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.; t, vte : i-- -: . ricl : ciety iir: r & LOtoRY st. serv COLUHBH, U'J. 652H Alfr $ o( tttttbt 75th Year No. 187 Good Morning! It's Thursday, April 21, 1983 2 Sections 14 Pages 25 Cents lIlffllIHI k & g& BHHBS19BIHHHHHHHRIH9HBsHHIIHHH9BHiHHBHHHHHHiHBH S ?& ,1 IHIilffim if li PPw iff'' m3 WfflfligB ' M finli BHk ff BMfHKJgHMW. MMBXMMgMBMBMMMBllt HB9BOIHBXBHHPHrHIXIBHaHBBBHHH0BlHHHiH9lHiHBBliHpHH BHUSMDMQVQHHSHHHBRHBH' SMIHwflvHBBMHillllHiBHflflHBHM HSiHfiMBHBlfBHlfllitfllBIEw& L' BW- - J? LdHfw963FsSlHHHEH K BBBBBBBilBflrilHflBBIBgBHBMflMwSHffiBJ Technicians prepare cameras and lights Wednesday fortonight's production of " Viewpoint" in Jesse Auditorium BnmCNeiH ' VIEWPOINT' STRATEGY ABC army ready for climax of costly battle plan By Silvia Ascarelli Mlssourian staff writer When you flip your dial to Channel 8 for " Viewpoint" at 10: 30 tonight, you will see a slickly produced pro-gram with smooth camera movements, even lighting and a studio- lik- e set The signal will originate in Jesse Auditorium, where the program is being broadcast, and then travel 2,400 miles back to local television sets, compliments of the latest satellite technology and some old- fashion- ed tele-phone lines. Crews have put in hundreds of extra hours to make it happen. For the small army of technicians using thou-sands of dollars worth of equipment and miles of wiring, going on the road to Columbia means extra effort. ABC producers began drawing up the battle plan for this massive effort a month ago. The network's army consists of 30 handpicked staff members and 13 Universi-ty students. The support battalion has brought miles of wires, 100 lights, a couple of dozen television sets, 16 mi-crophones, eight cameras, cooking faculties and per-haps even a partridge in a pear tree. The cost to the network will be almost $ 200,000. It may not cost quite as much as World War II, but the logistics involved could boggle the minds of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. D- D- ay is 10: 30 p. m. central tune. All the planning, which began when ABC accepted School of Journalism Dean Elmer Lower's invitation to broadcast " View-point" from here, comes to a climax tonight. This behind- the- scene- s planning is what the viewers of " Viewpoint" won't see: y-- D- D- ay minus 30. Senior producer Bill Moore spent a day in Columbia scouting potential facilities. He looked at several local theaters, and m the end chose Jesse Au-ditorium, despite its size. Although " Viewpoint" prefers a cozier setting usually the size of the auditorium's balcony tonight's audience will be 1,800, the faculty's capacity. But with all the events going on this week, Moore says, " This basically was the best of what was left." Armed with a set of floor plans, Moore and those in charge of the set, lighting and cameras made their plans over the next few weeks. The set, designed for Jesse Auditorium's dimensions, Mows the " Viewpoint" look: a semi- circl- e of six seats for the guests, three on each side of moderator Ted Kop- pe- L The set was trucked in from New York. A tower on each side of the stage contains seven tele- - Focus on ' Viewpoint' program Page 8A vision sets on which the guests and audience can watch CBS correspondent Bill Moyers, who will participate via satellite from New York. The television sets also will show what is being broadcast across the country Other monitors, spaced closer to the back of the audito-rium and in the balcony, will be linked to a " remote" outside. Eight cameras will be used, five on the stage and three m the audience. As many as 11 have been used in pre-vious broadcasts of " Viewpoint" ABC also is using 16 microphones two for moderator Ted Koppel, two at each of three stations in the audience, one for each guest and a couple of spares. Wires lead to one large cable that links it all to the re-mote, a truck rented from St. Louis that is a complete television studio Senior audio engineer Vincent Perry estimates the audio equipment uses approximately a half- mil- e of wires Apublic address system was brought in from New York to ensure everyone in the auditorium can hear the panelists and questions clearly. General Telephone Co provided temporary phones and hues leading to and from Jesse Hall