The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the Newshour tonight, an update on the Central American storms that have already killed more than 7,000 people; an elections preview from political reporters David Broder, Elizabeth Arnold, and Ron Brownstein; a Tom Bearden report on the politics of hog farming; and some perspective on the new scientific evidence about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: There are reports tonight that more than 7,000 people have died from the floods and mudslides in Honduras and Nicaragua. Rescuers continue to pull victims from mud and swollen rivers created by Hurricane Mitch and its stalled aftermath. We'll have more on the disaster right after the News Summary. In this country floodwaters forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate their homes in Southern Kansas and Northern Oklahoma today. Heavy rains -- more than a foot in some areas - triggered flooding over the weekend. One woman was reported missing in Oklahoma. In Augusta, Kansas, 20 miles east of Wichita, a rising river poured over a 35-foot levee, causing raw sewage from the treatment plant to flow into downtown areas. On this election eve President Clinton urged black voters to vote tomorrow. He said African-American turnout could be the deciding factor in thirty to thirty-five House and at least four Senate races. He said it could reverse the tradition of mid-term losses by the party that controls the White House. Mr. Clinton also warmed of threats of polling place intimidation in heavily black precincts in Maryland, Michigan, Kentucky, Georgia, and North Carolina. Republican Party Chairman Jim Nicholson said the President's remarks were examples of low and divisive rhetoric. We'll have more on the elections later in the program. On the new Iraq inspections confrontation today, Chief UN Inspector Richard Butler said the situation was the worst since the inspection process was established in 1991. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the Iraqi barring of inspectors represented a total breach of Security Council resolutions. In Washington, President Clinton met with his National Security Advisers on the issue. He commented on the standoff before a health care event at the White House.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Iraq must let the inspectors finish the job they started seven years ago, a job Iraq promised to let them do repeatedly. What is that job? Making sure Iraq accounts for and destroys all its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons capability in the missiles to deliver such weapons. In the coming days we will be consulting closely with our allies and our friends in the region. Until the inspectors are back on the job, no options are off the table.

JIM LEHRER: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz insisted Sunday his government was not trying to force a crisis, only protecting its sovereign rights. Iraq is demanding the lifting of UN sanctions and the firing of UN official Butler. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 114 points, closing at 8706.15. And in space today the astronauts aboard Shuttle "Discovery" took seven hours off on this fifth day of their nine-day mission. John Glenn, the oldest crew member, said the astronauts' favorite activity during their free time is looking out the portholes and taking pictures of Earth. Later, routine activities resumed. They checked equipment and continued their research on the effects of weightlessness on aging. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the storms in Central America, an election preview, the politics of hog farming, and some developments concerning Thomas Jefferson.% ? FOCUS - KILLER STORM

JIM LEHRER: Phil Ponce has the story of death and devastation from floods in Central America.

PHIL PONCE: The storm is being called the worst natural disaster to hit Nicaragua and Honduras in twenty-five years. No one really knows yet the scope of the tragedy, but according to wire reports, as many as seven thousand people may be dead and many more injured throughout Central America. Last week, Hurricane Mitch pounded the Central American coast with heavy rains. Out at sea, the wind speed reached 180-miles-per-hour, making it a category five storm--the most severe classification. Then the winds began to ebb, and the worst seemed to be over. But days of relentless rains triggered flooding and massive mudslides. In Honduras, officials say the death toll could top five thousand people. The mayor of the capital city was killed when his helicopter crashed while examining damage. As many as half a million people are homeless. Floodwaters have washed away roads -- bridges -- and destroyed crops. Damage estimates are in the millions of dollars. Army helicopters have been ferrying survivors out of remote areas for two days. In Nicaragua, civil defense officials reached the Casitas volcano yesterday about fifty miles northwest of Managua. There, they found a horrifying scene. Hundreds of bodies protruded from the mud. Entire villages were buried. Survivors said a crater at the summit overflowed, causing one side of the mountain to collapse. Officials say as many as fifteen hundred may have lost their lives in the mudslide that followed. Some rivers in northern Nicaragua have swollen to ten times their normal size. Today, the International Red Cross tripled its appeal for aid, saying it needed more than $7 million to help flood victims. The United States has pledged $3 1/2 million worth of food and other emergency relief supplies.

PHIL PONCE: For more now on the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, we're joined by Juan Marcos Garcia, the number two diplomat at the Nicaraguan embassy in Washington, and Gerald Jones, director for international relief and development at the American Red Cross. Gentlemen, welcome. Mr. Garcia, what is the latest from Nicaragua?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: First, I want to thank you for this opportunity to be here and to let the American people to know what is going on in my country. As we could see in the pictures, there is -- there has been a devastation. It's a tragic state. The floods have been pretty bad. There are many people that have been dead. The official count is about 900 people at this time, but it's still many - been unaccounted for because they haven't been able to dig into the mud that has been slide by the volcano Casitas, as you said in here. So it's a pretty dramatic situation that is going on in the country at this time.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Garcia, in your country, are most of the deaths being caused by flooding or the mudslides?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: At this time we think it's both. But most of it is from the mud - from the mudslide at the basin of the volcano at this time.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Garcia, the storm, Hurricane Mitch, had been sitting fairly stationary for several days. Was there any way to anticipate how much devastation it was going to cause?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: Yes. The government took precautions when the hurricane was stationary in the Caribbean. And most of the northern part of the country was under alert for this kind of situation. And then when the hurricane twisted and came inland, there was - the Pacific probably was not that affected. Then it became a little bit of a problem at that time.

