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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 1997)
SPORTS A&E TNTTnQ lAY -—————- -—- i n uivo. "Jtui Best Ever Thespian love August 28,1997 Nebraska senior rush end Grant Wistrom, who Performance artist Sharon Hayes stages her chose college over the NFL, is ready to start his multi-media project, “Lesbian Love Tour,” A SNOWBALL’S CHA ICE senior season. PAGE 12 Friday at the Wagon Train Project. PAGE 15 Partly sunny, high 90. Partly cU iJ>' tonight, low 70. VOL. 97 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 5 Higher ground Sandy Summers/DN STUDENT INSTRUCTOR PAT JANIKE, a senior civil engineering major, belays climbers on the wall Monday night at the Campus Recreation Center. SEE STORY ON PAGE 3. States argue over radioactive dump Nelson’s summit aims for alternatives to Nebraska waste site By Matthew Waite Senior Reporter After a decade of rancor, politics and more than $150 million spent, a dogfight over a dump has come to Lincoln. Gov. Ben Nelson has called representatives of the five states in the Central States Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact to the Comhusker Hotel today to talk about alternatives to a Nebraska dump site. Compact representatives have said alternatives already have been dis cussed. The summit is another chapter in a storied battle that has pitted rural Nebraska residents against neighbors, electric companies, other states and millions of electric ratepayers who are picking up the tab for the compact. Representatives from Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Louisiana banded together in 1981 after the federal government ordered states to build their own waste dumps. The dump in Nebraska would contain tools and clothing contaminated with low doses of radiation from nuclear power plants and research institutions that use radioactive materials. Nuclear power advocates say most of the radioactivity would deteriorate in weeks or months. However, some wastes would remain radioactive for dozens to hundreds of years, they say. Since 1989, when Nebraska was picked as a site for the dump, the project has been plagued with problems ranging from police officers hav ing to separate protesters and commissioners to residents bringing rats in bags to meetings to make a point. Mere mention of the dump in Boyd County, where the compact’s organizers wants to put the dump, sparks ill feelings. The county has become a flash point for proponents and oppo nents. Both sides claim a majority, but the peo ple remain sharply divided. Loren Sieh, chairman of the Boyd County Monitoring Committee, said residents are fed up, and they are concerned for the wet environ ment of northern Boyd County. “They (compact commissioners) are like the old farm horses in the field with the blinders on plowing straight ahead and they are plowing into a swamp,” he said. Meetings, at times, have been circus-like, with screaming matches, threats, slashed tires and infighting among commissioners. “It’s always combative,” said Laura Gilson, chairwoman of the compact and Arkansas’ rep resentative. I Aaron Steckelberg/DN Compact commissioners claim Nelson ha: applied political pressures to slow the compac to a crawl through lawsuits, delays and hi; appointment of a University of Nebraska Lincoln economics professor to a committee o environmental officials. Nelson denies that h< has tried to slow the compact through politics. But the compact has been slowed four yean beyond its initial predicted opening date. As it stands now, more than $150 million ha; been spent, and ground has yet to be broken on s dump that was to cost $31 million to complete The last estimate aftei Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at http:/ lwww.unl.edu/DailyNeb Green cautions athletes ■ No preferential treatment will be given to athletes, student judicial affairs director says. By Erin Gibson Senior Reporter About 145 University of Nebraska student athletes learned not to expect special treatment from Charles Green, student judicial affairs director, this fall. “All students - all'Students - are citizens of this university,” Green said in an interview after his speech to the athletes inside the Hewitt Center. “Everyone’s going to be treated exactly the same. There are no two standards for stu ''^SgWSMbtes” The NU Athletic Department did not allow media to attend Green’s speech, which was fol lowed by a play that warned students to avoid drugs and alcohol abuse and to help prevent sexual assault and violence. But Green later said he told the athletes that they must be accountable for their actions - both good and bad - at the university, and they must “make the play” and make the right deci sions both on the playing field and in life. He provided every athlete with a Student Code of Conduct in which he had marked important sections in neon yellow highlighter. All definitions of misconduct, the section outlining illegal drug use and disciplinary sanctions a student will incur after committing an infraction of the code were included in the highlighted section. Green also highlighted the section defining Please see ATHLETES on 8 Police want cycle^free sidewalks By Ted Taylor Assignment Reporter Lincoln police have something to say to bicyclists, skateboarders and in-line skaters: Get off downtown sidewalks. Officers are sending that message as clear as they can with a little white piece of paper that is usually reserved only for vehi cles with four wheels - tickets. Police have stepped up patrolling down town and are now writing $26 tickets quick er than you can say, “But officer.. ” They \ Please see TICKETS on 4