The Times Herald from Port Huron, Michigan • Page 9

SECTION SUNDAY, MAY 12, 1991 TIMES HERALD COMING THIS WEEK: Port Huron's city council meets Monday night, with a new budget and utility rate increases on the agenda. Reporter Ruth Violante adds up the results for Tuesday's paper. INSIDE: OBITUARIES2B-OUR SCHOOLS: An early start to bilingualism3B EDITORIAL: County needs townships, and vice versa6B OPINION: Don't hurry to elect Stormin' Norman7B- fSMD AV JW''-- -4 'ivif 1 J- i --ft iH)v -V l4 rl J.Wr a toGifi) Even state tournament win can't clinch field for league By RUTH VIOLANTE Times Herald An area business once offered them materials so they could build a concession stand. But the volunteers of the Blue Water Area Girls Softball League had to look a gift horse in the mouth: The league has no place to put a concession stand. Since 1974, the league has grown into a state tournament winner.

Yet each summer, league volunteers scramble to find fields where the teams can play. More than 200 girls from St. Clair County make up the league's 14 teams and games are usually Artist devoted her life to husband and family A JT. m.U.-,.. Tlmn Harald RALPH W.

POLOVICH James Neumann and the "Fighting Yank," restored after a year's hard work and $24,000. Wye getts a second Me anger into renewed memorial CONVERSATION Andy Buchsbaum Industry must stop pollution Allegations of industrial pollution abound on Michigan streams and lakes. Among the latest is the Black River, where Mueller Brass Co. has discharged thousands of gallons of contaminated water daily since 1987, according to a federal lawsuit filed by Public Interest Research Group in Michigan. Mueller has hired environmental experts to study the problem.

PIRGIM director Andy Buchsbaum discusses the widespread effects of industrial pollution with Times Herald reporter Bill Bum. What's entering the Black River and from where? A The Department of Natural Resources has done studies that document copper and zinc, also lead. Those seem to be the majors. There also were some traces of PCBs identified. Those were not traced to Mueller Brass.

The DNR study focuses on the contaminants and not the possible sources. It concludes there is evidence discharges from Mueller Brass may be causing some copper and zinc in the sediments. They say several storm sewers discharge to the Black River. They don't identify where the storm water comes from. 0 How does Black River pollution affect the St.

Clair River? A We have not yet seen DNR data on the St. Clair River to see how great that impact will be or has been. What are conditions other waterways? on A Unfortunately, there are a number of bad pollution problems. The Detroit River is badly contaminated. There are a great number of heavily polluted rivers in the Detroit area.

The Detroit waste water treatment plant alone discharges upwards of 500 million gallons per day. There's heavy metals, PCBs, all kinds of stuff. It's in low concentrations, but let's say you have one part per billion PCB discharge. If you're discharging over 2 billion liters per day, over the course of a year that would be one kilogram. That's a huge amount.

The Detroit waste water treatment plant, according to their files, they're discharging about 0.02 parts per billion. But even that can lead to significant quantities of PCB in the water. How can that affect us? A The impact of a substance like PCBs, they bio-accumulate, which means they work their way up the food chain. By the time you look at I the concentration of PCB in fish tissues, they could be concentrated 100,000 times higher than they are in the water. also occurs with metals.

A National Wildlife Federation study on Lake Michigan con- people who consistently ate large fish, say at one meal a week, their cancer risks could be up to one in 100. The Environmental Protection Agency has set acceptable cancer risk at one in 100,000 for many of its programs. The state of Michigan has set acceptable cancer risk at one In a million. Please see Page 2, this section Vets channel By MONICE MITCHELL Times Herald When "The Fighting Yank," the statue, which stands before the entrance of the Allied Veteran's Memorial Cemetery, was vandalized 12 years ago, James Neumann got angry. "The statue was beheaded and the right arm was torn off.

For played on school fields or in Fort Gratiot Township. The girls' softball league has no place they can call home. "We just want one area where we can play," said League President Seth Hoover. "We have no identity." When the city of Port Huron got involved in the dispute between Port Huron Little League and Mueller Brass the softball league watched with interest, wondering if maybe the city would step in and help them find a home as well. In April, Mueller Brass Co.

gave Port Huron Little League 6.5 ac- Please see SOFTBALL, Page 2B, this section At her commencement dinner, the 22-year-old nurse was introduced to a 22-year-old sheriff's deputy who later became her husband. "They both came with their dates to the dinner. They danced that night and after that decided to exclusively date each other," Laura Lucas said. "My father would send her two dozen yellow roses on every oc-cassion sice they met," she added. The couple's 50th wedding anniversary was Nov.

16, 1988. Mrs. Lucas also cherished her Wednesday afternoons with colleagues who formed the area's Ladies Bridge Clubs in the 1930s. The woman met weekly and shared 30 years together. Mrs.

Lucas' health began to fail and for the past 10 years she was confined to her home. But her devotion to her family never weakened. "We had a lot of good times," said Dolly Krohnm who cared for Mrs. Lucas for eight years. "She loved her family and her grandchildren.

We would sit for hours and talk about them. Her husband was very important to her." "She was a wonderful woman." Complete obituary, 2B education becoming an actress. "When I first went to school (in the first grade), I was shocked to discover that my teachers and fellow students spoke a language I didn't understand," she said. "I became withdrawn. Had it not been for a teacher who saw something in me and encouraged me to go into drama, I might never have known I had any acting talent." construction work this spring with contract labor rather than with its own men.

