
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990                   TAG: 9004180112
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CORWIN SPRINGS, MONT.                                LENGTH: Short

LEAKS MAY STOP CHURCH'S FALLOUT SHELTER CONSTRUCTION

Health officials said Tuesday they will ask a judge to order a religious sect to halt construction on a fallout shelter where 31,000 gallons of fuel has leaked from buried tanks.

David Niss, an attorney with the Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, said after a meeting in Helena with Gov. Stan Stephens and state regulators that the state will seek a court order this week.

The diesel fuel and gasoline leaked from three of 35 buried tanks at the 750-person fallout shelter complex of the Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age religious sect that warns of the possibility of imminent catastrophe.

Niss said the court order would cover both the main shelter complex at Corwin Springs, five miles north of Yellowstone National Park, and about 45 smaller fallout shelters at the church-owned subdivision of Glastonbury near Emigrant, Mont., about 20 miles to the north.

He said the state also will issue an emergency administrative order requiring the church to empty, remove and inspect all 35 underground storage tanks at the Corwin Springs site. The order will direct the church to turn over all information on how every storage tank on church property was installed.

The church installed the underground tanks for 634,500 gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel as part of a 750-person fallout-shelter complex it is completing at its Corwin Springs headquarters.

Church officials said they're committed to cleaning up the spilled fuel and will excavate and inspect all 35 tanks.

by CNB