PHIL PONCE: But had people been warned?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: Yes. That's right. It was a warning on a national level, and everything.

PHIL PONCE: Would you say that people might not have taken the warnings as seriously as the government might have wished?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: No. I think people took the warning seriously. What happened maybe with the volcano is the - certain people didn't expect probably there would be just mudslide cause.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Jones, what can you tell us about Honduras?

GERALD JONES: Well, I think it's been one of the most devastating storms in the last twenty to twenty-five years. The scale of the destruction is vast. Up to 70 to 80 percent of the country is estimated to be underwater. Many of the same problems that have plagued Nicaragua are happily in Honduras. There's a growing loss of life, a growing death toll. We're not sure of exact numbers because many of the villages and communities in the country are isolated. Much of the infrastructure seems to have been destroyed. Bridges have collapsed. Roads have been washed away by water, by mudslides. So there are many isolated communities, and we don't have a clear picture of what is going on in there. Many of them can only be reached by helicopters. We're very worried about crop loss, what that means, immediately with food shortages, and also intermediate and long-term with potential food shortages down the road. We're also in all of these situations very worried about water-borne diseases because with the flooding and with the destruction of infrastructure, water supplies are often contaminated. So we have a whole series of problems. In Tegucigalpa, the capital, up to a third of the buildings are said to have been destroyed. So we're really facing a very serious and a very widespread problem in both countries.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Jones, today, Honduran officials were saying that it could take thirty to forty years for the infrastructure to be rebuilt and they're talking about 70 percent of the crops being destroyed. Does that sound about right to you?

GERALD JONES: The crop failure does sound in the ball park of what you would expect in a situation like that. As I said, that causes both immediate problems with satisfying people's immediate needs for food, but yes, they have - they will miss crop cycles. There will be destruction to lands and irrigation systems. So it will be many years before we recover from something of this scale. As I said, it is probably the worst and most devastating storm in twenty to twenty-five years.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Garcia, in your country, the prospects for rebuilding the country and how long it's going to take.

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: Well, we suffer a similar situation as Honduras, and especially the northern part of Nicaragua, which has very rich lands and very apt for cultivations. And much of the crops of our country are grown - have been devastated from this and have been flooded. So it's about - the same estimate - the percentage of destruction I would say and the destruction that would cause in the food supply and immediate demand. And also we - since we come from a situation of war and everything, maybe it's going to be a little worse than Honduras, and probably the same amount of time.

PHIL PONCE: You're saying because your country was still feeling the effects of war, that the rebuilding of the economy, the infrastructure, could taken even longer?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: Yes, it may be, since we were in a steep economic growth and beginning again to integrate into war that this is going to cause us much more problems.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Garcia, what is your government's priority now? What is the government doing?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: First priority has been said by the president - has said that we have to secure lives. We have to try to save as many lives as possible. The flood is still in there, so mudslides there, there's people trapped that can be alive. So that has been the first priority of the government. Second, we have been devoted to the supply of food and clothing. Many people have been just left what they're wearing that day, and house has been taken by the water, and that kind of thing. Then we are on the preventive side of medicine. We expect that many diseases could arise from the flooding waters, and since we don't have also drinking water in so many areas, so those are the priorities at this time. And then the third one would be the infrastructure damage. We have thirty to forty main bridges that have been destroyed and there has been about two thousand kilometers of road has been affected, or are underwater at this time, so it's a daunting situation.

PHIL PONCE: A daunting situation, enough resources, Mr. Jones?

GERALD JONES: There never seem to be enough resources in a situation of this magnitude. The Red Cross societies in both Honduras and Nicaragua have mobilized their volunteers. And it's been very good to see that response. In the region there are probably 5,000 volunteers working with the Red Cross societies in those two countries trying to help the evacuation of people from isolated villages in the areas threatened by mudslides. We have established up to 250 to 300 shelters throughout the region to meet immediate needs of food and shelter and medications. One of the gratifying things that has happened in the region has been the cooperation with the different Red Cross societies. So the Mexican Red Cross Society and the Costa Rica Red Cross Society have been sending workers to Honduras and Nicaragua to assist in the outreach to victims there.

PHIL PONCE: And, Mr. Garcia, what does your country need the most, this minute?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: At this minute, as I said, we are pointing to medicine, food, and water. That's the immediate needs, I would say. Then we go for the people who are in the shelters, who - we need some building materials to start their houses again. And we also have a pledge to the international community for all kinds of resources because at this time, it is very hard hit by the hurricane and the floods.

PHIL PONCE: Are the indications that the international community is going to be responding enough to satisfy the government's assessment of damage?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: In fact, there has been some response at this time from European countries and also the United States has devoted some amount of contribution to help alleviate the situation.

PHIL PONCE: Do you think it will be enough?

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: We hope we had enough. And, we know about the generosity of the American people and the American government has been a tradition of helping in this kind of situation in other parts of the world, because unfortunately, this situation, it's so huge for Nicaraguans, Nicaragua's resources to be above it.

PHIL PONCE: Gentlemen, I thank you both very much.

JUAN MARCOS GARCIA: Thank you.

