New Jersey Nightly News; New Jersey Nightly News Episode from 04/03/1979 6:30 pm

Three Mile Island. New Jersey nightly. With Rebecca Shaw bill in Trenton and Clayton Vaughn in Newark. Good evening in the news tonight. New Jersey officials say that if a nuclear accident like the one in Pennsylvania happened here we'd be better prepared for it. Utility officials say our electric bills have to go up because their bills are going up. At some New Jersey lettuce farmers are trying a different way to grow their greens moving them indoors. Good evening Rebecca. In sports the cosmos was on another soccer star their roster Bill Perry has the story and the rest of the day in sports and on a closer look we'll talk with

Essex County executive Peter Shirl and freeholder James Parr all about a new administrative code for the county. We're back. The danger of explosion is probably passed at that disable nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. A bubble of radioactive gas trapped inside the reactor building has gotten much smaller. According to Harold Denton of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Denton said there is no significant danger now that the gas may explode. And scientists in New Jersey say they're still not finding any unusual radiation coming into the state. How well would New Jersey handle a nuclear emergency. State legislators today began what will probably be a long look at that question. Steve Taylor went to an informal session of the assemblies agriculture and Environment Committee. Rebecca The committee members heard an update on the Pennsylvania situation from Dr. Glenn Paulson of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Paulson said the communications between the power plant and Pennsylvania officials were appalling in the first hours of the emergency last Wednesday.

The reason he said was that Pennsylvania does not have a nuclear emergency plan approved by the federal government. Only two states do have approved plans but New Jersey is one of them. And I conclude that our process is much much better and in the unlikely event that we were to have a serious accident I believe that the mutual understanding is that we have reached in a formal and informal sense. Would it would turn out to be much more effective and much sounder than the situation in Pennsylvania. Committee chairman Donald Stewart who Salem County district includes a nuclear plant raised questions about how good New Jersey's plan would be for evacuating a large area. Stewart is proposing a bill which would set up a more comprehensive emergency plan and also give the state water authority to inspect nuclear facilities and levy fines for safety violations. Dr. Paulson and Assemblyman Stewart agreed that any review of New Jersey's nuclear programs

will have to wait until scientists know exactly what went wrong last week at Three Mile Island. Right now that's something nobody knows. Will the general public utilities Corporation the utility holding company that runs three mile island of Pennsylvania deny that it's stopping construction of the river nuclear power plant here in New Jersey. Kompany said it was suspending instruction in a move to conserve cash. Utilities customers here in the state must be wondering where or even whether it will end public service electric and gas is asking for more than three hundred seventy four million dollars and rate increases if those increases are approved the new rates would affect almost 2 million customers. That came after the announcement by Jersey Central Power and Light that the problems at the crippled Pennsylvania plant are causing serious cashflow difficulties problems Jersey Central says it can only deal with by passing costs along to consumers. Reporter Jack connotate looks at some of the reasons why the caps seem to be coming off utility bills in the state. PFC Energy says the villain is inflation. The higher cost of fuel oil is the biggest

element in that place. But there are other factors too. The company is also gearing up for a wage negotiations with its employee unions unions that are just as concerned with the predictions of double digit inflation as is the company. PFC Energy is also looking for money for nuclear expansion particularly a generating station number two in Salem. No one can yet predict how much more expensive nuclear power will be. If safety precautions are increased in the wake of the crisis at Three Mile Island. But the alternative is reliance on foreign oil imports. The cost of which is sure to rise. Those factors are unpleasant but understandable. What has some people upset including members of the state's public Advocate's Office is a request that customers also pay the debts owed on an abandoned plan for floating nucular generators. The plan was dropped when growth failed to match the company's prediction and a new study showed future power needs to changed. The company still owes some one hundred eighty nine million dollars and it will ask the Board of Public Utilities

