Wisconsin State Journal from Madison, Wisconsin • 1

1B DEATHS3B City editor: Terry Shelton, 252-6118 M0NEY6B Wisconsin State Journal Saturday, March 24, 1990 I W1 WS1RTT leader seeking talk Plug pulled on newscast are those representing clerical and blue-collar employees. "Likely two, possibly three," Beil said when asked how many units would be back at the table they left in mid-February. Contracts for social service, technical and security-public safety employees have been approved By Jeff Mayers State government reporter At least two of three state employee bargaining units still without a 1989-91 contract could be back at the mediation table soon, the executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union said Friday. WSEU leader Martin Beil said he would meet with state mediator Herman Toro-sian on Monday to try to get all three outstanding units back to the table to discuss wage issues and expected sick-day penalties. But Beil acknowledged that one unit that representing researchers and analysts in state government might balk at returning.

The other units without contracts Beil said the other remaining issue was pay. Leaders of the remaining three units have said the standing administration pay raise offer was too low. The administration has offered a general raise of 3.75 percent for 1989-90 and 4.25 percent for 1990-91, and Beck repeated Friday that was the "final offer." Unless the three bargaining units settle by mid-May, when the Legislature returns briefly for a veto review session, state workers represented by the units likely would have to wait until January 1991 for a retroactive raise. "It's fair to say the May veto review period is the next window of opportunity," Beil said. "I'niencouraged that he'd like to move said Constance Beck, secretary of the Department of Employment Relations.

But Beck and Beil disagreed over the issue of whether expected sick-day penalties would be an issue at the bargaining table. An undetermined number of state employees took an unauthorized sick day earlier this month to protest slow progress in the contract talks. Beil said the sick-day issue should be an issue in mediation. Beck emphatically said the issue was not negotiable. Beck declined to say whether the Thompson administration would dock the pay of those workers who took the unauthorized sick day, but she said individual agencies "have that discretion." Beil by the Legislature and are before Gov.

Tommy Thompson. A key Thompson administration official was pleased with the news about the remaining units. TCCTT EAU CLAIRE (AP) Televison station WQOW-TV has aired its final newscast. The parent company, Tak Communications, said Friday it had decided that maintaining a news department at the station and at WXOW-TV, its station in La Crosse, was no longer economically feasible. Tak Communications also owns WKOW-TV, Ch.

27, the ABC affiliate in Madison, and a station in Wausau. The company said WQOW-TV's news operation was disbanded and 30 full- and part-time employees were being laid off. Beginning Friday night, WQOW-TV was to air news broadcasts originating from WXOW-TV in La Crosse to provide local and regional news coverage. Moments after ending the station's 10 p.m. report Thursday, anchor Andrew Bo-hage and sports reporter Dwayne Mosely learned from station manager Ron Monte-zon that it had been their last show.

"We had been having what you might call a cash-flow problem, but otherwise, no inkling," said Bohage, news anchor and a seven-year member of the news staff. "It's a shock and I really feel sorry for the people who worked for me," said Larry Wentz, WQOW-TV news director and anchor. "A lot of them have worked here a long time; it's hard for them." At a competing station, WEAU-TV, news director John Hoffland said the development was no cause for Celebration. "What we're seeing here is the loss of an alternate source of news and information for Eau Claire and Chippewa counties," he said. Jeff Klotzman, news director at the Tak-owned WKOW-TV, Ch.

27, in Madison, said he is "not in any way concerned" his department will be threatened by the parent company's action in Eau Claire. "I feel pretty confident that we'll be in pretty good shape," said Klotzman, who heads a 22-member news staff. Tak Communications is owned by Sharad K. Tak of Potomac, Md. Landfill developer fights bills By Melissa George Courts reporter The developer of the closed Refuse Hideaway landfill claimed Friday the state cannot force him to foot bills for cleaning up the mess.

John DeBeck filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to stop the state from billing him for part of the cost of installing a gas control system at the site. i-I I 1 cud iii' 1 li ft. 1 The state Department of Natural Resources stretched its authority by finding De-Beck should share the burden of fixing ground water and other DeBeck State Journal photoSCOTT SEID Promoting fire safety UW is tops in education Town of Madison fire inspector Scott Fisher distributes information on meeting on fire safety at 7 p.m. Monday at the Dane County Highway the care and maintenance of smoke detectors Friday at a Sommerset Garage, 2302 Fish Hatchery Road. Fisher estimates that a half to three Circle townhouse, next door to the scene of a fire March 13 that claimed quarters of the smoke detectors in South Side apartments contain dead the lives of five children.