GERALD JONES: Thank you.% ? FOCUS - ELECTION '98 - THE HOME STRETCH

JIM LEHRER: Tomorrow's elections here in the US. At stake, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 in the Senate, plus 36 races for governor. Some preview perspective now from three veteran political reporters who are with us often: David Broder of the Washington Post; Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times; and Elizabeth Arnold of National Public Radio.Elizabeth, has a national story line or theme emerged for these elections.

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: If anything, I would say, Jim, that the voters are largely content and risk averse. Status quo election -- I think we were talking about earlier and I think that's still what we're going to see. I was thinking that - I was in California in '92 and '94, and people here were really angry and looking for someone to blame. I was talking to defense workers as they streamed out of buildings, and they all wanted to talk to me and talk about how frustrated they were. It's completely different now here in California. People don't have time to talk. They're out buying furniture and off to sign off for a college class. So, if anything, they're not that interested in politics.

JIM LEHRER: Ron, what would you add or subtract from that?

RONALD BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think Elizabeth is largely right. I mean in the end, after all the turmoil that this year has seen in Washington over President Clinton's future, we've seen a mid-term election that is pretty much what you'd expect in a time when the country is largely contented with the general direction of America, a right track election that is very good for incumbents, and is really more like trench warfare, where you see pitched battles in individual states and a lot of very close races. You don't have a lot of independent and swing voters to often turn out in presidential elections likely to vote tomorrow. So what you are left with in all of these states is really the base vote in each party. And that can produce some very close contests, and that's exactly what you're seeing, especially in the Senate.

JIM LEHRER: David Broder, do you see any national story line here?

DAVID BRODER: I'm afraid not, nothing except that it's a very pro-incumbent year. In fact, what I've been doing this last week, making phone calls and after every round of calls, I have whittled down the number of lists - the number of people on the list of endangered incumbents. It's going to be a rare incumbent who gets knocked off

JIM LEHRER: Why is that?

DAVID BRODER: And probably they're going to have very little to blame but themselves.

JIM LEHRER: Why are the incumbents in such good shape, David?

DAVID BRODER; Well, two good basic reasons. One, the economy is good, as everyone here has been saying, and second, they have amassed just incredible amounts of money, and so most of them, effectively, are running unopposed.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Elizabeth? You picked up the same thing, that the incumbents -- this the year to be an incumbent?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: I think it is a year to be an incumbent, especially an incumbent who is not perceived as being extreme. Voters don't want the extremes on either side. When they think about education, they don't want somebody who's talking about doing away with the Department of Education. They're more interested in candidates or their incumbents, who's saying, what's the right balance, where should the federal government have a role in terms of classroom size?

JIM LEHRER: Now, Ron, you said the problems of the President are not affecting this election? Why not? What do people tell you, based on your reporting, as to why it's not affecting the election, because early on there were polls and pundits saying, oh, my goodness, this is going to be a referendum on impeachment; this is going to be a referendum on the Republican Congress. It's not going to be a referendum on anything, is that what you're saying?

RONALD BROWNSTEIN: I don't think it's going to be a referendum on nothing in that sense, but I do think we're seeing is a reflection of the fact that the country has largely settled its judgment on this issue. The polls have been very consistent all year, with about 2/3 of Americans or slightly more opposing impeachment even as more evidence has come out, and by and large most candidates have concluded that most voters simply do not want to hear any more about this. Now, it's true that the Republican hopes that this would produce a sweep for them haven't borne out, and it's also true that Democratic hopes that there might be a severe backlash don't seem to be bearing out. But the fact that most candidates aren't talking about it does say something about the prospect of Congress spending another six, eight, I don't know how many more months, debating whether Clinton should be forced from office. In the end, I think this election suggests it's going to be hard to get the country to sit still for something like that.

JIM LEHRER: David, what does your reporting tell you as to why the impeachment issue has not - is not affecting this election tomorrow?

DAVID BRODER: President Clinton is not on the ballot anywhere. People know that his name will never be on a national ballot again. That's not their concern at this point. And I think the other thing, Jim, that's happened is that around Labor Day ,and from then perhaps until the time that the tape of his deposition to the grand jury ran, this was something that was in people's face all the time. Now we've had three weeks since Congress adjourned and since they voted that impeachment inquiry resolution, where people haven't been hearing about it. And there is a palpable sense of relief to have this out of their minds. People were having a hard time dealing with this. Now they don't have to deal with it. They're not going to have -bring it with them to the polls tomorrow morning.

JIM LEHRER: Elizabeth, can you figure -- do you know of any races where either candidate has gone at this issue directly, in other words, if you're running for the House say, vote for me and I'll vote against impeachment or vote for me, I'll vote against impeachment - have any candidates really taken this thing head on like that?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Well, not exactly head on but in a couple of races - and I'm thinking of Jay Inslee in Washington State who's challenging incumbent Rick White - that's a case where the Democrat has said, look at Rick White's vote on impeachment -- he wants to drag us through the mud -- for months and months and months. In races like that, that's where it's an issue. Basically, it's proven to be a risky thing for the Republican because the Democrat is able to say he's not really doing your business. He's not interested in education and taxes and what's going on in your life. He's interested in a partisan investigation and dragging us through the mud.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

DAVID BRODER: Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

DAVID BRODER: My colleague, Ceci Connolly, who you know - have had on the show -

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

DAVID BRODER: -- spent the weekend in North Carolina, and she tells me that down there, there are very tough radio ads trying to link President Clinton to Mr. Edwards, the Democratic Senate candidate against Senator Lauch Faircloth. But North Carolina is perhaps the most anti-Clinton state in the country today. So it's perfectly safe for the Republicans to be using the issue there.

