The Daily Tribune from Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin • Page 1

U.S. (syW7LT0 IB consumer I Milwaukee officials believe runoff may be behind water contamination Woiy it 4 i X- i k-x i iXZ 1 1 i 7 -pJ hfek 1 lx, i 1 fx- y. Xf I MILWAUKEE (AP) -Milwaukee health officials suspected that farm or slaughterhouse runoff caused the tap-water contamination that has sickened thousands of people. The outbreak this week has sent people dashing to stores for anti-diarrhea medicine and bottled water. Schools covered drinking fountains Thursday, and restaurants boiled large pots of water for 'washing food and making coffee.

Laboratory tests found that at least 23 people were infected by the water-borne parasite Cryptosporidium, which produces stomach cramps, fever and diarrhea, said Thomas Schlenker, medical director for the Health Department. Cryptosporidium is found in the intestinal tracts of animals, and officials were checking whether runoff from farms and slaughterhouses had put the microscopic organism into rivers that flow into Lake Michigan, from which Milwaukee draw its drinking water, City Health Commissioner Paul Nannis said. James Kaminski, commissioner of public works, said the leading hypothesis is that runoff into the Milwaukee River reached a water purification plant intake about a mile off shore and three miles south of the river's mouth. "Since it appears its an animal-borne organism, it would most likely be runoff from a place where you have animals, a farmyard, a barnyard," he said. Mayor John O.

Norquist ordered the plant one of two in the city closed after officials found that cases of the illness were concentrated in the southern part of the city, where the plant is located. Norquist said that about 800,000 people served by the municipal water system should keep boiling tap water for drinking and cleaning food until the source of the contamination is located and remedied. A plant on Milwaukee's north side can handle the volume in the meantime and is more likely to have good water, the mayor rowr Associated PressChris Corsmefer parasite suspected of causing an outbreak of digestive illness in Milwaukee. The illness apparently is concentrated in the area of the plant, so it was closed temporarily today. price index Percent change from prior month, umonalty adjusted 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.1 .0 A A 0 0 1982 1993 March 92 Feb.

92- March 93 0.4J 10.3 Sorer U.S. Dtp. oILMx AP Consumer prices up 0.1 In March WASHINGTON (AP) Consumer prices edged up only 0.1 percent in March, helped by the smallest in crease in medical care costs in nine years, the government said today in a report that eased inflation worries. The slight, seasonally adjusted increase in the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index followed increases of 0.3 percent in February and 0.5 percent in January. The earlier reports had raised fears among some economists that inflation had stopped declining and was starting to accelerate.

Accidents cause earliest deaths ATLANTA (AP) Violence and AIDS are closing the gap on accidents, the nation's No. 1 cause of premature death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that accidents in 1991 robbed Americans of 2.1 million years of potential life before age 65. Automobile wrecks accounted for 1.3 million of those years. Cancer, claiming 1.9 million potential years, was the No.

2 cause of premature death. Violence that is, homicide and suicide and the AIDS virus grew fastest on the annual list and were No. 3 and No. 5, respectively. Thousands mark Good Friday JERUSALEM (AP) -Christians from around the world walked the Way of Sorrow on Good Friday, some lugging heavy wooden crosses as they traced Jesus Christ's steps toward his crucifixion.

Thousands made their way along the narrow street to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built where Christians believe Jesus was buried after being crucified. In another Good Friday tradition, Pope John Paul II heard confessions in St. Peter's Basilica. The Vatican picked 12 people from seven countries to be confessors. Tonight: Becoming partly cloudy.

Lows 30 to 35. Light northwest winds. Saturday: Partly sunny. Highs in the low 50s. SATURDAY, April 10, 1993 Kiwanis Easter egg hunt, 10 a.m., Witter and Mead fields, Wisconsin Rapids.

Three age brackets. Grand Rapids Easter egg hunt, 10 a.m., behind the fire station in Grand Rapids. Mi TESTING THE WATER: Chief chemist John Game removes a water filter as water plant chemist Bob Kling and media representatives look on Thursday at the Howard Avenue water treatment plant in Milwaukee. The filter will be sent for testing for Cryptosporidium, a said. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee The boil-water advisory was Water Works increased chlorina- expected to remain in effect tion and improved filtration.

through the Easter weekend Schlenker said hundreds of while officials awaited the people had sought medical help results of tests at the plants, for the illness. Most victims have been able to recover without see- Dr. Thomas A. Taft, an infec- ing a doctor. tious disease specialist acting on But it poses a bigger threat to his own, alerted city health offi- people with immune systems cials Wednesday afternoon that weakened by AIDS and other a lab test showed a patient had conditions because it can invade Cryptosporidium, a protozoan the bloodstream and other organ that is rare in Wisconsin, Nannis systems, Schlenker said.

said. Doctor thinks water behind illness MILWAUKEE (AP) The doctor who first reported the possible cause of an outbreak of intestinal sickness in Milwaukee says he's betting the city's water supply turns out to be the source of the problem. Dr. Thomas A. Taft, an infectious disease specialist, notified health officials this week that an unusual parasite, the protozoan Cryptosporidium, was found in the stool of a woman suffering from the sickness.