Tenants at Sommerset and other South Side batteries or none at all, removed because the alarms are activated by apartment complexes are receiving pamphlets and being notified of a smoke from cooking, bugs, dust or even steam from showers. The UW-Madison School of Education is the best in the country, according to a survey by an Illinois professor. Wisconsin beat out the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the top spot on the list. "I guess it's better to be near the top than in the middle or near the bottom," said John Palmer, dean of the UW school. Treating with genes Accidental UW find has medical promise Field tests of bacteria scheduled The survey was con-HnrtpH hv Charlps Wpst a pollution problems at the dump, according to the suit filed in Dane County Circuit Court.

DNR officials closed the dump west of Middleton after it was discovered the landfill had polluted several nearby wells. In 1988, DNR officials told De-Beck and his company to install a system to handle explosive gases that could leak into nearby basements, according to court documents. DeBeck asked the court to review the DNR officials' decision, and Judge Angela Bartell told the agency to show what codes it used to find DeBeck was an owner or operator of the project. The lawsuit filed Friday claims the DNR has not shown DeBeck is a licensed owner of the Refuse Hideaway business. He asked the court to tell the state it can hold only Refuse Hideaway Inc.

responsible for the gas control system. DeBeck is a shareholder in the company. But state laws put the burden of cleanup on both existing and former owners, said Robert Selk, an assistant state attorney general. State officials already have liquidated the Refuse Hideaway business, Selk said. And an underground system to control the gas is in place at the closed landfill.

But DNR officials want De-Beck to continue to help pay for 1 professor of educational -wyr I I nsvcholocv at the Univer- I I sity of Illinois. West asked 232 experts in eight fields of education to rank the top 10 university education departments in their area of expertise. He then combined those responses PHIL MCDADE up genes directly by injection is unexpected and very exciting," Wolff said. "There's no reason why anyone would've thought muscle tissue would take up DNA but it just soaks it up." Every person is born with about 100,000 genes, which control characteristics such as hair color and bodily functions such as insulin production. Muscular dystrophy and sickle-cell anemia are among genetic diseases that result entirely from defective genes.

With the new process, Wolff said, doctors would be able to replace the deficient genes by injecting healthy genes directly into muscle tissue. The direct injection of genes also could lead to better, more effective treatment of other genetic and non-genetic diseases, said Wolff, director of the research. The new procedure is described in the March 23 issue of the journal "Science." Viscal Inc. of San Diego, a firm that develops drug delivery systems, also was involved in the research. By Julie Aicher Associated Press Treatment for muscular dystrophy and other killer diseases could be made easier as a result of an accidental discovery by UW-Madison researchers.

If successful in experiments on humans, the process of injecting genes directly into muscle tissue could lead to the development of new ways to treat some cancers, herpes and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), one researcher said. Dr. Jon Wolff, assistant professor of pediatrics and medical genetics at UW Medical School, said the way genes are used in treatment now is complicated and its long-term safety has been questioned. Currently, genes must be taken out of a person with healthy genes and infected with a genetic virus to produce new genes, which then are implanted into the patient, he said. The process allows for the chance that other infections may be produced, he said.

"The discovery that muscle has the ability to take fixing the damage, Selk said. It is estimated the entire cleanup will cost more than $5 million, Selk said. Potatoes used to press Idaho into an overall ranking for 25 schools. The top five were, in descending order, UW-Madison, Illinois, Ohio State, Stanford and UCLA. Palmer said he was not surprised by the ranking.

The School of Education has ranked near the top in similar surveys, he said. Palmer attributes the ranking to the strong reputation of UW-Madison. "I think these things always reflect the general reputation of the university," he said. UW-Madison's graduate engineering programs were ranked 15th in the country, and its graduate business programs ranked 22nd in a recent survey by U.S. News World Report magazine.

