Monday, Mar. 23, 1970

Week's Watch

> As a campus issue, environmental degradation has attracted countless student radicals. Now the honeymoon may be over. At the University of Michigan teach-in last week, dissident blacks insisted that ecology is a mere diversion from more pressing issues. "There are 50 bills in the legislature on environmental problems," said one black speaker, "but none on the rats in Detroit, Flint and Jackson." Viet Nam activists are beginning to suspect that the war is also being forgotten because of increasing emphasis on the environment. To refocus discontent on Viet Nam and racial problems, campus radicals are planning a counter teach-in on April 22, when at least 700 colleges and 2,000 high schools plan to hold peaceful environmental protests. Ironically the change seems to be the result of President Nixon's own interest in fighting pollution. Says one Stanford University student leader: "When Nixon started on environment, I stopped. I'll never be caught on his coattails."

>When the streams and lakes of what is now California's Death Valley dried up 25,000 years ago, the desert pupfish somehow endured in the few remaining hot springs and saline creeks. Even now these tiny (2 1/2-in-long) evolutionary freaks can tolerate water six times more salty than the ocean's. They frolic in water with temperatures up to 112DEG; in freezing water they simply hibernate. According to Cry California magazine, the economically useless pupfish will soon test man's reverence for life. Spring Meadows Inc., a Nevada farming company, plans to start pumping ground water to irrigate its Death Valley lands for agriculture. As a result, the springs and creeks will dry up--and even pup fish cannot survive aridity.

> Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel was appalled. After inspecting 50 sq. mi. of oil slicks off Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, he called the spill a "disaster" and started a federal crackdown on the cause--a cluster of twelve offshore oil wells belonging to Chevron Oil Co. A month ago they caught fire. The blaze was snuffed out last week. But as high seas prevented capping the wells, thousands of barrels of brown crude oil started to gush into the water, posing a threat to the Louisiana coast's wildlife refuges and rich oyster beds. Fortunately the slicks blew out to sea, but Hickel said that the Interior Department will hold Chevron liable for any necessary cleanup. In addition, the Government may sue the company for 147 violations of federal offshore drilling regulations. Maximum penalty: $2,000 per day for each violation. Chevron could have cut the damage, officials say, by installing legally required "storm chokes" that close wells when the oil flow gets out of control. Cost of the device: a mere $800 per well.

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