That discovery had set off an alarm for Taft. "It should not have happened in a person who does not have AIDS or some immunological problem," Taft said. i still on we bring in will ensure the compacts will be renewed," he said. The new casino will be located at the same site 4950 Creamery Road, about 5 miles southwest of Nekoosa but will be four times as large as the current facility. The new casino is expected to be finished in mid-August.

Included in the expansion will be a 4.8-mile sewer line from the casino to the Nekoosa Waste Water Treatment facility. The tribe estimates the cost of the line at $690,000 plus monthly user fees. Town of Port Edwards voters Tuesday approved an advisory referendum 149-143 to allow running a pipeline from the casino through the town to the Nekoosa facility. The ground-breaking ceremony is slated for 11:30 a.m. Monday.

Meeting planned for Rapids store WIS. RAPIDS Officials of Sears, Roebuck Co. plan a meeting three weeks from now to say how and when Wisconsin catalog outlets will be changed to retail stores, said Ralkph Totzke, owner of a Sears operation here. The timeline for the conversion has not been set, he said today. He anticipates that his 910 Huntington Ave.

facility will become a Sears appliance center. "We're still on their list," Totzke said today. Casino expansion for nw post Administration: It's not an attempt to eliminate possible 1994 challenge By RICH JACKSON Tribune Staff Writer TOWN OF PORT EDWARDS The Winnebago tribe plans to go through with a casino expansion here despite Tuesday's statewide referendum vote calling for limitations on gambling. The Wisconsin Winnebago Business Committee will hold a ceremonial ground-breaking ceremony Monday for the expanded Rainbow Casino. The addition will create a casino with 550 slot machines and 28 blackjack tables.

The casino will employ more than 450 people. Currently, Rainbow employs 237 people. Included in the expansion will be the construction of a full-service, high-quality restaurant. State voters Tuesday approved a gambling amendment that will ban forms of gambling other than those now allowed: piclcd Klauser said Grover, 56, will head a newly created Office of School to Work Transition. He will resign as DPI superintendent in time to occupy the new office Monday, Klauser said.

Deputy superintendent Lyle Martens will run the education department until July when John T. Benson is sworn in as superintendent, spokesmen said. Benson, a school administrator from Marshall, was elected superintendent Tuesday, defeating Hortonville school teacher Linda Cross. Klauser said it was important to get the job filled because the federal grant available for the program was about to expire. The state would lose the money if it wasn't spent.

"We could not have waited until July," he said. Klauser denied there was a political reason for hiring Grover. He was chosen because of his background, Klauser said. The job is funded out of a $200,000 federal Department of Labor grant received Klauser's department to expand youth apprenticeship and other school-to-work initiatives. State-run lottery games, pari-mutuel betting, bingo and charitable raffles.

Some speculate this could hurt Indian gaming compacts with the state. The compacts expire in about six years. Tom Krajewski, a spokesman for the tribe, said tribal members believe the compacts will be successfully renegotiated. "We believe that Indian casinos will be around for a long time because of the political support they have from the people of Wisconsin," Krajewski said. While it's possible the compacts will not be negotiated, the tribes believe state officials will look at the economic benefits of casinos.

"We're just confident that the political support and the jobs we create and the tourism dollars and the costs and the related expenditures necessary to operate them as a chain," Abbenhaus said by telephone Thursday from St. Louis. On Jan. 25, Sears said it would close most of its 2,000 catalog stores because it was pulling out of the catalog business. But Sears said it might keep some of its independently owned stores open as retail outlets.

Sears said Thursday that the catalog stores' conversion would be complete by year's end. More on Sears5A MADISON, Wis. (AP) Officials deny giving a new job to state school Herbert J. Grover so he won't run for election next year against Gov. Tommy G.

Thompson. James Kla-user, Thompson's secret- Herbert Grover ary of the Department of Admi-nistration, announced Thursday that Grover has accepted a job paying $75,000 a year, overseeing career programs for young people who don't attend college. Grover, a former Democratic legislator, has been superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction for 12 years, earning $72,337. He did not seek re-election this year, and there was speculation he planned to run for governor in 1994. "It's a brilliant move on Tommy's part," Assembly Majority Leader David Travis, D-Madison, said after learning of the new job in Klauser's department.

(Thompson) "got rid of one of his strongest challengers." Ml Sears to convert 350 stores CHICAGO (AP) Sears, Roebuck and decision to convert about 350 of its 2,000 former catalog stores to small retail businesses is a shrewd business move, a retail analyst says. Analyst Philip Abbenhaus said the decision will allow Sears to maintain some lucrative markets without having to buy land or pay labor. "It kind of takes them almost to a franchise situation where they get these people selling their products, but they don't have to carry all the overhead mm Business 5A Editorial 4A Classif i.d 8B Local area 2A Comict 11B Religion 6B Community lift 4B Sports IB Daily record 2A Weather 8 A Why is it that people who drink to forget never forget to drink?.