ustxtxb_obs_1973_10_19_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

ro+,0,704t*O.16~,,,,VOSOP..0411 111.11111111111.11110.111111.1.111111.11.0111111.11041*'””‘”‘”””””‘””.”‘4″”*”.4010.011.7140101111111111111.101=11.1.111 grand jury that could lead to Smith’s indictment. The FBI investigation, according to Keeney’s memo, further suggests that Smith vetoed the Sharp Bills as “a temporizing act to protect himself.” According to the memo, the SEC had built a “strong circumstantial case” against Smith, including the testimony of two witnesses associated with the Texas Banking Assn. According to the memo, Smith was persuaded to veto the bill by the Banking Association. In the Oct. 8, 1971 issue of the Observer, we explored the facts concerning how the bills came to be vetoed. Oh rats! Say it ain’t so, Joe! Do you realize how far this single member district stuff has gone? Reps. DeWitt Hale and Joe Salem of Corpus Christi could well wind up having to run against one another next year just because they live two houses down from each other on the same street in Corpus! In July a three-judge federal panel was named to carve Tarrant County \(Fort month later a motion was filed to include eight other counties, among them Nueces, home of the Sparkling City by the Sea, in the suit. The same three-judge panel up Tarrant, will set to work on Nueces, et al. on Dec. 3. Hale and Salem have both announced that they think single member districts are unnecessary in Nueces. Salem said, “I think things should stay the way they are. And besides, history has shown that all factions of our population have had a chance to serve in the Legislature. We have had women, Mexican-Americans and Anglos. We have never had a black to run, but they have had the chance.” You can see why we love Joe. We loved him even before he fell off the speaker’s dais last session, before he broke his arm in the legislative football game, before he went to Paris to negotiate with the Vietnamese the year before that and .. . Oh well, maybe he won’t have to run against Hale, who has been in House for 11 terms now and would probably be re-elected if he died in the meantime. If the single-districters win in court, maybe Joe will sell his $65,000 house and move elsewhere, someplace where he won’t have to face an incumbent. Gov. Dolph Briscoe, Lt. Go”. Bill Hobby, U.S. Rep. John Young, the Corpus Christi city council, State Sen. Mike McKinnon, State Rep. Joe Salem and a chorus line of civic boosters want to build a deep draft port at Harbor Island. The Texas Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee to Save Our Beaches and Our Bays think an off-shore terminal for giant oil tankers would be safer than an in-land port. “I think we will find the real issue is whether this area will continue to enjoy a quality environment or will be burdened by further economic expansion,” Ned Fritz of the Texas Committee on Natural Resources said during a recent “town meeting” sponsored by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. According to environmental reports, the port would destroy breeding and nursery areas and interfere with, if not destroy, the fisheries of a large area of the Gulf of Mexico. The project would adversely affect the region’s entire estuarine complex, including Corpus Christi, Redfish, Aransas, Copano and even San Antonio bays. And the dredging is anticipated to generate as much as 100 million cubic yards of spoil, which would be tremendously expensive to haul out into the Gulf. Advocates of the Harbor Island site say that building an off-shore port is financially out of the question and that the in-land facility will not harm the coastal area. Congressman Young went so far as to say that .oil has been handled at Harbor Island for 50 years “without a single bad effect on the environment.” Edward H. Harte, publisher of the Caller-Times, told the Corps that Corpus Christi needs Harbor Island to cure its economic malaise. The Off-Shore Terminal Commission still hasn’t made a site recommendation. Jack & Jim Washington correspondent Jack Anderson predicted in Dallas recently that U.S. Rep. Jim Collins of Dallas will be indicted “within a couple of months” for alleged cover-up activities following revelation of a salary kick-back scheme in Collins’ congressional office. Anderson said after he wrote about the alleged cover-up, Justice Department officials sought him out and he gave them all the information he had. “From my conversations with them, Jim Collins will be indicted,” Anderson said. The charge would be obstruction of justice. Anderson said his columns described how Collins “had been covering up the kickbacks, how he had been going around seeing employes and former employes and bringing pressure upon them not to tell what they knew to the Justice Department.” George Haag, Collins’ former administrative assistant, was sentenced to prison for dunning salary kickbacks from other employes in Collins’ office. Haag maintained that he did so at Collins’ direction, to provide a political slush fund for Collins. The congressman had denied any involvement in or knowledge of the kickback operation, or any attempt to cover up investigation of it. Yet another compromise has been reached on the Big Thicket. Congressmen Bob Eckhardt of Houston and Charles Wilson of Lufkin have agreed to support an 84,000-acre Big Thicket National Biological. Reserve. The Interior Department is expected to stick with a 68,000-acre proposal. The Eckhardt-Wilson scheme would include the Lance Rosier unit in Hardin County, the Beaumont in Hardin County, the Big Sandy Creek in Polk County adjacent to the Alabama-Coushatta Indian reservation, Beech Creek in Tyler County, Hickory Creek Savannah in Tyler County, the Turkey Creek in Hardin and Tyler counties and the Neches Bottom-Jack Gore Baygall in Hardin and Jasper counties. It would not include Big Sandy and Village Creek corridor. In the past environmentalists have lobbied to include Big Sandy and Village Creek, but the areas were excluded from the compromise because of the angry opposition from homeowners in the areas. The Texas Water Quality Board won’t make a decision until late October on whether to give Atty. Gen. John Hill the go-ahead on suing the City of Houston. The WQB has been asking the blighted Bayou City to pretty please clean up its sewage plants for four years now. Back in 1970 the city itself reported that 36 out of 40 sewage treatment plants were in violation of the Water Quality Act. Now it’s 39 out of 40, but WQB Executive Director Hugh Yantis is still making excuses for the city. And Deputy Director Dick Whittington says, “In all honesty I’m not sure any large city will ever be in full compliance.” Meantime Buffalo Bayou is so filthy with infectious bacteria and viruses that October 19, 1973 9