Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 23

Alcohol-gas One more Louisiana well capped Hunters kill mix urged as car fuel i Mar. 25. 1970 The Arizona Republic Associated Press New York Times Service WASHINGTON A North Dakota congressman suggested yesterday to a Senate subcommittee that if Americans used a mixture of grain alcohol and gasoline in their cars they could reduce air pollution and bring an end to farm subsidies while boosting rural economies. Republican Thomas S. Kleppe told members of the Senate subcommittee on air and water pollution that such an alcohol gasoline mixture would reduce hydrocarbon exhaust emission by as much as 50 per cent, prolong engine life, and give greater power without a lead additive.

He said that the increased cost of such a fuel would be comparable with the cost presently estimated for higher octane, nonleaded gaso- lines now contemplated by the oil industry. An aide to the congressman later said that an Agriculture Department expert had given figures to the subcommittee indicating that the cost of a gallon of gasoline would rise about five cents with the use of grain alcohol in the mix. The cost of plant conversions and new plants was estimated at $6 billion. Recent statements by oil industry spokesmen have put the increased cost of higher octane gasoline at 2.5 to 4 cents per gallon higher. They also estimate costs of $5 to $6 billion for new refining equipment.

Kleppe argued that since the two costs were so close, it would be better to use grain alcohol as a solution to pollution problems because of the resulting assistance such a fuel boom would give to farm economies. "Large scale conversion of grain to alcohol could literally save billions of dollars of farm program costs," he said. These would, result from elimination of price supports and payments to farmers for diverting wheat and feed grain acreage, according to Kleppe. He estimated the initial savings at more than $2 billion a year. Another byproduct to using grain alcohol, according to the congressman, would be the building of new industries and plants in rural areas where the grain was produced.

NEW OR LEANS-Workers snuffed another gushing oil well off the Louisiana coast yesterday, leaving only one still pouring brown scum into coastal waters. The latest kill left only the biggest of the wells, No. 6, still polluting the Gulf of Mexico 30 miles from the coast. Well fighters pumped seawater under increased pressure into the well's reservoir yesterday in a renewed effort to stop the flow. Meanwhile, an L-shaped oil slick spread 34 miles northeast of the Chevron Oil Co.

platform but was not considered a threat to land area. A controversy broke out over Chevron's use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil slick. The Coast Guard said the slick trailed 14 miles northeast of the rig and then turned easterly for 20 more miles. The slick was reported to be 200 feet wide at the rig and trailed out to a width of about 4 miles. A spokesman for the Interior Department said yesterday that Chevron was using "large quantities" of chemical dispersants, which pose a threat to marine life.

"Chevron was authorized to use them from the beginning for reasons of safety, but the company is liable for any damage that is caused as a result of this," the Interior spokesman said. McFadden Duffy, information officer for the Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries Commission, said the use of chemicals to cause the oil to sink is like sweeping dirt under the rug. He said it may cause more damage on the sea bottom than it does on the surface. Chevron confirmed it was using dispersants on the platform structure and immediately below the platform as a safety measure. "This is being done with the approval of the U.S.

Geological Survey of the Department of Interior," a spokesman said. Canada bars contaminated fish exports Associated Press OTTAWA Canada has banned the export of fish caught in the St. Clair and Erie lakes areas because of mercury pollution from two chemical plants, Fisheries Minister Jack Davis told the House of Commons yesterday. Virtually all the fish, pickerel caught commercially in the lakes, are exported to the United States. Mercury poisoning had been blamed for the deaths some time ago of 43 Japanese who had eaten fish caught in a lake in Japan contaminated by industries using the element.

Davis, responding to a question in Parliament, said the St. Clair and Erie contaminations had been traced to two Canadian plants in the area of Sarnia, Ont. He said one has eliminated the problem and the other is doing so. In Wheatley, a senior Fisheries Department official, Mac Higgins, said he prohibited commercial fishing in St. Clair Lake effective Monday night.

One commercial fisherman said the government had seized fish valued at $5,000 for analysis. He contended sports fishing on the lake also should be banned. D. P. Caplice, a director of the Ontario Water Resources Commission in Toronto, said a "strong request for urgent action" had been given to the Dow Chemical Co.

in Sarnia. The plant is the only one in the area believed to use significant quantities of mercury, he said, and it has been told it must eliminate the escape of mercury into the water completely. "Oil spra.ving all nver'fhe platform has made catwalks, stairs and railings extremely slippery and necessitated periodic removal so crews can walk, climb and work- without injury," Chevron said. "Limited amounts of dispersants have also been used directly below the platform when concentrations of oil have become volatile enough to create an imminent hazard of fire. Such a fire on waters below a structure where many men are working, of course, could cause a disaster." Chevron said it is using two chemical dispersants, Cold Clean and Corexit.