JIM LEHRER: Yes. And , David, have these ads that -- they've caused such an uproar last week - are they having any effect at all? In other words, the Republican ads are supposed to be television ads and the Democrats reacted to them - is that having any effect at all?

DAVID BRODER: It's had some effect. Elizabeth, check me on this. I've been talking to people on the West Coast where they haven't seen the ads, but they've heard about the ads, and both Republicans and Democrats tell me that there's been something of a backlash to the Republicans trying to drag this issue, which people don't want in the election, into the election.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Check him on that, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Okay. Exactly. They haven't seen the ads, themselves, but they've seen news coverage of the ads, so the media has actually done the work for the Republican Party. But I had one Democratic candidate say to me, run 'em as much as you want in my district, because they're helping me.

JIM LEHRER: Ron, anything you want to - what's been your reporting on that?

RONALD BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think in the end these ads are like much else having to do with the scandal this year. They're really aimed at the base of both parties. I mean, what you see, the Republican ad was really, I think, meant to energize their core supporters in a low turnout year and convince them that they are not sort of gone South on this issue. And conversely, I think Democrats are trying to do the same thing. David mentioned North Carolina, where the Republicans are tying the Democratic Senate candidate to Clinton. On the other hand, Jesse Jackson radio ads are running on some black - black radio stations. And they are talking about the need for African-Americans to get out the vote to prevent impeachment. So it's a message that works at the base, to motivate the base of each side, but for most of the more moderate voters, certainly swing voters, independent voters, by and large, they don't want to hear about it. And you see very few candidates - half a dozen or so Democrats - trying to do the backlash ads like Jay Inslee, some Republicans late last summer try to do resignation ads. But, by and large, most candidates have stayed away from it. And I think that speaks louder than anything else we're talking about.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Beginning with you, Ron, give us your one or two most interesting or most important races that - of tomorrow.

RONALD BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think the most fascinating - I think E. J. Dionis has compared it to a car wreck -- has to be the New York Senate race between Al D'Amato and Chuck Schumer. Almost any incumbent, who was polling where Al D'Amato is now, you would be burying them. But, you know, this is a man who rises from the grave regularly. So I don't think anybody will write his obituary until the last vote is in - maybe not even then. The other one that I think - and maybe this is a bit of parochial interest - but I do think the California governorship is very important. And if Gray Davis does win that - a Democrat - as easily as now seems possible, it will send an important signal, I think, about 2000 and the ability of Republicans to compete in that state -- if they had a candidate who like Dan Lungren opposes abortion and opposes gun control, has a questionable record on some aspects of the environment -- Gray Davis has done exactly what Bill Clinton did to Bob Dole in 1996. And he's dominated California as a result.

JIM LEHRER: David, what's on your most interesting list?

DAVID BRODER: Well, we've got a wonderful governor's race right in the backyard here in Maryland. I'm not sure what it'll tell us about national trends. But the interesting thing is that after two candidates have spent millions just trashing each other, the negatives - the disapproval scores for both those candidates are so high that you would say neither one of these people could win. If you had a third candidate in the race --

JIM LEHRER: Tell us who the two are.

DAVID BRODER: Yes, the governor-incumbent Democratic governor is Paris Glendenning and his challenger, who came within a few hundred votes of beating him last time, is Ellen Sauerbrey, a former state senator from Maryland. But the thing that struck me about Maryland, Jim, is that if there were a third candidate under any label, that candidate would almost certainly be able to win that race, and sort of the interesting proof of that is that out in Minnesota, where there is a third candidate, a wonderful character, a former wrestler, named Jesse "the body" Ventura, he may very well sneak away with that race.

JIM LEHRER: Against the other two, the Democrat and the Republican?

DAVID BRODER: Exactly right.

JIM LEHRER: Yes. Elizabeth, what are your favorites?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: I'm interested in the Senate race in Wisconsin, Jim. Russell Feingold, the incumbent senator, is running against Mark Neumann, a member of the House. And Russell Feingold has made his race an issue about outside advertising, not taking the kind of money that the Feingold-McCain campaign finance legislation would try to do away with. He's basically asking the question, and using himself, and sacrificing himself, and saying, can a well-liked, hard-working incumbent senator be re-elected without the use of this outside money? So I think that's an interesting race to watch. I also think - I agree with Ron. I think here in California, the governor's race is definitely worth watching. Gray Davis has run a very -- he dares to be dull, as he says. He's run a very disciplined campaign focusing on education. He's pieced together a broad coalition of voters from first-time Latino voters, who were angry at former Governor Pete Wilson's anti-immigration policies, and brought in also suburban Republican women who are pro-choice. Dan Lungren, his opponent, the state attorney general, he's stuck to crime all the way through, a traditional Republican issue. He's refused to give up on that issue, and even though he's basically won it, and Gray Davis has been ahead of him all the way along.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, Elizabeth, gentlemen, thank you all three again, once again.% ? FOCUS - PIG POLLUTION

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight the politics of hog farming and some news about Thomas Jefferson.

JIM LEHRER: Tom Bearden has the hog story.