for permission to pass it on in the monthly bills. A similar question will surface down state. Is Jersey Central Power looks for rating graces to offset its losses at Three Mile Island. Losses that may stop construction on the forecheck river a nuclear generator. But despite all the financial problems the rate of return on investments in utilities remains fairly constant at about 11 percent a year. The utilities say that kind of return is a must. If the companies are going to continue to attract new money for investment so it's a pressure cooker of costs. And the only release valve seems to lead to the pocketbooks of the customers. I'm Jack comedy. Exxon officials have given the state energy commissioner Joel Jacobson a long awaited status report on production capabilities of the bay way refinery in London. The plant crippled by an explosion two weeks ago and Jacobson it accused Exxon of foot dragging in making its production available to the Department of Energy. Read Wells has a report. Two Exxon officials from Houston and two from the bay way refinery and Linden arrived Jacobson's

office with briefcases full of reports. The Exxon people would not allow our cameras to record any of the meeting and when it broke up the Exxon executives tried to dodge the cameras. And when we finally cornered one man he wasn't talking like one of you tell me what. Can you tell me what you want to discuss with Mr. A. I think. No I really can't let the commissioner talk about it like university and I think he has a statement why don't you just listen am. OK can't hear anything from Exxon or what their commissioner Jacobson said Exxon was working around the clock to repair last month's damage although the bay way production capacity has been cut from 290000 to one hundred sixty thousand barrels a day due to the explosion. Jacobson said Exxon gave assurances that oil and gasoline supplies would not be seriously affected in New Jersey because supplies in other sections of the country were being juggled to meet this state's needs while the refinery was being repaired.

Exxon has allocated supplies for the month of April and 95 percent of the sales of all of last year. Which ordinarily would not be a problem but with the increased demand of course it only heightens the tightening supply situation. Mr. Jacobson last week you said Exxon officials were stonewalling your request for information about production of the Bay refinery and now they've given you that information. Do you still think they were stonewalling in time. I don't know whether with the information that was provided me today it's a like question I would have liked ahead of the week earlier but I know that I have it. It doesn't appear to be that significant of much help. We girlie than it is today in Newark. Fort Dix Army Base may become Fort Dix prison. Federal officials say they're considering putting in a bid to turn the stockade after 40 into a minimum security prison. The Bureau of Prisons say there are serious overcrowding at the three federal prison facilities already in the northeast. The bureau says its plan depends on the

Pentagon going ahead with its proposal to shut down Fort Dix. Two New Jersey families have been agonizing over whether their loved ones are alive or dead because of the Vietnam War. Today for both. The agony ended and the grief began Mrs. Patricia Kane of Red Bank has been fighting the government. She didn't want her husband Major Richard Cain officially declared dead major Cain disappeared in Vietnam in 1967. A U.S. court ruled today in a suit brought by Mrs. Kane. That the government can hold a death status hearing on her husband. And that's the first step in declaring her husband dead. And Sal and Jean miscarry of Caldwell have just been officially informed that their son Philip is dead. Philip miscarry was shot down over Laos 10 years ago. Clayton. A hearing is under way on charges that two Patterson undertakers carried out multiple burials and cremations of human limbs and stillborn infants from St. Joseph's Hospital. A deputy state attorney general called it a kind of anatomical

smorgasbord morticians could lose their licenses or lawyers today said the common burials were done without pay as an act of charity to provide a decent burial. One of the lawyers claimed other hospitals solved the problem by just throwing the body parts and stillborns into the garbage or the incinerator. When engine plane on a flight from Newark to Philadelphia this morning crashed into the Delaware River two persons so far unidentified aboard a Coast Guard found the plane in the river after disappeared from radar screens of the Philadelphia airport. The North Hudson regional mayor council of Mayors today came out opposed to the proposed fare hike on the Port Authority's path rail lines. The proposal is to raise path fares from 30 cents to 50 cents over the next 14 months. The mayors say that would place an unfair burden on New Jersey commuters. But in an interview taped today for broadcast tonight on New Jersey Public Television's program Question Authority chairman Alan Sigler told Betty Adams that the fare hike just can't be avoided. And if we want to maintain a good in a safe system and not let it deter raid like the early