To light Jesse Auditorium, lighting director Walt Palmer says he will use 100 lights rented from Kansas City, Mo., the most he has ever used for a " Viewpoint" program. He will use two- and- a- h- alf miles of cable and 840 amps of power. For the first'time, he also is using two trusses, black metal contraptions suspended from the ceiling, to hold some of the lights. To focus the lights, a man will use a metal trapeze ladder to reach one of the trusses and will rappell from the ceding to reach the other. Those goings- o- n, ABC hopes, will not appear on camera. - D- D- ay minus three. The crew began arriving. The trickle will turn into a flood by Tuesday. Koppel arrives the day of the broadcast. On Monday, the " focus spot" for the program was produced in New York with Jeff Greenfield, ABC's media and political analyst. It outlines the topic the media's coverage of presidential campaigns for the audience and panel and will be broadcast at the begin-ning of the show. D- D- ay minus two. Local groups with a special inter-est in the topic were invited to send representatives That helps ensure an audience willing to ask questions, Moore says " There aren't a whole lot of people who want to get on television, believe it or not," he says JDay minus one. By 9 a m , the auditorium has be-come a beehive of activity as almost everything is set up Today the lighting will be finished, and a mock rehearsal will be staged to find the best camera angles The crew usually has three days to prepare, Moore says, but the Oluo Ballet performed in the auditorium Tuesday " We can do it in two days," he says In Columbia, they've had to. - D- D- ay minus one hour. The audience settles in and becomes accustomed to the lights. v D- D- ay minus 20 minutes. Koppel and the panelists take the stage and test their equipment Koppel then tells the audience the ground rules No speeches Keep the questions concise and direct D- Da- y. The opening tape rolls from New York all pretaped parts will come from there " Viewpoint" will go from Columbia to Chicago by tele-phone wire and then via a Westar 4 satellite to New York. Bill Moyers's voice and picture will be added in an ABC studio, and both it and the live show being beamed to 5 6 million television sets across the country will be sent to KOMU via a Comstar D3 satellite A temporary link built by GTE brings those signals to the remote outside Jesse Hall. Moore estimates it will take one to one- and- a- h- alf seconds for the signal to make the 2,400- mi- le trip Outside Jesse Hall sits the remote " Viewpoint's" version of a command center. All wires lead to here. Moore, George Watson, the ABC vice president in charge of the show, and others will monitor the show from there The show will run upwards of two hours. Because noth-ing follows " Viewpoint," it is not limited to its one- and- a- h- alf hours. Later in the program questions tend to get better as the audience becomes more comfortable with the cameras and more involved with the subject, Moore says. y D- D- ay plus two hours. Another show finished, the crew will tear down the set by 3 a. m. Then it's back to New York and Washington, D. C., to prepare for the hour- lon- g version of " Nighthne" that debuts Monday. 17K7 9: 30 a. m. Boone County Court meets, county courtroom, County City Building 7: 30 p. m. Spring programs at Fairview, Benton and Grant elementary schools 7: 30 p. m. " Robin Hood," musical at West Boule-vard Junior High 8 p. m. Guest Artist Series, Music from Aspen, Fine Arts Recital Hall, f. ee 10: 38 p. m. ABC " Viewpoint" with Ted Koppel, Jesse Auditorium ' Inside Bulne .......................... ....................... .......... 6B Omitted ... . . 4- 5- B Opinion ... 4A Sporti . m ......... ...................... ......... .1- 2- B Hallsvlll . .68 Ptopl ......... 