TOM BEARDEN: Dave Luers is high on hogs. Luers is an owner in this $48 million corporate hog farm, one of dozens of similar facilities built in recent years across rural America. Because of advances in barnyard genetics, Luers' pigs are leaner and healthier. And healthier pigs means thousands can live together on these vast, new hog farms.

DAVE LUERS, D&D Farms: It's an industry that used to have a lot of players. There used to be 1/2 million or 1 million producers of pigs in the United States. I think we're down to 150,000 today. The reason it's consolidating is because technology is available, that we can raise pigs in larger buildings such as these.

TOM BEARDEN: But these big facilities also produce big controversy, and many states are targeting these super farms with new and costly environmental regulations. The debate is over pollution. Accidental spills in North Carolina and other states have killed rivers and left people nauseous from the smell. The issue is manure. Never before have so many pigs been contained in such small areas. Most hog farms flush their waste into lined but open air lagoons. And lagoons stink. So David Luers built his D&D Farms in Yuma County, in remote, Northeastern Colorado.

DAVE LUERS: We have very few neighbors. We've tried to situate these facilities in positions so that odors aren't a problem for our neighbors. And we've tried to design the lagoons and facilities so that we'd minimize what odors do come off of this operation.

TOM BEARDEN: But third generation rancher and neighbor Sue Jarrett says on some days the smell is anything but minimal.

SUE JARRETT, Rancher: On the days where the wind is right it comes down this valley right through here, and I can walk out my back door to come over to feed my animals, and I will have a headache, and I will feel sick to my stomach.

DEAN JARRETT: [talking to his daughter] Look out, Sadie, so Momma can come through the gate, hon.

TOM BEARDEN: The Jarretts worry about their water supply. Pig waste, or what the farmers call effluent, has high levels of nitrogen, which can poison well water and cause serious health problems.

DEAN JARRETT, Rancher: The Ogallala Aquifer is our only source of water, and the greatest threat from the effluence initially, as far as getting down to the groundwater, is nitrogen poisoning, which we are very concerned of - you know, concerned about as ranchers, whether it's from in the water, or whether it's from the grass in the spring, we're turning our cattles out to pasture, we've got to be very - you know - careful about that, that they do not get nitrogen poisoning.

TOM BEARDEN: But the nitrogen and hog effluent can also be used to fertilize crops. Crops like corn can then be used to feed hogs. Pork producers say this cycle helps rural economies.

DAVE LUERS: We've been good for the local farmers. This is an area that does produce a tremendous amount of corn. I believe there's approximately 30 million bushels produced in this area. We consume on this farm 4 million bushels of that.

TOM BEARDEN: But the Jarretts worry that application of fertilizer isn't always done responsibly. Last year, they filed a complaint with the Colorado Health Department, who found D&D farms had, in fact, put too much manure on surrounding crops.

SUE JARRETT: That's not fertilizers. That's dumping ground. You know, you're not fertilizing the crop for what the crop needs. You're dumping it out there beyond what the crop needs, therefore, in sandy loam soil it's going to go through; it's going to hit the groundwater, and we rely on this groundwater. We don't have cities and state offices out here testing our water all the time, telling us if our water is okay, fit to drink.

TOM BEARDEN: D&D says the incident was an isolated one, and the company now applies less effluent than the crops can absorb. The Colorado Department of Health says other big hog farms have also over-applied manure and groundwater contamination is a real threat. The problem is that groundwater pollution takes years to show up. That's why the Jarretts are campaigning for stricter monitoring.

SUE JARRETT: You have to put some common sense in this. Hogs produce two to four times the waste of a human. Five thousand hogs is equivalent to a city of ten thousand. You know darned good and well any city has to have a waste management plant.

TOM BEARDEN: The Jarretts are not alone in their concern. This summer environmental groups and family farmers teamed up to collect 100,000 signatures for Amendment 14, a ballot measure that would further regulate the hog industry. Amendment 14 requires big operators to get a state permit, limit odors, perform pollution tests, and post a bond in case any pollution is found. Dave Carter of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union worked on the proposal.

DAVE CARTER, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union: If the nitrate level increases, it's very expensive and difficult to clean that up. You don't just climb down into an aquifer with a bucket and brush and clean it up. And so we want to make sure that we're protecting it on the front end, rather than having to go in and clean it up on the back end.

TOM BEARDEN: But pork producers say they've been targeted unfairly. Dave Luers says the state's existing regulations are working.

DAVE LUERS: We're all for protecting the groundwater of Colorado, and we want to do that, but we want to do it with science-based economically sustainable rules and regulations, monitored by the Department of Health or the Department of the Ag. The new proposal goes what we feel is beyond science. It goes too far.

TOM BEARDEN: Luers says the new regulations would put him out of business by requiring him to cover manure lagoons to lessen odor.

DAVE LUERS: Our estimate is it's going to cost us about $14 million to put lagoon covers on, but besides that, even if we could put 'em on, and if we had the money to do that, the annual maintenance cost and the winds that are sustained in this part of the plains of Colorado, and the hail that we have, our projections are - as the cost of maintaining these covers - could very well exceed our hope for net operating income for the year.

TOM BEARDEN: You simply couldn't afford it.

DAVE LEURS: So why do it? We just as well go broke now as to go broke later.

TOM BEARDEN: So pork producers struck back against the proposed amendment. They gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot, themselves. Their proposition, called Amendment 13, would force the state to apply any new regulations to all livestock. If passed, Amendment 13 would make enforcement of Amendment 14 illegal. Gregg Gilsdorf of National Hog Farms supports the idea.