25 years ago today Thomas Riggs is valedictorian and Rebecca Grant is salutatorian at Port Huron Northern High School. The St. Clair Housing Commission has approved plans for a 60-unit senior citizens housing project in an area bounded by Second, Third, Cass and Witherel streets. 1 0 years ago today The rush for oil and gas leases on farmlands could create an estimated cash windfall of more than $12 million for Sanilac County landowners. The latest surge in the prime interest rate to 19.5 percent from 19 percent has sent shock waves through the Blue Water Area's financial community.

MURCIi Tim HwiM Mm. CwnplM by Jim Katehum. Actress stresses need for arts, bilingual By SEVIL OMER Times Herald Islabelle E. Lucas' cross-stitched tribute to her husband once graced a wall at the Smithsonian Institution. Today, the artist's work of a farm setting stitched during a time when Mrs.

Lucas' eyesight began to fail hangs inside the Lucas home in Port Huron. The woman's three-year endeavor to complete the 3-by-4-foot tapestry in the 1960s has become a family treasure. Mrs. Lucas, who worked as a surgical nurse and who married Ferris E. Lucas, former head of the National Sheriff's Association and former St.

Clair County sheriff, died in her home Saturday. She was 82. "She was very elegant, a lady who knew all the social graces," said her daughter, Linda Lucas. She also described her mother as determined and spunky. "She didn't want to be a lady of leisure.

She wanted to go to school to be a nurse." Mrs. Lucas graduated from the Port Huron Hospital School of Nursing in 1930 and worked 10 years in Detroit-area hospitals. She later worked by the side of the late Dr. Edgar Sites. Alegre," the PBS bilingual children's television show and now appears in the CBS drama, "The Trials of Rosie O'Neil." Zapata also said the growing number of Hispanics underlines the importance of bilingual education in public schools.

An advocate of bilingual education, she said the lack of bilingual education almost kept her from A LOOK BACK 100 years ago today It is believed that control of Lakeside Park will soon be transferred from the cemetery board to the city of Port Huron. 17,566 books were drawn from the Port Huron Public Library in four years. 70 years ago today A spirited squabble followed a proposal at the 88th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan to ask Congress for a world conference to discuss disarmament. 50 years ago today Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the Nazi Party and No. 3 man in Adolf Hitler's regime, tonight was reported missing and presumed dead in circumstances suggesting a deranged mentality.

The St. Clair County Road Commission, faced with a strike by 75 employees, will do By TOM WALKER Times Herald Elimination of state arts funding will hurt Hispanics most. That's what Carmen Zapata, a veteran television actress and arts advocate told a statewide conference of Hispanic women in Port Huron Saturday. Zapata, co-founder of the California-based Bilingual Foundation WHO'S WHO III THE tunately, the head was located, but the arm was never found," said Neumann. Instead of just staying angry, Neumann and some friends decided to do something.

"No one had been concerned about the memorial before," said Neumann, representative of the St. Clair County Allied Veterans Council. "So last year we of the Arts, told the Hispanic Women's Leadership Conference at St. Clair County Community College that state funding cuts to the arts will hurt everyone, but will especially hurt Hispanics. "The arts are essential to our people," said Zapata, who has produced more than 60 plays and 11 children's theater productions.

"They are part of our life. These BLUE WATER AREA Bonnie Jean I -ft" A. decided we would take on the project and try to restore those memories." The Allied Veterans attacked this project with as much vigor as their other activities. But this project held a special place in their hearts. "This statue represents a Please see STATUE, Page 2, this section cuts are abominable." Zapata also told more than 100 conference participants that although Hispanics are the nation's largest growing minority, they seldom appear in film and television and are portrayed negatively when they do.

"We have tried for the past 25 years to turn that image around," said Zapata, who starred in "Villa driving and assault and battery complaints." BACKGROUND: Bonnie was raised in Jeddo and graduated from Croswell-Lexington High School in 1964. She is a 1984 graduate of the Port Huron School of Business. "My secretarial courses in high school really helped me," she said. HOBBIES: "Bowling. I love it." She must: Bonnie carries a Gibson ir- Bonnie Jean Gibson, 45 UP CLOSE: Bonnie is one of five typists in the service bureau of the St.

Clair County Sheriff Department. She joined the staff in 1988. ABOUT HER WORK: "No day is the same for me," Bonnie said. "I type the reports dealing with accidents and crime throughout the county. I like typing and it's a good thing that I do, because it seems like there is no end to it.

The records section of the department is one of the busiest places in the jail. I do a lot of filing, too. For the past year and half she has worked the midnight shift at the department. BAD ACCIDENT: In 1968 Bonnie suffered an injury to her right hand that nearly ended her career as a typist before it began. She lost her index finger and part of her thumb in a factory accident in Lexington.

"It took me nearly a year and a half to retrain myself," she said. "But I get by today." She certainly does, Bonnie is one of the best typists in the department, said her boss Linda Harrison. MUM'S THE WORD: "What I see and hear here, I leave here," Bonnie said. "A lot of the work I do for the deputies and detectives is confidential. But people would be surprised how many people are repeat offenders when it comes to drinking and 160 average.

She used to bowl in three leagues and was a substitute in another. She also likes to fish. FAMILY: She has a son, Edward Gibson, 17, a junior at Croswell-Lexington High School. "My son is my pride and joy. He keeps me going.

He has all of my time when I'm not working." LOOKING AHEAD: "I'd like to see my son receive a good education." John F. Brown.