5A ' The embassy endures' Diplomat recalls brush with death i BEIRUT, Lebanon ( UPI) It sounded like rolling thunder. Then there was a flash, a wall collapsed and Dundas McCullough was struggling to breathe in the dust- filled'ldarkne- ss of the VS. Embassy. His head still bandaged and his voice trembling, McCullough recreated those terrifying moments inside the embassy- whe- n the bomb containing approxi-mately 300 pounds of TNT went off and killed at least 35 people. McCullough said he was speaking with someone when he heard a rolling thunderous sound. " There had been a thunderstorm ear-lier in the day. But this went on too long. " I realized my chin was on the coun-ter, and there was a big flash of light m front of me and then the wall separating s the file room from the waiting room fell on me and my interpreter," said the diplomat, a native of Berkeley, Calif. In the complete darkness that enve-loped the waiting area of the consular section immediately after Monday's blast, McCullough said he struggled to get on his feet The disintegrating concrete was choking him and he wondered if he would survive the blast only to suffo-cate. " I wasn't sure whether it would be possible to breathe," he said. " But I was able to stand up and the air cleared and there wasn't much left. " I walked into what had been the file room," he said. " I realized then that the whole front of the building was gone. I had to make sure I didn't step off the ledge " There was one person who was un-- j derneath some debris, and I tried to i pull the debris off her. But then I real- - lzed she was dead." 1 He found another person auve and 1 pulled him out of the rubble But that J man could hardly see. A Marine in a gas mask escorted f" them to the waiting ambulances that t sped them to American University Hos-- . j pital. In the carnage of the moment, his j wounds were not severe enough to war- - j rant immediate treatment 1 McCullough said he has no intention 1 of asking for a transfer out of Lebanon ; despite his brush with death. " The embassy endures," McCullough 1 said. " There's not much point in giving the people who place bombs in our em bassies the satisfaction of driving us out t early." t E 34fe AHB9BHflfrBflBrfiiHI UMTttopiwta Dundas McCullough and his wife, Re- ecc- a, sort recovered documents. i City to end UE pact Rates to stabilize By Reno Tawa Mlstourian staff writer Electric bills won't be so shocking after the city pulls the plug on its contract with Union Electric Co on June 1, Water and Light Director Richard Malon said Wednes-day The decision to stop buying electricity from the utility is part of the city's long- ter- m plan to reduce rates Al-though utility bills will rise 5 percent in August to offset the costs of buying electricity elsewhere, rates will stabi-- i hzein the long run, Malon said Tuesday Kates would have increased more rapidly had the city continued to rely on Union Electric for power City con-sultants estimated that rates would have jumped from $ 5 to $ 15 per kilowatt hour. " In the long haul, it's going to be very significant," Malon said. " Ultimately, over a 30- ye- ar period, the sav-ings will be in millions of dollars to the city " The city's plan to purchase small blocks of power from other utilities is its most economical option, Malon said The Nearman plant in Kansas City, Kan , will provide 20 megawatts of electricity annually, and the Sikeston, Mo , plant will provide another 30 megawatts The largest portion 86 megawatts a year will come from Colum-bia's own municipal power plant, which is to be reno-vated during the next few y ears. " We want to be flexible and to diversify our resources so we're not dependent on one utility or plant," Malon said By investing in other power plants, the city also will have more control over rates, Malon said Like a home owner who pays a fixed mortgage rate, the city's $ 5 6 million payments to the Kansas Board of Public Utilities will not increase " We anticipate what this will do is fix our costs," Ma-lon said " There may be minor increases from tune to time, but the major cost of the plant will be fixed " Because the city's costs are fixed, utility rates also should stabilue, Malon said. Under the Union Electric contract, the city could have bought up to 50 megawatts a year until 1991. The agree-ment to break the contract calls for the city to pay to use Union Electnc's transmission lines to carry electricity from the Nearman plant to Columbia Utility believes ruling won't halt Callaway plant JEFFERSON CITY ( AP) A U S Supreme Court de-cision Wednesday allowing states to ban new nuclear power plants until the federal government finds safe methods to dispose of radioactive waste apparently will not stop construction of the Callaway nuclear plant