"We have tested Corexit and found it to be toxic in some concentration," the Interior Department said. So far, no damage to marine life or wildlife has been reported, although the Chevron platform is near wildlife refuges and rich oyster beds off the Louisiana coast. Oil has washed ashore on deserted Breton Island, where Chevron used fireworks displays to frighten away birds, but the oil has been soaked up with bales of straw. The company brought in new, high-pressure pumps in a renewed effort to kill the. big well.

During the early morning hours yesterday, works crews pumped 17,400 barrels of seawater through a relief shaft at a pressure of 2,900 pounds per square inch. Chevron hopes to seal off the well from the bottom and said the work may be completed by tomorrow. A leading national conservation group called for federal action against Chevron and a group of 20 young demonstrators protested outside the Chevron office in New Orleans Monday. Phillips Berry, president of the Sierra Club, told a news conference that the Interior Department should seek indictments against the company and charged that Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel has done nothing to prosecute or penalize Chevron.

36,000 seals off Canada Now York Times Service OTTAWA About .16,000 baby seals, or nearly three quarters of the annual quota for the area, have been killed on the Gulf of St. ice since the season opened last Friday. A spokesman for the Fisheries Department said the hunt, which opened among dense herds of seals, had been slowed Monday and yesterday because of bad weather including high winds. Crews from 10 Canadian vessels are taking part in the hunt, which ends when 50,000 of the young animals have been slaughtered or by April 23 when the season ends. The full quota is expected to be reached this week.

The hunters have been accompanied by officials of the Fisheries Department whose mission is to enforce new regulations designed to have the spring hunt conducted more humanely than it has been in the past. Hunters must make the kill by wielding a short club, although adult seals must be shot by rifle. Whether the measures have achieved their objective of reducing cruelty to the animals remain in doubt, but Fisheries Department officials have not received the flood of protests they have in the years past. Big dance kicks ii potato burning Associated Press Tdaho Farmer? square danced beneath a full moon Monday night, then' arose at daybreak yesterday and destroyed millions of potatoes, capping the biggest demonstration yet in a month-long campaign for higher prices. Dozens of heavy trucks drove from Boise to a gentle slope of sageland in nearby Kuna to unload what the National Farmers Organization estimated to be nearly 2 million pounds of spuds.

Some were doused with fuel oil and set ablaze. The others were left to rot. This brings to an estimated 14 million pounds the number of potatoes destroyed in the NFO holding action declared Feb. 21, The holdout has included picketing of processing facilities, in potato-growing states from Maine to California, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The spuds destroyed yesterday were convoyed across southern Idaho a day earlier in a 115-vehicle caravan that ended up snaking noisily through the streets of Boise, the state capital.

NFO leaders met with Gov. Don W. Samuelson but came away dissatisfied. They said he showed little understanding of farm problems. Samuelson said he wouldn't take sides in the price battle but would serve as a mediator.

After the downtown parade, the farmers parked their trucks at the state fairground and allowed townspeople haul spuds away free. Lugging boxes, bags and buckets, people streamed into the fairground for four hours. Some were children apparently from poor families, others were housewives who alighted from shiny new cars. kept track of how many potatoes were hauled off. As daylight gave way to a full moon, a Western band assembled, and the twang of an old-fashioned square dance echoed through the fairground.

The heavy trucks began lolling toward Kuna at 5:30 a.m. yesterday to begin the dumping. Children played at the fringes of the pile, and farm wives cooked breakfast truck-camper rigs. One farmer said he would destroy his whole crop rather than sell at low prices. "After all," he said, "we can always go to work in the factories.

The NFO announced no new plans, and it remained difficult to gauge the effect of the holding action. The NFO and the processing industry both claim to be winning. Members of the organization have openly destroyed the estimated 14 million pounds, and claim to be holding many millions more from the market in order to boost prices. The growers want $3.50 per 100 pounds of Grade tatoes and $175 pe jfX) pounds of processor grade potatoes. Grade 1 potatoes are sold whole to the consumer; processor grade potatoes are made into such things as frrnch fries.

The growers say that since the withholding campaign started, prices for Grade I have gone up from $3 to near the $.1.50 goal, but processor grade prices hae remained basically unchanged. The unanswered question is the NFO's influence on total The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that, on March 1. cellars in Idaho alone still held 2.5 billion pounds of spuds. A new harvest is clue next October.

NUCLEAR POWER TALKS UNITED NATIONS (AP) An international conference on nuclear power development and its effects on the human environment will be held at U.N. headquarters in New York Aug. 10-14. BARRY'S YOUTHW6AR DANCEWEAR LOS ARCOS MALL Cor. Seottidale McDowell Rdt.

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