GREGG GILSDORF, National Hog Farms: Write the regulations any way you want to. Just apply them uniformly across all species.

TOM BEARDEN: Why is that important, to apply them across all species?

GREGG GILSDORF: We're in a very competitive business, and we compete not only with other hog farmers, we compete with poultry, beef, and dairy for their employees and for their inputs, and to single us out is just unacceptable.

TOM BEARDEN: In the last two years, twelve states have decided to regulate confined animal operations and seven of them have swine-specific rules. Recently, the Clinton administration said they would like a national strategy to deal with confined animal waste in place by the year 2008. Whatever the outcome, the whole argument is splitting agricultural counties like Yuma. In the past, new environmental regulations have been anathema in rural America. Towns hard hit by low crop prices often welcome the jobs a hog farm brings in.

KELLY BRAATEN: Our housing has boomed. You know, real estate has boomed, because they have brought - been able to employ more people already existing here - they have also been able to bring other people into the community.

JUSTIN BLACH: The community is divided, and, you know, when they first moved in, there was a real big controversy, and anymore, a lot of the people have just, well, they're here, we can't do anything about it, let's just -- protect the groundwater is the big concern right now.

MELODY KUNTZ: I worry about the quality of water and our air quality. I don't want it to get polluted. We make our living out here, and we want to raise our kids here, and we'd like to keep it as simple as it is.

TOM BEARDEN: Ironically, pork producers say they agree with neighbors that a need for regulation exists, but they fear the growing patchwork of state laws. Producers say inconsistent state laws, coupled with a slump in hog prices, could force them to relocate overseas, a prospect Dave Luers doesn't want to consider.

DAVE LUERS: My living and all of my employees' living comes from this operation. If this farm goes under, not only have I failed myself and my family, but I feel that I failed this community and the employees that work for me.

TOM BEARDEN: The Jarretts have a different view. They say that if being a good neighbor puts corporate hog farms out of business, then so be it.

SUE JARRETT: My grandfather, my dad, and I was raised to take care of this and pass it on. Don't be so greedy on what you have today that you destroy it that your kids can't take it over. So we preserve this because we want our kids to take it over.

TOM BEARDEN: If both the Colorado ballot measures pass, the issue is likely to be decided in the courts.

JIM LEHRER: The Wall Street Journal reported corporate hog farming is a key issue in at least 20 congressional and governor's races around the country tomorrow.% ? FINALLY - JEFFERSON'S LEGACY

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the news about Thomas Jefferson and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Thomas Jefferson is in the pantheon of American heroes - the country's third president, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and one of four presidents memorialized on Mount Rushmore. But for nearly 200 years, one question has dogged Jefferson's memory: Did he father several children by one of his slaves? The story had it that sometime after his wife Martha's death in 1782, Jefferson took as his mistress or concubine Sally Hemings, a slave who was also his wife's illegitimate half sister. Jefferson indirectly denied the allegations during his lifetime. Most leading Jefferson scholars Dumas Malone, author of a nine-volume work, and Joseph Ellis, author of "American Sphinx," discounted the story. Malone called it virtually inconceivable that Jefferson would have engaged in what he called a vulgar liaison with a slave. But according to an article in an upcoming issue of the journal "Nature," DNA analysis shows that Jefferson almost certainly fathered at least one of Sally Hemings' children, her last son, Eston. The analysis was spearheaded this year by Dr. Eugene Foster, a retired University of Virginia pathologist, who collected blood samples from known male descendants of Jefferson and of Hemings. Foster sent them to Europe for genetic analysis. Foster's study was based on the fact that markers on the Y chromosome are passed essentially unchanged from father to son. Since Jefferson had no sons who lived to adulthood, researchers used DNA from five male descendants of his father's brother, Jefferson's uncle, Field Jefferson. They also tested three descendants of Jefferson's nephews, whom some historians have suspected of fathering Hemings' children. Both sets of Jefferson family DNA were then compared to DNA taken from males descended from two of Sally Hemings' sons, oldest son, Thomas Woodson, whose family has long claimed to be descended from Jefferson, and youngest son, Eston Hemings. The geneticist found one match between the descendants of Field Jefferson and Eston Hemings.

MARGARET WARNER: The discovery has been front-page news across the nation. To tell us why and what it means we're joined by Joseph Ellis, an historian at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. His 1997 book, "American Sphinx, The Character of Thomas Jefferson," won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction. Though his book last year cast doubt on the allegations, he co-authored the new article in "Nature." Annette Gordon-Reed is law professor at a New York law school. Her book, "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, An American Controversy," was also published last year. She advocated taking the allegations more seriously. And Daniel Jordan, president of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, a private group that owns and manages Monticello, Jefferson's home outside Charlottesville, Virginia.Mr. Ellis, apparently, you've had a change of heart. Do you find this new evidence convincing?