That's the view of spokesmen for Missouri government and the utility building the plant Jay Johnson, a spokesman for the Missouri Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, said the commission's legal staff believed it would take a voter- approve- d referendum, such as one rejected by Missouri voters in 1980, to halt or prevent construction of nuclear power plants in the state Johnson and a spokesman for Union Electric Co of St Louis, which is building the Callaway plant near Fulton, said it is not likely the decision will affect plant construc-tion. The 1980 proposal known as Missouri's Proposition 11 would have established a law banning the construction of nuclear plants until a safe radioactive waste disposal method was found The Callaway plant is scheduled to begin operations in early 1985 In a 9-- 0 ruling, the court upheld a moratorium on new nuclear plants that was enacted by California in 1976 The opinion did not specify what effect the ruling would have on the 57 nuclear plants now under construction na-tionwide. Only four of those plants are in states with laws or rules against new plant construction Laurence Tribe, the Harvard law professor who won the case for the state of California, said the decision means states can prevent all 57 of those plants from be-ginning operations However, Dick McAleenan, manager of nuclear infor-mation for Union Electric, said the ruling solely address-es economic concerns of California that future nuclear plants might one day be shut down because the federal government had not found a way to dispose of radioac-tive waste. Such an interruption in electrical service would have drastic economic consequences, California officials have said.
Object Description
Title | Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1983-04-21 |
Description | Vol. 75th Year, No. 187 |
Subject |
Columbia (Mo.) -- Newspapers Boone County (Mo.) -- Newspapers |
Coverage | United States -- Missouri -- Boone County -- Columbia |
Language | English |
Date.Search | 1983-04-21 |
Type | Newspaper |
Format | |
Collection Name | Columbia Missourian Newspaper Collection |
Publisher.Digital | The Office of Library Systems of the University of Missouri |
Contributing Institution |
State Historical Society of Missouri University of Missouri School of Journalism |
Copy Request | Contact St. Louis Mercantile Library at: (314) 516-7240 or (314) 516 - 7247 See request form and fee information here: http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/special_collections/image-service.html |
Description
Title | Full Page |
Date.Search | 1983-04-21 |
Type | page |
Item.Transcript | .; t, vte : i-- -: . ricl : ciety iir: r & LOtoRY st. serv COLUHBH, U'J. 652H Alfr $ o( tttttbt 75th Year No. 187 Good Morning! It's Thursday, April 21, 1983 2 Sections 14 Pages 25 Cents lIlffllIHI k & g& BHHBS19BIHHHHHHHRIH9HBsHHIIHHH9BHiHHBHHHHHHiHBH S ?& ,1 IHIilffim if li PPw iff'' m3 WfflfligB ' M finli BHk ff BMfHKJgHMW. MMBXMMgMBMBMMMBllt HB9BOIHBXBHHPHrHIXIBHaHBBBHHH0BlHHHiH9lHiHBBliHpHH BHUSMDMQVQHHSHHHBRHBH' SMIHwflvHBBMHillllHiBHflflHBHM HSiHfiMBHBlfBHlfllitfllBIEw& L' BW- - J? LdHfw963FsSlHHHEH K BBBBBBBilBflrilHflBBIBgBHBMflMwSHffiBJ Technicians prepare cameras and lights Wednesday fortonight's production of " Viewpoint" in Jesse Auditorium BnmCNeiH ' VIEWPOINT' STRATEGY ABC army ready for climax of costly battle plan By Silvia Ascarelli Mlssourian staff writer When you flip your dial to Channel 8 for " Viewpoint" at 10: 30 tonight, you will see a slickly produced pro-gram with smooth camera movements, even lighting and a studio- lik- e set The signal will originate in Jesse Auditorium, where the program is being broadcast, and then travel 2,400 miles back to local television sets, compliments of the latest satellite technology and some old- fashion- ed tele-phone lines. Crews have put in hundreds of extra hours to make it happen. For the small army of technicians using thou-sands of dollars worth of equipment and miles of wiring, going on the road to Columbia means extra effort. ABC producers began drawing up the battle plan for this massive effort a month ago. The network's army consists of 30 handpicked staff members and 13 Universi-ty students. The support battalion has brought miles of wires, 100 lights, a couple of