The School of Education has 180 full-time faculty, 2.800 undergraduate students and 1,300 graduate students. In a separate ranking of individual departments, West ranked UW-Madison's educational administration and educational policy studies departments as second best in the nation, secondary education as third, educational psychology as fourth, elementary and early childhood education as fifth, post-secondary education as seventh, special education as ninth, and vocational and technical education as 18th. Herbert Grover, state superintendent of public instruction, criticized UW-Madison's education programs five years ago, saying the school was more concerned with research and graduate studies than with preparing people to teach in elementary and secondary school. Palmer refuted that charge. McDade covers university issues for The State Journal.

Phone: 252-6138. Associated Press A genetically engineered bacteria designed to improve crop yields is scheduled for field tests this spring by University of Wisconsin scientists, a researcher said Friday. The field tests, which will be the first by UW-Madison involving genetically engineered organism, will be conducted on pea plants at the school's Arlington and Hancock agricultural research stations. Researchers said they plan to use the bacteria on 40 plots with a total area of less than one-tenth of an acre at each of the research stations. The Arlington farm is about 20 miles north of Madison.

The Hancock station is about 80 miles north of Madison. The study could help scientists improve yields of several types of crops and help farmers reduce the amount of commercial nitrogen fertilizer they use, said Eric Tri-plett, a UW-Madison agronomist conducting the research. "The long-term goal of the research is to develop strains of bacteria that will increase the yields and nitrogen-fixing abilities of crops such as peas, beans, soybeans, clover and alfalfa by 10 to 15 percent," Triplett said. Triplett's research focuses on rhizobia, a common soil bacteria that attach themselves to plant roots and form nodules. Rhizobia receive food from the plant and convert nitrogen from the air into a form the plant can use to grow.

Agracetus, a Madison biotechnology company, field-tested genetically engineered tobacco plants in Dane County in 1986. Massachusetts-based Biotech-nica tested genetically engineered bacteria in Pepin County in 1988 and Dane County last year. Triplett said the experiments were important because forage crops such as clover and alfalfa are the backbone of Wisconsin's dairy industry. in Idaho." Dean Zuleger, the executive director of the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association, was angry at Gaylor's plan to boycott potatoes, saying his group supported Idaho farmers. "What really bothers me is (that) the legislature has made this decision, the potato growers have not," Zuleger said.

Potatoes are in demand this year, he said, predicting the proposed boycott wouldn't affect Idaho growers. Wisconsin is the third largest potato producer among states, behind Idaho and Washington. Zuleger said 10 to 12 percent of potatoes sold here come from Idaho, he said. But Idaho is a "sitting duck" for a boycott because the state is exports only one major product, Gaylor said. If the governor doesn't veto the bill, which Gaylor called a "Neanderthal measure," she said she would begin writing to women's groups nationwide, telling them to Abortion bill sparks call for boycott By Heather Clark Wisconsin State Journal Abortion-rights supporters in Wisconsin are planning to hit Idaho where it hurts the most in the potato patch.

They plan to boycott Idaho potatoes unless the governor of the Western state vetoes an abortion bill passed by the legislature Thursday. Anne Gaylor, of the Women's Medical Fund, sent a letter Friday to Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus, asking him to veto the most restrictive abortion bill to be passed by a state legislature. It is surmised that the law could become a test of the U.S. Supreme Court's stance on abortion rights.

Gaylor, who is an Idaho potato fan herself, nevertheless said, "I notify their members about the boycott. In 20 years as an advocate for women's rights, Gaylor said she has spoken with 30,000 women about women's rights and has talked with women, including an 11 -year-old girl, a homeless woman with several children and a woman who had had 15 pregnancies, who were seeking abortions. The boycott would let people know that there is an alternative for women who are being discriminated against, she said. "We don't have to beg and plead for our rights; we can fight back," she said. In addition to writing the letter, Gaylor contacted one of Andrus' aides, who told her that Wisconsin isn't the only state to threaten Idaho with a potato boycott, she said.

Apparently, a senator from Michigan also contacted the office. The aide said Andrus is expected to make a decision on the bill in five to 10 days, Gaylor said. i I Anne Gaylor will have no problem in never eating an Idaho potato again." She said a boycott would be a success because "everybody buys potatoes. It would be easy to choose (to buy) potatoes not grown WISCONSIN Megab ticks lottery numbers are drawn Wednesday and Saturday nights. The last winner was March 21.

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