest Georgia city and charged with murder, po Settlement made a difference for Perdue, workers lice said.

Sgt Larry Gilbert said Jones, 49, was arrested without incident at a motel where he had worked and lived since last month. A Jan. 6. 1995 edition of television's it. "Unsolved Mysteries," profiled Jones and DIGEST also may have led to his arrest Jones was charged with the shooting death of Lisa Jones, who was killed outside her workplace in Wilkesboro on July 23, 1994.

MLK speaker: Hew contract not needed RALEIGH America doesn't need a new contract because the old one works just fine, a Christian ministry professor told several hundred state workers at a memorial service for Martin Luther King Friday. Samuel Proctor, professor for the practice of Christian ministry at Duke University, said he has hope for the future because the country is bound together by the constitution. "These people come in talking about a new contract with America," he said, his voicing rising. "You don't need it You've got an old contract We hold these truths to be self-evident The rest of his statement was drowned out as the crowd in First Baptist Church jumped to its feet applauding. Proctor told the crowd that King was the right man, at the right place at the right time for the civil rights movement Officials recommend closing one deaf school WILSON Officials have recommended closing one of the state's three schools for the deaf, but only if the money saved is used to improve the other schools.

Closing the Central N.C. School for the Deaf In Greensboro should save the Department of Human Resources about $1.8 million. DHR recommended that the school be closed and the students sent to the other Institutions the Eastern N.C. School for the Deaf In Wilson and the N.C. School for the Deaf in Morganton.

Of the three state residential schools, Central is the smallest with 78 students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade. The Wilson and Morpnton schools have K-12 programs. ENCSD has 236 students, and NCSD has 199 students. $100,000 fine levied on nuclear plant HARTSVILLE, S.C. Operators of the H.B.

Robinson nuclear power plant have paid a $100,000 federal fine imposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Carolina Power Light based in Raleigh, N.C, was cited for repeatedly exceeding regulations on how fast the Ilartsville plant can be cooled down. On Nov. 29, the NRC said the plant exceeded the cool down by 40 degrees on separate occasions. The worst thing that could happen in an excessive cool down would probably be cracked pipe, the agency said.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Out of that agreement grew an ergonomics center jointly operated by the Labor Department and North Carolina State University that helps companies like Perdue redesign their operations to reduce the chance of carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive motion injuries. While the settlement has been in force, Labor Department inspectors have been regular visitors to Perdue's four plants in North Carolina. And while many companies shudder at the prospect of inspectors in their plants, Perdue and Labor officials say they have developed a cooperative relationship. "Every employer thinks regulations are tough," said Mary Carroll Lewis, head of the Bureau of Health Compliance in the Labor Department "What Perdue learned very quickly is that ergonomics pays. "They saw such a reduction In their workers comp payments, that they learned quickly it was good business," she said.

Perdue's lost-time ratio is now one-eighth of the poultry processing industry as a whole. "They've become a much more open company," Lewis said. "They've put a lot of effort Into making It work, and they've really been open and receptive to our visits. We've had access to anybody we wanted to talk to." "Usually, I guess, you think of companies and regulators butting heads," Thompson said. "But it hasn't been that way.

They've made some very valuable suggestions that we've been able to use." One Involved work breaks. The Rockingham plant was taking two 15-minute breaks each shift, but an Inspector mentioned that Perdue's Lewiston plant was getting better results with 30-minute breaks. ri ri i THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ROCKINGHAM Scalded naked birds, their feathers plucked off by machines, swing slowly upside down as they move toward a junction on the stainless steel production line. At the junction, yellow-scaled feet and legs soundlessly separate from the bodies and inarch off on their own conveyor belt to another part of the plant Farther down the main line, a machine makes a small slice in the chicken bodies and the steel fingers of another machine reach inside to pull out the internal organs for inspection. At each spot on the line, a worker stands ready with a curved knife to correct any mistake the machines make.

"AH of this used to be done by hand," Rex Thompson, the manager of Perdue Farms' Rockingham complex says. "Now the idea is to have machines do the repetitive work as much as possible, with a worker to back up the machine." The workers, standing on raised platforms In their hard hate, rubber boots and steel mesh-lined gloves, move only occasionally to correct a mistake. Much of the mechanization has come in the last three years, Thompson said, as Perdue has invested $10 million in its Rockingham plant The move toward more machinery came, in part, because of a settlement between Perdue and the state Department of Labor in 1991 over repetitive motion injuries. The settlement which expires this month, was reached after Labor Department Inspectors In 1989 cited the company for exposing its workers to relentlessly repetitive work that sometimes left them with crippled hands. a am VV THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ROCKINGHAM Re Thompson, manager of Perdue Farms' Rockingham complex, shows ergonomlcany designed knives and scissors now wed by Perdns employees.

The move toward the ate of more machinery and mors orgonofflkany designed tools came because of a settlement between Perdue and the state Department of Labor In 1991 over repeUtlrt motion Injuries. come to like ft." "It's great to get through the cat-and-mouse philosophy," said Labor Commissioner Harry Tayne. "There's just not enough cats to keep the mice honest "It's been almost a trial-and-error Improvement process because repetitive motion disorders are so difficult to pin down," Payne said. Workers would be at the same job for 2 hours, then take a 30-minute break and rotate to another job on the line. It gave them time to rest and to change the motions they were using.

"We wcrcnt sure if our associates (workers) would go for it because ft meant spending an extra 30 minutes at work," Thompson said. There was some grumbling at first but people, I think, have.