dozen television sets, 16 mi-crophones, eight cameras, cooking faculties and per-haps even a partridge in a pear tree. The cost to the network will be almost $ 200,000. It may not cost quite as much as World War II, but the logistics involved could boggle the minds of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. D- D- ay is 10: 30 p. m. central tune. All the planning, which began when ABC accepted School of Journalism Dean Elmer Lower's invitation to broadcast " View-point" from here, comes to a climax tonight. This behind- the- scene- s planning is what the viewers of " Viewpoint" won't see: y-- D- D- ay minus 30. Senior producer Bill Moore spent a day in Columbia scouting potential facilities. He looked at several local theaters, and m the end chose Jesse Au-ditorium, despite its size. Although " Viewpoint" prefers a cozier setting usually the size of the auditorium's balcony tonight's audience will be 1,800, the faculty's capacity. But with all the events going on this week, Moore says, " This basically was the best of what was left." Armed with a set of floor plans, Moore and those in charge of the set, lighting and cameras made their plans over the next few weeks. The set, designed for Jesse Auditorium's dimensions, Mows the " Viewpoint" look: a semi- circl- e of six seats for the guests, three on each side of moderator Ted Kop- pe- L The set was trucked in from New York. A tower on each side of the stage contains seven tele- - Focus on ' Viewpoint' program Page 8A vision sets on which the guests and audience can watch CBS correspondent Bill Moyers, who will participate via satellite from New York. The television sets also will show what is being broadcast across the country Other monitors, spaced closer to the back of the audito-rium and in the balcony, will be linked to a " remote" outside. Eight cameras will be used, five on the stage and three m the audience. As many as 11 have been used in pre-vious broadcasts of " Viewpoint" ABC also is using 16 microphones two for moderator Ted Koppel, two at each of three stations in the audience, one for each guest and a couple of spares. Wires lead to one large cable that links it all to the re-mote, a truck rented from St. Louis that is a complete television studio Senior audio engineer Vincent Perry estimates the audio equipment uses approximately a half- mil- e of wires Apublic address system was brought in from New York to ensure everyone in the auditorium can hear the panelists and questions clearly. General Telephone Co provided temporary phones and hues leading to and from Jesse Hall To light Jesse Auditorium, lighting director Walt Palmer says he will use 100 lights rented from Kansas City, Mo., the most he has ever used for a " Viewpoint" program. He will use two- and- a- h- alf miles of cable and 840 amps of power. For the first'time, he also is using two trusses, black metal contraptions suspended from the ceiling, to hold some of the lights. To focus the lights, a man will use a metal trapeze ladder to reach one of the trusses and will rappell from the ceding to reach the other. Those goings- o- n, ABC hopes, will not appear on camera. - D- D- ay minus three. The crew began arriving. The trickle will turn into a flood by Tuesday. Koppel arrives the day of the broadcast. On Monday, the " focus spot" for the program was produced in New York with Jeff Greenfield, ABC's media and political analyst. It outlines the topic the media's coverage of presidential campaigns for the audience and panel and will be broadcast at the begin-ning of the show. D- D- ay minus two. Local groups with a special inter-est in the topic were invited to send representatives That helps ensure an audience willing to ask questions, Moore says " There aren't a whole lot of people who want to get on television, believe it or not," he says JDay minus one. By 9 a m , the auditorium has be-come a beehive of activity as almost everything is set up Today the lighting will be finished, and a mock rehearsal will be staged to find the best camera angles The crew usually has three days to prepare, Moore says, but the Oluo Ballet performed in the auditorium Tuesday " We can do it in two days," he says In Columbia, they've had to. - D- D- ay minus one hour. The audience settles in and becomes accustomed to