JOSEPH ELLIS, Mount Holyoke College: It's not so much a change of heart, but this is really new evidence. And it - prior to this evidence, I think it was a very difficult case to know and circumstantial on both sides, and, in part, because I got it wrong, I think I want to step forward and say this new evidence constitutes, well, evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that Jefferson had a longstanding sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. Even though the match is only with one of the Hemings' descendants, Eston Hemings, it's inconceivable that Jefferson, who was 65 when Eston was born, would have made a one-night stand here. I think this is a longstanding relationship. When it began and what the character of the relationship is we probably can't know easily or at all. But it was, without question, an enduring one.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Annette Gordon-Reed, what does this discovery - how does this change our assessment, or should it change our assessment of Thomas Jefferson?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED, New York Law School: Well, it changes some aspects of our assessment. The notion that he was too cerebral or too interested in the life of the mind to be involved with a woman definitely has to be changed. The notion that he had sort of an almost physical phobia of blacks has to be changed. It just requires us to take a different look at the private life of Thomas Jefferson, and then its implications for society at large will also be something that will have to be reassessed.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Daniel Jordan, what would you add to that in terms of how this should change or expand our assessment of Thomas Jefferson?

DANIEL P. JORDAN, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation: I don't think over the long haul that it's going to have much effect on his overall standing. That's true, in part, because I think his major contributions are widely recognized. He was the principal author of the declaration. He was the author of the Virginia statute of religious freedom. He was the father of the University of Virginia. He was the catalyst for Lewis & Clark, and so on. In addition, I think Jefferson was right, the American people aren't stupid, and they know that their heroes are, in fact, human beings, with human frailties.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ellis, your view of how this should change our assessment of Thomas Jefferson.

JOSEPH ELLIS: I think Dan is right, that there's an awful lot about Jefferson and what we associate with him that's not going to be affected by this. I do think it complicates and intensifies our understanding of Jefferson and slavery. We always knew or we've known for some time that Jefferson is the symbol of the great American paradox; that is, he wrote the magic words of American history, the ones that begin: "We hold these truths to be self-evident." And he also held 200 slaves and could walk past the slave quarters at Monticello and feel no real disjunction. Now we also know that he was a person who resisted the notion that blacks and whites could ever live together in harmony and, in fact, said that he couldn't free his slaves, in part, because once freed, the kind of racial amalgamation that might occur was anathema. And yet, at the same time, he was engaged in a relationship with a black mulatto that was the very racial amalgamation that he claimed to abhor. It makes it a much more personal and intense picture.

MARGARET WARNER: Ms. Gordon-Reed, how do you square that circle in your own mind or as an historian?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Well, it's something that we have to think about. I think some of the other parts of Jefferson's writings - I'm thinking particularly about his will - when he describes why the slaves whom he is freeing should be allowed to stay in Virginia - namely that that's where their families and their connections were - and then you look at his writings in the note to the state of Virginia and some of his letters to other people where he says that, as Joe notes, when blacks are freed - when all blacks are freed, they were to be sent somewhere else. So you think in his own personal life he couldn't bear the thought of or knew it was important to make slaves whom he freed stay in Virginia, but yet couldn't find any way to think that all blacks should have a place in the American society. So it's a difficult thing to reconcile, but it's something that we can start on now, now that we can get this notion or this question of did he or didn't he behind us and focus on more important issues.

MARGARET WARNER: Dan Jordan, do you think these contradictions - this new discovery makes those contradictions harder to explain or easier to explain?

DANIEL P. JORDAN: Well, I think it reminds us of just how vicious and abominable and yet complex slavery, in fact, was. And perhaps through this new chapter in the story of Jefferson, we'll be able to relate to it in a more human manner. And many particulars, I think, this is an American story, and I think that we can learn from it. Certainly anything that causes us to thinkmore about slavery and race and Jefferson is to the good.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that, Ms. Gordon-Reed?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Oh, absolutely. I think the moral of this story is the thing this shows very clearly, is that we're not two separate people, black and white; we are a people who share a common culture, a common land, and it turns out a common blood line, and this is something that we haven't wanted to deal with openly. And talking about Jefferson, which people like to do, I think is a good vehicle for exploring that question.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ellis, as an historian, do you think this was something we needed to know?

JOSEPH ELLIS: Yes. I think that it's always good to know the truth. I mean, to the extent that Jefferson is himself a person that projects a variety of values into the sort of inner space of American history, that are sometimes illusory, it's still best that we know the truth. And I think that Jefferson is the most potent symbol in American history. I think Lincoln is more revered, but I think Jefferson is more loved. And I think what's liable to happen here is that a recognition that this is a person who wrote the great words of American history and those words are made flesh and live amongst us, that he's a saint and a sinner at the same time, is liable to make him, just as Dan suggests, a more human person and even more relevant for us, as we try to make our own sense, in the next century.

MARGARET WARNER: Dan Jordan, do you think this is something we needed to know?

DANIEL P. JORDAN: Margaret, it's always a positive thing when information and insights come forward. And the Foundation certainly welcomes Dr. Foster's report in that regard. If the report, in fact, is validated, then we'll certainly change our interpretation at Monticello. And I think it would make Jefferson more accessible, but it will also enable us to tell in a better way a story we're trying to tell now, and that's a story of African-Americans. We've always believed that you can't understand Jefferson apart from slavery. You can't understand Monticello apart from the African-American community. And it's just possible that this particular chapter will make it easier to get that point across to the 500,000 visitors who come annually.

MARGARET WARNER: Staying with you, Mr. Jordan, I know you have - since you came to Monticello, you've changed somehow how you dealt with slavery, but have you dealt with the Sally Hemings questions? Do you get questions from people who visit? How do you deal with that?