Lackawanna training that we ride on every day or the train from the shore we have to spend the money to keep that safe and the amount that we're asking for attention increases 79 a 10 cent increase in 1980 is very reasonable. The facts are that we cannot have a free lunch and if we want to have good public facilities they have to be paid for. So I can also comment on a wide range of transportation issues from carpooling which uses is not work here in New Jersey. The Newark Airport Terminal C said Macey even longer delays an opening if the fuel crisis worsens the entire song or interview will be seen tonight at 10:30 on New Jersey Public Television. Rebecca. The Senate Environment Committee says it's considering lifting the moratorium on pine lands development 8 months ahead of schedule. That would be sometime next year. The Committee today held a third hearing on bills to limit development in the Pine Barrens. The bills would give force of law to the governors bad. Once again the committee heard assorted tales of woe from Cranberry growers builders mayors and freeholders

all of them arguing that the state is moving too far too fast. And I also feel that the state isn't listening to them. To be frank the proposed legislation conveys quite clearly the attitude. Local governments are not to be trusted when it comes to important matters like the protection of their own environment. The committee is considering two bills one that would protect all of the pine lands for 18 months. Another that would protect only about a third of the pine lads. But there is talk among the committee members now of ending the moratorium early because of complaints that it's hard to a local economy. Quite well as a new plant growing in the greenhouses these days and during some weeks of the year it could cut your grocery bill power reports. The price of lettuce is down now but a few weeks ago it was a dollar a head and escalation that seems to happen every time there's a labor dispute or a spell of bad weather in

California. Some New Jersey farmers are experimenting with an answer. There are growing lettuce right here in the winter in greenhouses. Richard Dilts has been nurturing a couple of thousand heads of bid let us in Lambertville for the last two years. His lettuce sells at roadside stands and farmers markets for 49 cents a head. A price that will create buyers instead of a boycott. Despite that advantage New Jersey farmers aren't lining up to grow lettuce in greenhouses for one thing they can't grow much of it. But there's another problem. The soil in New Jersey won't grow iceberg lettuce. And Richard Dill says that even though many people say bad lettuce tastes better when most of them think of lettuce they think of iceberg. Lot of people don't know this and they're not accustomed to it it doesn't keep as well as soft lettuce so that it doesn't keep quite as long so they're sort of shy away from. Doing so as winter time growers will have to pre-sell their lettuce to specific

supermarkets or restaurants for their experiment to succeed. When the California iceberg gets a dollar ahead next winter those buyers may be knocking on the greenhouse door in Lambertville. I'm Mike power. The weather we're having is typical for this time of year so I guess we have to grin and bear it until it breaks. For tonight we can expect more clouds rain and cooler temperatures. Lows in the upper 30s to low 40s in the north in the mid to upper 40s in the south tomorrow. Now remember we have to grin and bear it. Cloudy and cool with periods of heavy showers. High temperatures only in the mid 40s in the north and in the low to mid 50s in the south. And for Thursday the sun should break through but it will be partly cloudy and cool. The PBS movie theatre presents but told you to seek a startling film of the exploits of two

young boys in post-war Italy shoeshine somebody get to meet. Him. OK. Back. OK. That's when my new television. The Cosmos have added a new player and here is Bill Perry. Thank you Rebecca the cosmos have added still another world class player Wilhelm us or iceberg and whose nickname is them. Signed a three year contract today naturally the cosmos front office is delighted. So you can play different positions. He has played all the back decisions and has also played defensive midfield. We feel this edition will be incredible for the club. Rice burger has played 30 times for the Dutch national team including the 1974 World

Cup final He's known as a defensive specialist. And I asked him to compare World Cup competition to the cosmos caliber of play. Maybe it's not better but it's more amusing more amusing. Yes more amusing. Not only for the players because you can play in Europe they are play very hard and it's it's not very easy to play there free like you know and I mean in the states more wide open Yeah it's more wide open. That's right. So the cosmos and coach Eddie for money have another star as you step right in point for you. Well yes here certainly he's very high quality player. The Nets play their next to last home game of the regular season in Piscataway tonight the playoff bound Denver on Saturday night. Boston visits the Rutgers athletic center last night I told you the nets were in as the sixth Eastern Conference playoff team and New Jersey can't improve their playoff position in the final few games the same is not so for the hurting Denver Nuggets when Denver last visited New Jersey they looked like a