the lights. v D- D- ay minus 20 minutes. Koppel and the panelists take the stage and test their equipment Koppel then tells the audience the ground rules No speeches Keep the questions concise and direct D- Da- y. The opening tape rolls from New York all pretaped parts will come from there " Viewpoint" will go from Columbia to Chicago by tele-phone wire and then via a Westar 4 satellite to New York. Bill Moyers's voice and picture will be added in an ABC studio, and both it and the live show being beamed to 5 6 million television sets across the country will be sent to KOMU via a Comstar D3 satellite A temporary link built by GTE brings those signals to the remote outside Jesse Hall. Moore estimates it will take one to one- and- a- h- alf seconds for the signal to make the 2,400- mi- le trip Outside Jesse Hall sits the remote " Viewpoint's" version of a command center. All wires lead to here. Moore, George Watson, the ABC vice president in charge of the show, and others will monitor the show from there The show will run upwards of two hours. Because noth-ing follows " Viewpoint," it is not limited to its one- and- a- h- alf hours. Later in the program questions tend to get better as the audience becomes more comfortable with the cameras and more involved with the subject, Moore says. y D- D- ay plus two hours. Another show finished, the crew will tear down the set by 3 a. m. Then it's back to New York and Washington, D. C., to prepare for the hour- lon- g version of " Nighthne" that debuts Monday. 17K7 9: 30 a. m. Boone County Court meets, county courtroom, County City Building 7: 30 p. m. Spring programs at Fairview, Benton and Grant elementary schools 7: 30 p. m. " Robin Hood," musical at West Boule-vard Junior High 8 p. m. Guest Artist Series, Music from Aspen, Fine Arts Recital Hall, f. ee 10: 38 p. m. ABC " Viewpoint" with Ted Koppel, Jesse Auditorium ' Inside Bulne .......................... ....................... .......... 6B Omitted ... . . 4- 5- B Opinion ... 4A Sporti . m ......... ...................... ......... .1- 2- B Hallsvlll . .68 Ptopl ......... 5A ' The embassy endures' Diplomat recalls brush with death i BEIRUT, Lebanon ( UPI) It sounded like rolling thunder. Then there was a flash, a wall collapsed and Dundas McCullough was struggling to breathe in the dust- filled'ldarkne- ss of the VS. Embassy. His head still bandaged and his voice trembling, McCullough recreated those terrifying moments inside the embassy- whe- n the bomb containing approxi-mately 300 pounds of TNT went off and killed at least 35 people. McCullough said he was speaking with someone when he heard a rolling thunderous sound. " There had been a thunderstorm ear-lier in the day. But this went on too long. " I realized my chin was on the coun-ter, and there was a big flash of light m front of me and then the wall separating s the file room from the waiting room fell on me and my interpreter," said the diplomat, a native of Berkeley, Calif. In the complete darkness that enve-loped the waiting area of the consular section immediately after Monday's blast, McCullough said he struggled to get on his feet The disintegrating concrete was choking him and he wondered if he would survive the blast only to suffo-cate. " I wasn't sure whether it would be possible to breathe," he said. " But I was able to stand up and the air cleared and there wasn't much left. " I walked into what had been the file room," he said. " I realized then that the whole front of the building was gone. I had to make sure I didn't step off the ledge " There was one person who was un-- j derneath some debris, and I tried to i pull the debris off her. But then I real- - lzed she was dead." 1 He found another person auve and 1 pulled him out of the rubble But that J man could hardly see. A Marine in a gas mask escorted f" them to the waiting ambulances that t sped them to American University Hos-- . j pital. In the carnage of the moment, his j wounds were not severe enough to war- - j rant immediate treatment 1 McCullough said he has no intention 1 of asking for a transfer out of Lebanon ; despite his brush with death. " The embassy endures," McCullough 1 said. " There's not much point in giving the people who place bombs in our em bassies the satisfaction of driving us out t