DANIEL P. JORDAN: We get questions about Sally Hemings regularly. Some people on the outside think we're uptight about it, but we're not, because we deal with it every day. Finally, in 1993, we put out a brochure that's given to every single visitor, about slave life, and African-American culture, and Mulberry Row, which was the center of it. And we have a panel there on Sally Hemings. And basically we have said in that section that the controversy has raged for almost 200 years, and that it's difficult to prove or to disprove. But if Dr. Foster's right, then we'll have to change that.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ellis, your book was subtitled, it dealt with his character, the character of Thomas Jefferson, and many of the historians who thought this couldn't be true, derived that from their view of his character. Should this change our assessment of his basic character?

JOSEPH ELLIS: I think that the assessment of Jefferson's character that's been going on within the scholarly world and biographical world for the last two decades has put an emphasis on the contradictions, the paradoxes, and the duplicities Jefferson was capable of. This extends them, I believe. This makes it even more a case where he's living in a way that seems at odds with what he's saying in his letters and in his public statements. So I think at the scholarly level this is going to deepen and darken our impression of Jefferson. I think at the popular level, however, Jefferson has won every bet in American history. Anybody who's bet against Jefferson has lost, and I believe he's going to survive this as well. There's nobody that's going to take him off of Mount Rushmore.

MARGARET WARNER: Ms. Gordon-Reed, a follow-up on that, and also your assessment of why it was so hard for mainstream historians to accept this?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Well, I think part of it comes from the first historians who wrote about it, a simple horror of misogynation, the notion that somebody with whom they identified so closely would have been involved in a relationship that they probably couldn't conceive of themselves as being involved, was anathema to them. So the notion that misogynation was bad and attaching it to someone whom they admired was just too much. The notion of a southern gentleman, the embodiment of a southern gentleman, which was what Jefferson was supposed to be, couldn't square with, couldn't countenance this kind of story. And also there was such a reluctance to take the words of black people who spoke about this seriously, those two things - horror of misogynation and the idea that you don't use the words of a black person to define a white man's life - and that was hard for people to take as well.

MARGARET WARNER: Dan Jordan, what's your view about why it took so long, and why there was such resistance among mainstream scholars?

DANIEL P. JORDAN: Well, I think it's an evolutionary process and that we hope that generation by generation the evidence comes to light, and scholars still apply critical assessments, and that new voices are heard, like Annette, trained as a lawyer, in her book raised questions about the way previous historians had looked at some of the evidence, that certainly in an optimistic way that we ought to have more insight and more understanding.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Mr. Ellis, do you think that this finding in and of itself will make historians reassess their approach in general to other sort of mysteries?

JOSEPH ELLIS: Well, I think that in some sense the people that I've been teaching over the last 20 years have already accepted this, and so that I'm not sure it's quite as hegemonic a scholarly community as being described. There's a great many distinguished historians that have suggested that this liaison, in fact, did exist. I do think that we always have to be concerned about oral testimony. The oral testimony of Madison Hemings is something we should take seriously. Yet, it's not completely in accord with the scientific evidence that we have now generated.

MARGARET WARNER: Just to interrupt - he was a son who didn't have any male descendants.

JOSEPH ELLIS: That's right.

MARGARET WARNER: And possible proof.

JOSEPH ELLIS: The first of Sally's children does not match, though I don't know whether that's as reliable as the match later on. I think that -

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: May I say something about that?

MARGARET WARNER: Yes.

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: The -

MARGARET WARNER: Quickly, and then -

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: The principle evidence that there was, in fact, a Tom Hemings comes from the Woodson family and from James Calendar, who evidently was mistaken. We don'tknow for a fact that Sally Hemings ever had a child named Tom Woodson. So that - so Madison's testimony was to the effect that the child that she had died when he returned, so that is a question that the jury really still is out about.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Ellis, we interrupted you. Go ahead.

JOSEPH ELLIS: No, that's the point I'm making. I think that we all have to try to assess this, the evidence, as best we can. And in this particular case, I think that this new evidence is clear and convincing. Prior to this time, I think it was really divided, and I think that honest people could honestly disagree.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Jordan, do you think, though, that this suggests that, for instance, DNA testing should be used, these new advances, to try to resolve other historical mysteries or controversies?

DANIEL P. JORDAN: In the Jeffersonian spirit I think you follow truth wherever it leads and that you welcome any kind of evidence. We've used at Monticello archaeology. We've used the documentary evidence. And now we have scientific evidence, but in addition, over the past five years we have interviewed over 90 descendants of Monticello's slaves, and we do respect those family traditions, and those oral histories, and I think we gain insight from them. But, in the end, the idea is to get your history right. And that means trying to put your arms around all of the evidence and evaluate the evidence in a critical manner.

MARGARET WARNER: And, briefly, Mr. Ellis, do you think DNA testing opens sort of a new frontier for historians?

JOSEPH ELLIS: Right now because this technique does not require that genetic material be obtained from the principal subject, so we can go back hundreds of years now.

MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry. Explain that.

JOSEPH ELLIS: The Y chromosome that they are able to now identify does not require that you get it from the principal subject. What we did with Jefferson was what was done with the Romanovs, and it permits us to study people that have been dead so long that their bodies have decomposed.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, great. Thank you very much, Professor Gordon-Reed, and gentlemen, thanks for joining us.% ? RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, officials said there could be as many as 7,000 deaths from the floods and mudslides in Honduras and Nicaragua, and floodwaters forced more than a thousand people to evacuate their homes in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.