championship contender. They beat the Nets back in October 126 117. George McGinnis number 30 was a big reason why Georgia got Denver off that night scoring 10 points in the game's first four minutes while McGinnis is out. He got a badly sprained ankle he's through for the season and Denver is now locked in a tight struggle for a playoff berth. Right now things are so tight out west that with four games left for Denver on the road the Nuggets could win their division or they could miss even qualifying for the playoffs. Needless to say tonight's game is critical. The college lacrosse rankings were released today Rutgers which was for the last week the highest they had ever been fell to 6. The Scarlet Knights are the highest ranked team with a defeat. Rutgers is to win one after losing to Army Saturday 74 this Saturday the Knights play at number 8 Syracuse. Johns Hopkins who beat Princeton 1:46 last Saturday is number one. Princeton is ranked 16th. Now that you have all that here's the question what do the rankings mean. Listen to coach Tom Hayes from Rutgers.

They don't mean anything really. This part of the year is so early 10 games ago the only ranking that counts is the last one. Just like Joe Paterno has always said it doesn't make a difference is number one now. Last year Rutgers was not invited to the NCW final a tournament. Some including Coach Hayes thought they should have been maybe last year's disappointment will work to Rutgers advantage this year. We think about it and it's been a positive force for us. We realize that every game is a big game for us and every game can make a difference whether we're invited or not so we look at it in this respect that we have to be a high rank so high at the end that the will be no doubt whether invited in politics won't enter into it. If it ever stops raining some college baseball will be poised around the state it was running out of theatre once again today tomorrow Rutgers and Princeton are scheduled at Princeton and Major League Baseball the Phillies needing pitching help picked up Doug Byrd from Kansas City today for rookie George Todd Kreuzberg will work out of the bullpen. That's sports Rebecca.

Thanks Bill. Former Manchester Township Mayor Joseph port Tashan says he's surprised and disappointed by an announcement that the state attorney general's office will retry him on extortion charges. Less than a month ago the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ruling that overturned Tasha's 1976 conviction the conviction on charges he illegally took money from a developer. Tash now serving as Manchester's business administrator said he feels the retrial announcement is an attempt to destroy his political future. The New Jersey woman known to millions of Americans as Answer My mother is dead at the age of 75. Ethel Harper died of a heart attack this past weekend while driving her car in Morristown. Miss Harper was born in Alabama. She moved to New York where she began a successful show business career. She was known as a mama during the Quaker Oats advertising campaign of the 1950s. In later years Miss Harper protested the campaign as being demeaning to blacks.

I can see extending one's life but I can't approve or extending one dying period. The process of death may begin long before death itself actually occurs. Those involved with hospice care for terminally ill cancer patients understand this painful but inevitable process in hospice the idea of dying. We look at cancer patients their families and the professional and volunteer staff associated with the Riverside hospice in Burlington New Jersey. Watch it Thursday at 8:30 our New Jersey Public Television document will be formally signed into law here in New York tomorrow which seems calculated to have a profound impact on the 900000 people of Essex County for years to come. It is an administrative code that runs to one hundred eighteen pages this

is the work book for it but I'm told that it looks very much like it. It is adopted after weeks of wrangling by county officials. The code designed to complement the county's new executive form of government approved by the voters last year. It is also and if you can believe it with this size that streamlining and modernizing a huge government agency that is the county sixty two hundred always a budget in excess of 200 million dollars. New code does consolidate the present sixty eight separate functions of county government into eight super agencies. There you will be run by Democrat Peter Shapiro of the Essex County executive whose new job has been called the second most powerful in the state. Maybe getting tired of hearing it described that way. One of Mr. Shapiro's chief critics maybe James pyro the lone Republican on the county board of freeholders Mr. Pyro is the new code really relegate the freeholder board to largely a law making function with no administrative responsibilities to a degree but the code which I think is somewhat unique for New Jersey charter reform codes does