early." t E 34fe AHB9BHflfrBflBrfiiHI UMTttopiwta Dundas McCullough and his wife, Re- ecc- a, sort recovered documents. i City to end UE pact Rates to stabilize By Reno Tawa Mlstourian staff writer Electric bills won't be so shocking after the city pulls the plug on its contract with Union Electric Co on June 1, Water and Light Director Richard Malon said Wednes-day The decision to stop buying electricity from the utility is part of the city's long- ter- m plan to reduce rates Al-though utility bills will rise 5 percent in August to offset the costs of buying electricity elsewhere, rates will stabi-- i hzein the long run, Malon said Tuesday Kates would have increased more rapidly had the city continued to rely on Union Electric for power City con-sultants estimated that rates would have jumped from $ 5 to $ 15 per kilowatt hour. " In the long haul, it's going to be very significant," Malon said. " Ultimately, over a 30- ye- ar period, the sav-ings will be in millions of dollars to the city " The city's plan to purchase small blocks of power from other utilities is its most economical option, Malon said The Nearman plant in Kansas City, Kan , will provide 20 megawatts of electricity annually, and the Sikeston, Mo , plant will provide another 30 megawatts The largest portion 86 megawatts a year will come from Colum-bia's own municipal power plant, which is to be reno-vated during the next few y ears. " We want to be flexible and to diversify our resources so we're not dependent on one utility or plant," Malon said By investing in other power plants, the city also will have more control over rates, Malon said Like a home owner who pays a fixed mortgage rate, the city's $ 5 6 million payments to the Kansas Board of Public Utilities will not increase " We anticipate what this will do is fix our costs," Ma-lon said " There may be minor increases from tune to time, but the major cost of the plant will be fixed " Because the city's costs are fixed, utility rates also should stabilue, Malon said. Under the Union Electric contract, the city could have bought up to 50 megawatts a year until 1991. The agree-ment to break the contract calls for the city to pay to use Union Electnc's transmission lines to carry electricity from the Nearman plant to Columbia Utility believes ruling won't halt Callaway plant JEFFERSON CITY ( AP) A U S Supreme Court de-cision Wednesday allowing states to ban new nuclear power plants until the federal government finds safe methods to dispose of radioactive waste apparently will not stop construction of the Callaway nuclear plant That's the view of spokesmen for Missouri government and the utility building the plant Jay Johnson, a spokesman for the Missouri Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, said the commission's legal staff believed it would take a voter- approve- d referendum, such as one rejected by Missouri voters in 1980, to halt or prevent construction of nuclear power plants in the state Johnson and a spokesman for Union Electric Co of St Louis, which is building the Callaway plant near Fulton, said it is not likely the decision will affect plant construc-tion. The 1980 proposal known as Missouri's Proposition 11 would have established a law banning the construction of nuclear plants until a safe radioactive waste disposal method was found The Callaway plant is scheduled to begin operations in early 1985 In a 9-- 0 ruling, the court upheld a moratorium on new nuclear plants that was enacted by California in 1976 The opinion did not specify what effect the ruling would have on the 57 nuclear plants now under construction na-tionwide. Only four of those plants are in states with laws or rules against new plant construction Laurence Tribe, the Harvard law professor who won the case for the state of California, said the decision means states can prevent all 57 of those plants from be-ginning operations However, Dick McAleenan, manager of nuclear infor-mation for Union Electric, said the ruling solely address-es economic concerns of California that future nuclear plants might one day be shut down because the federal government had not found a way to dispose of radioac-tive waste. Such an interruption in electrical service would have drastic economic consequences, California officials have said. |