go a long way to a separation of powers and giving the board of freeholders through their budgetary. Powers some say in policy making decisions. I think the advice and consent functions of the code also. Will give the board something more than just legislative powers because when you talk about county government legislative powers are really not much. County governments don't really knock many laws so that the budgetary process and the advice and consent process that the code contains will really be the meat of what the water fields will be doing and under this new code. Mr. Shapiro can you tell us how if at all this new code is likely to affect the average citizen in the six counties I think it will it's likely to affect the average citizen a number of ways in terms of number one streamlining the government making it potentially more efficient more effective. And number two really trying to orient the government around specific goals and objectives. One of the notions which I thought was most important we put forth in the code is the idea that

the government should be based around its basic purposes and those purposes ought to be represented in terms of the reorganization of the government. So we have for example a department which emphasizes economic development it's called the Department of Planning and economic development. We have a department that consolidates all the functions that have to do with health and rehabilitation together and to have a Department of Health and rehabilitation. We have departed which deals with recreation parks and cultural affairs if you will promise for the first time to the arts in Essex County and should really when a new flavor to things you have told me before that you started out doing this with the advice of some planners even from the White House on a couple of occasions with a with a great big magnetic board and kept juggling around to go to various departments to see where the. Best line up would would come. Are you confident now that you have it. Well it's not perfect but I think that we have something which is which is very innovative I think we have a tremendous degree of ability to be able to both deal with real human problems as well as to deal with trying to make a government run better

as something which is so difficult with a big organisation. Mr Prothero has Mr Shapiro's proposed code dealt adequately with a patronage system in your view. Well that remains to be seen because you know the code is just a plan and the plan and as was the hope of the people who who fostered and and carried through the charter change movement was that this plan giving a strong administrative head to government with a streamlining of government with consolidation would get away from the patronage system professionalized government. But all we really thought is a plan where they had to split votes on the board of freeholders on this issue of the 20 confidential secretaries or agents or something that sounds very ominous for some reason or other. Who are these people. Are they are they political hacks. Well there is that they have been removed. Your suggestion from civil service reform. Well actually my suggestion which was in keeping with six out of nine members the freeholder board was to preserve the confidential status for special agents are

basically the number two people underneath the department in division directors what it allows is for us to remove a few employees from directly from the examination process the civil service and from the very tight job protections that apply to those people. I think we've got to make the government more accountable and we've got to make more people subject to removal not just for not showing up for their job but for not coming through with policies that ought to be adopted when an administration changes. We need to get policies accomplished. When you talk about patronage though you're not talking about removing people you're talking about putting them on. That's right and you don't and if you want to abuse it you could do that civil service or no civil service. I don't want to just borrow if you're going to get you know the potential for abuse obviously is where you have unclassified positions. The problem as I see it is that these people who will be filling these positions are at a very high level of government now. They're right below department heads and I feel very strongly those positions should be professionalized that the people who are holding those positions should be encouraged to make government a career and not create the

potential for change as governments change or as people fall out of political favor and I feel very strongly about that. But she should. Basically say the potential is there but it will not be abuse is that a fair summation. Absolutely not. The potential is there whether you have civil service or not civil service the point really is that we need to have people that the next guy who gets in there after me or the next woman who gets in there after me won't be stuck with it we can change positions that are in the policy making rules and that's what I think will make a difference. Mr. Shapiro thanks for being with us Mr. Barro. Our thanks to you also sir. Thank you. Once again our top stories. New Jersey officials say today there are emergency plans for nuclear accidents are better than Pennsylvania's and one Pennsylvania figures out what went wrong with the power plant there. State officials here will check out our nuclear stations. Exxon says the refinery explosion has cut production there in half. Other refineries are making up the loss. And New Jersey will be spared a supply shortage. And there's talk in Washington of converting the Fort Dix stockade

into a federal prison. But that'll depend on what the Army decides to do with the base. And that's the news. Good night. And good. News. A joint presentation of New Jersey Public Television and 13 and is broadcast weeknights at 6:30 on Channel 13 and at 7:30 on New Jersey Public Television an updated edition is broadcast at 10:00 p.m. on New Jersey Public Television. And at 7:00 the following morning on Channel 13 Fortune's pre recorded.